Imagine this - every night a pianist plays in a bar. The owner of the bar gives the pianist a simple instruction. The pianist must change people's moods. He must make the punters happy and relaxed.
The pianist is well trained. He has passed his musical grade exams, studied music full time and performed in many different venues for many different audiences. As a result he has an extensive repertoire of pieces that he can play off the cuff.
So every night he reads the mood of the room and choses which songs to play and how to play them in order to get the desired outcome. Because he is an exceptional pianist he can also improvise - he can make up music which is tailored to suit the mood of the room.
We'd all like to think we can 'play' our job like Duke Ellington played piano
Every night the room is different. One night it's dominated by large groups of revellers demanding entertainment, another night it's full of couples seeking candlelight and romance. Mostly though it's an awkward mix of different people wanting different things.
And every night the pianist walks in, sits at the piano and transforms the mood with his music. The bar owner is happy although he can't quite get rid of a nagging doubt at the back of his mind. Because he never knows what pieces the pianist will play some of the music comes as a surprise. Some of the pieces aren't to his taste and sometimes the improvisation can be a bit unpredictable.
So one day, wanting to have a little bit more control, the bar owner amends his instruction. As well as outlining the objective he adds some guidelines on how it should be done. The pianist can still play whatever he wants but is never to improvise and must submit a set list twenty-four hours in advance.
Robbed of his ability to improvise and denied his freedom to respond to the room, the pianist feels hemmed in. He also finds he is less able to change the mood of the room. For some reason he just doesn't feel as committed to music which is pre-agreed rather than chosen by him in the moment. The bar owner notices that the performances aren't what they used to be and feels he needs to intervene further. Soon he is dictating part or all of the set list every night. This only makes matters worse. Frustrated and no longer enjoying his work, the pianist quits.
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A lot of people I know feel like that pianist. They feel that they have a level of skill, craft or ability which they've been hired to display and which (entirely paradoxically) the same organisation which hired them denies them using freely. Their managers are like the bar owner, seeking to dictate the 'how' in narrow, unhelpful ways.
Join our creative team they said... bring your unique style and passion for new ideas they said...
This has particularly been the case on change programmes that I've worked on. Over cups of tea or during conversations over the tops of computer screens, people tell you that they feel like the programme doesn't really understand the value that they bring.
Often they talk about how their particular technical specialism (ITIL delivery, risk management, Agile projects, organisational development) is ignored. They feel that they are skilled practitioners being asked to push buttons in a limited, pre-set machine. Managers and planners seem to exist to block creativity and halt improvisation.
Some of them are probably wrong to feel this way - they are not (yet) the technical specialists they think they are. They are not yet good enough at playing the piano to improvise effectively - for them a list of pieces (that they can confidently play and which will develop them as technicians) is the right thing.
How many of us need to go back to basics before we start trying to improvise?
But equally, I sense that many of them are right to feel that way. The tendency of organisations to increase control as they grow (in response to the worrying sense of fragmentation that growth brings) means that prescribed set lists are often seen as inevitable. 'How else can you keep consistency in your core processes?' they demand to know.
So here are two challenges for all of us to ponder:
1. How can an organisation grow, maintain creative freedom for its people and not break apart under the strain of difference?
2. How do you know when you're good enough to improvise?