Working creatively in organisations

This is the story of my first foray into recording a piece on video, as part of an exploration of chaos and order in organisational work.

My experience as a musician and organisation consultant suggests parallels between musical and organisational processes. For example, I see a strong analogy between the way notes are formed in a musical instrument, and in the way in which larger processes, such as organisational projects, play out.

In playing a musical note, there is chaos in the first few hundredths of a second during the formation stage but as the note settles down we process this chaos in our brains, and the information we gain from the chaotic process gives us a sense of the character which we attach to the main part of that note. Similarly, if we pay attention to the relative chaos at the beginning of any organisational project, for example how the relationships are forming between people, we will get tremendously rich information which may help us to understand what’s happening as the project takes shape.

We often dismiss this initial time as ‘uncomfortable’ and seek to get past this phase as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I got my first clues about the value of the initial chaos after joining one particular project some way into its formation. Because we weren’t party to the initial formation process, my colleagues and I really struggled to make sense of the project’s aims - and we didn’t know what had already been tried or dismissed. We found ourselves imagining this chaotic, formation phase to get some sense of what we were now presented with as we struggled with it - an unsettling experience which ultimately led to a very limited success.

Of course, nothing’s perfect. There are always compromises within which we have to work. There are finite resources: people, time, money. For political reasons we might wish to smooth over the chaos that led up to the final work because we want our work to look flawless to others; perhaps we even tell a story in our organisation which reflects our aspirations for the project rather than the reality. In doing that, we disconnect ourselves from the opportunity to change, to progress; to learn from what really happened: How did the ideas arise? What happened to them? How did the relationships play out? Often we are given the message that that’s in the past, it doesn’t matter, and there isn’t time because the world has moved on. And yet I think we can get huge value if give ourselves permission to celebrate and connect with the chaos. It’s part of making sense of the world.

When it came to my own work as a performer in an improvised/folk genre, I realise I too was avoiding the chaos.  I also want to produce something which is technically good - to avoid the wrong notes, to at least appear that I’m musically competent and that I’ve planned things in advance. Even at those times where I find myself increasingly working with others, bouncing ideas around, I feel the need to present a perfect face to the world. I want my recordings to sound polished, to have all the chaos removed. That’s what we would expect when buying a recording which we’ll play many times; roughness can sound irritating on repeated exposure.

And yet…when playing live we’re not really perfect. In some ways it’s a different set of rules: the audience only hears it once, and can engage with the process of group improvisation as well as the end result. That’s what makes live performances so compelling; we want to be involved in the rough-and-tumble, the moment-to-moment thrill of live performance even when we also want it to be a good experience which affirms our choice to get involved in the music.

So: on the one hand, a desire to have a perfect recording, and on the other, acknowledging that live performance is necessarily “of the moment”, and dangerous. But that seems an abrupt, either / or divide. Is there something on a continuum between this notion of “chaos” and “perfection”?

I decided to experiment. How prepared was I to let a “first draft” of a piece go out, and let the world see it in all its unfinished glory? Would I allow others a glimpse of my own work in the formation stage, a rough draft rather than a polished piece? And would the end result be richer and more valuable than a polished recording? Somehow more of a diamond, because of its rough edges? Would there be value in letting the audience see not just the fruits of my labour, but something of the work-in-progress?

At the time I was thinking about these notions of chaos and perfection, I was working on an arrangement of a harp piece called “Carolan’s Dream”. I intended eventually to create a music video, but rather than wait until the piece was perfected, as an experiment I decided to set up the equipment that evening and record the music in one take and upload it to YouTube, warts and all. I took further camera shots to give visual variety to the piece, but regardless of what happened, I determined I would keep the uploaded musical piece to the one, initial sound recording.

The response to this experiment was liberating. Where I saw chaos and imperfection in this recording, from the comments, others see it differently. Whereas I can hear all the mistakes, not one single person among the nearly 300,000 people who have now seen this video has ever commented on the rough edges.

I have to admit I still find it really hard to let go of the need to be as good as possible. The experiment has been powerful learning for my own practice. Just from engaging in it, something now exists that never existed before. The wider learning for me was about being willing to leave things open for discussion at the start of a project, to leave room for the chaos, and to be willing to work with what what emerges throughout a project.

I wonder if any of the viewers valued being part of that roughness too - not just consuming a finished product, but having to do some of the “work” themselves. Whatever, it’s been a fantastic lesson about the value that comes from working with what’s actually happening around me and encouraging others to enagage with what’s emerging.

No performer likes seeing their own work, but now it’s been there long enough that I can watch it with enough detachment to enjoy listening to it. I’ve had some great conversations as a result of emails I’ve received from other musicians and I know I’ve inspired people to start playing.

If you’d like to see the harp video, just click on the picture.