MUSIC AND BUSINESS have more in common than you might think, claims jazz pianist and conductor Dominic Alldis. Alldis, the founder of Music and Management, works with companies to explore the parallels between music and business. Using musical analogies he introduces a new way of thinking about issues such as teamwork, leadership and innovation.

Alldis recently ran a leadership presentation for 82 senior managers with Rolls Royce’s Controls and Transmissions Systems Operating Business Unit. At the event, Alldis demonstrated how two types of music - classical and jazz - use disciplines that can be applied to the business world.

Following a clip of an orchestra in full flow, Alldis questioned the audience about what they saw. He elaborates: “The orchestra looks up for reassurance from the conductor who represents supreme confidence. He is there to sell the message to the rest of the orchestra. His job is to energise and inspire people around him. He has to be charismatic on the podium.“

"It is the conductor’s job to keep everyone together, which also requires the orchestra to be adept at responding to different styles of leadership.”

As in business, where employees like different styles of leadership, so members of an orchestra favour different conductors. “Some like the energy of an over conductor, while others like the under conductor who lets them get on with it,” says Alldis.

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In the same vein, different kinds of musicians are attracted to different ways of making music. For example, the jazz band thrives in a chaotic and turbulent environment, rotating leadership and building on each other’s ideas. “Listening and responding is essential when we don’t have instructions in front of us,” says Alldis. “You need to have minimal structures and rules when improvising. You have to listen to each other and be flexible.”

Alldis and two other musicians played a jazz improvisation. Alldis explained how the other players quickly picked up which key he was in. “In this situation, the musicians are freewheeling, being playful. They understand the language.”

Alldis believes that all business can learn from the jazz band. He sees the future organization as “an orchestra made up of lots of small jazz bands – to maintain the quality of communication and the fun.”

But can business really gain from these types of course? “A course might ignite the interest of the individual, but it also needs to work with the business,” says Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School.

Jon Cook, a business transformation manager a Rolls-Royce, commends the event: “Many of Dominic’s insights have been adopted within the day-to-day behaviour of our leadership team.”

Sarah Hanson, Associate Editor
Director Magazine, Institute of Directors
January 2006