Leadership Ensemble: Lessons in Collaborative Management from the World's Only Conductorless Orchestra [Hardcover]

Harvey Seifter (Author), Peter Economy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2001

An exciting new model for streamlining organizational management and structure, from an organization known around the world for its innovative structure.

For nearly three decades the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has earned rave reviews as one of the premier touring musical ensembles in the world. Recently, it has also attracted the attention and admiration of the business world. As the only major orchestra without a conductor, Orpheus is a shining example of a new management style based on collaborative leadership.

Leadership Ensemble is designed to show business leaders in any industry how to re-create the successful "Orpheus Process" in their own companies by dismantling top-heavy hierarchies; developing flexible, responsive strategies and decision-making procedures; and unleashing employee creativity, responsibility, and productivity. The authors delineate the ten core principles of collaborative management, including shared and rotated leadership, passionate dedication to mission, clarity of roles within an organization, and learning to listen. Spiced with anecdotes and lessons from the life of Orpheus and case studies from the world of business, Leadership Ensemble is an entertaining, eminently practical guide to implementing changes essential to survival in today's speed-of-light business environment.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The business-as-orchestra metaphor is nothing new: the business executive must bring out each employee's best so that the entire organization finds harmony. Seifter, executive director of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which operates sans conductor, takes the idea a step further, arguing that a leader may be unnecessary. With the help of writer Economy, Seifter offers eight CEO-optional management principles (e.g., put power in the hands of workers; clarify roles; share and rotate leadership; foster horizontal teamwork; learn to listen, learn to talk) for achieving organizational success. The irony, of course, is that, except in inchoate organizations, only a boss can implement this leaderless system.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1972 in New York, designed to rely on the skills, abilities, and passionate commitment of its members rather than on the leadership of a conductor. Power, responsibility, and motivation rest entirely in the hands of the musicians. Jointly its members make the artistic decisions that are ordinarily the work of a conductor, and they participate in choosing the repertoire and creating the group's programs. There are eight Orpheus principles: put power in the hands of the people doing the work, encourage individual responsibility, create clarity of roles, share and rotate leadership, foster horizontal teamwork, learn to listen and talk, seek consensus, and dedicate passionately to your mission. The authors' goal is to show business leaders in any industry how to use these principles in their companies. Each chapter focuses on one of the principles, and each ends with a five-step prescription for applying the relevant principle to a specific company and a warning about problems that may be encountered in doing so. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; 1st edition (October 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805066926
• ISBN-13: 978-0805066920
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #633,121 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Make Everyone an Effective Leader and Knowledge Worker!, November 20, 2001

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This review is from: Leadership Ensemble: Lessons in Collaborative Management from the World's Only Conductorless Orchestra (Hardcover)

In 1988, Dr. Peter Drucker wrote an influential article, "The Coming of the New Organization," in which he argued that companies would in the future become flatter organizationally to capture the potential of knowledge workers. One model, he opined, was the symphony orchestra where the conductor adds vision, but must evoke the best performance from her or his independent players.

Leadership Ensemble looks beyond Dr. Drucker's vision, to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's practices in operating without a conductor! The result is a "dynamic equilibrium" where everyone takes turns playing leadership roles and is encouraged to provide the kinds of ideas that only conductors normally propose. Interestingly, the Orpheus group is inspired to make great music . . . along the lines of what the collaboration of chamber groups has always done. If they thought that having a conductor would help, they would get a conductor. Instead, they seem to have harnessed many dimensions of the talents of all 27 musicians in the group. Their intent is to evolve further in this direction, so the book represents the group at a point in time, rather than at a destination.

The usual orchestra is run like a dukedom, with the conductor in charge. Few opinions are asked for and even fewer are brooked. In fact, independent surveys show that musicians in orchestras generally have very poor job satisfaction. The authors joke that "every dictator aspires to be a conductor" because a conductor's power is so absolute.

The best part of this book involves describing the way the orchestra operates to select a repertoire, decide how to perform a piece, determine who will play what parts, and handle differences of opinion. There are many other interesting sections about how the musicians have expanded their roles to get into more areas of management and recently (1998) were added to the board of trustees. The processes involved reminded me a lot of what jazz musicians do more informally, and improvisational actors do on the spur of the moment. The remarkable thing is that great planning is captured by the orchestra, without getting bogged down in spending too much time preparing. Their processes are very complex and effective, and depend on thoughtful and timely action by everyone involved. I would love to see a DVD version of this book that involved showing them at work in preparing pieces and handling other important tasks.

The key principles of their success are boiled down into 8 principles. These concepts are elaborated with a few examples from other organizations (mostly profit-making companies), five steps for implementation, and problems to look out for in implementation. Although this material is good, I would have preferred to have read more about Orpheus itself instead.

A key caution that I have about the advice here is that the organizations using these principles were either founded upon them, or have been using them extensively for a long time. I'm not sure that the transition from a more hierarchical organization will go rapidly and smoothly. If the purpose was to advise companies and nonprofits on how to make these changes, the authors would have done better to focus on organizations that were recently hierarchical and rapidly changed to something close to what Orpheus does.

If you are like me, you will be tempted to dismiss the example because it involves highly talented and motivated musicians who earn a good living. But the authors have brought into the book enough examples of nonprofessionals responding just as well that I was persuaded that this model probably can be taken much further than most companies are trying to do. Will CEOs be comfortable in this new role of encouraging the culture, and staying out of the way? I hope so!

Where can you let go and do less as a leader and allow others to lead more? Where do you need to do more as a leader for your organization to accomplish more?