paying attention
The students are lined up to race. The coach says, "Ready ... set ... GO!" The students all begin the race.
The students are lined up to race. The coach says, "Ready ... set ... [beat] — Zach! Olivia! you're disqualified. You gotta pay attention!! ... OK. Ready ... set ... [beat] ... [another, longer beat] ... GO!"
The band director lifts the baton and counts off, "One, ... two, ... one, two, three, four" but then holds the baton up while the band lurches in and then falls apart, realizing bit by bit that the director isn't moving. Aha! "I never gave a downbeat, people. You gotta pay attention!"
The problem here isn't that the kids weren't paying attention. It's that the kids were paying attention, and the coach and director let them down. After all, the purpose of such countoffs is to get everyone to start at the same time, which is necessary for (in a race) fair competition and (in a performance) good music.
When the leader steps outside that cosmos and interrupts it, that's not teaching an important lesson about respecting the leader and following instructions; it's teaching an inadvertent lesson about the lack of respect the leader has for the situation at hand, and all its participants, and an important lesson about the abuse of power, however small.
The one-two-three rhythm that begins a race — the "Ready" establishing a mark, the "set" establishing a temporal distance by which we can predict the exact moment of "GO!" — is just as important a boundary as the dimensions of the track. The countoff that starts a piece — whether the two measure groove of a band director or the one-beat uptake of a classical conductor — is just as important to the piece as the tempo and dynamics.
For the leader to obey it, without power games, is a sign that that leader is all about the things that matter, and deserves your trust.
The students are lined up to race. The coach says, "Ready ... set ... [beat] — Zach! Olivia! you're disqualified. You gotta pay attention!! ... OK. Ready ... set ... [beat] ... [another, longer beat] ... GO!"
The band director lifts the baton and counts off, "One, ... two, ... one, two, three, four" but then holds the baton up while the band lurches in and then falls apart, realizing bit by bit that the director isn't moving. Aha! "I never gave a downbeat, people. You gotta pay attention!"
The problem here isn't that the kids weren't paying attention. It's that the kids were paying attention, and the coach and director let them down. After all, the purpose of such countoffs is to get everyone to start at the same time, which is necessary for (in a race) fair competition and (in a performance) good music.
When the leader steps outside that cosmos and interrupts it, that's not teaching an important lesson about respecting the leader and following instructions; it's teaching an inadvertent lesson about the lack of respect the leader has for the situation at hand, and all its participants, and an important lesson about the abuse of power, however small.
The one-two-three rhythm that begins a race — the "Ready" establishing a mark, the "set" establishing a temporal distance by which we can predict the exact moment of "GO!" — is just as important a boundary as the dimensions of the track. The countoff that starts a piece — whether the two measure groove of a band director or the one-beat uptake of a classical conductor — is just as important to the piece as the tempo and dynamics.
For the leader to obey it, without power games, is a sign that that leader is all about the things that matter, and deserves your trust.
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