The following contains excerpts from the book, Left Brain, Right Stuff (Phil Rosenzweig).
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we believe that music is more than sound – it is relationships. In relationships, it is important to understand the subject of leadership and decision-making, which greatly affects how musicians and artists approach their creative communities and those they touch with their art.
In this book the author dissects the processes of decision-making a leader must go through in order to be successful (particularly in business). While the principles shared relate to the business model, they also are useful for any other leadership area.
Successful decision making calls for an analytical, reasoned approach (‘left brain’) as well as the willingness to accept risk and manage it (‘right stuff’). Strategic decisions are different than investment or purchase decisions, which are only analytically-derived . Strategic decisions take a broader look at the landscape and also include inspirational and emotional factors.
When a leader makes a decision, he must first ask, ‘Can I influence the outcome?’ If the answer is no, an analytic decision model may be helpful. But if the answer is ‘yes’, then decision models are of little value. The leader’s job, at this point, is not to predict an outcome, but rather to make the outcome you want a reality, which requires confidence. Confident leaders inspire those around them.
We place emphasis on our students’ ability to inspire others with their art and creativity at our music school in Odessa, Texas. The greatest start to being an inspiration is to be inspired by others.
Psychologist and author Dan Ariely explains, “For social scientists, experiments are like microscopes or strobe lights, magnifying and illuminating the complex, multiple forces that simultaneously exert their influences on us.” This is useful in determining how and why consumers and investors make buying decisions.” However, when it comes to strategic planning and business decisions, social science leaves many questions unanswered:
- Business and strategic decisions require that people make their plans on the basis of determining which events and outcomes they can influence and which they can’t.
- Business and strategic decisions the external factor of competition.
- Business and strategic decision don’t involve tidy choices with clear results that present themselves immediately; a company’s leaders might not know if a decision was good or bad for months or even years.
- Business leaders usually consider numerous complex factors that don’t lend themselves to the tightly controlled decision-making environment of a social science lab.
Psychologist Philip Tetlock concurred, “Much mischief can be wrought by transplanting this hypothesis-testing logic, which flourishes in controlled lab settings, into the hurly-burly of real-world settings…”
Using both ‘left-brain’ and ‘right-stuff” characteristics is key in successful decision-making. Left-brain thinking helps you establish the difference between what you can and can’t affect. It aids in determining whether and when to act. The ‘right-stuff’ gives you confidence in your abilities to master challenges, to achieve unprecedented performance and to inspire others to take reasonable risks.
One of the most important characteristics we try to foster in students at our music school in Odessa, Texas is to be empathetic. Empathy seeks to understand a relationship, an audience, and a community by asking the question, “How can I serve you?”
Common wisdom says over-confidence is a problem. However, in today’s intensely competitive world, confidence is essential. Most people need more confidence, not less. Professional golfer Ian Poulter says, “Very few people at the top of this wonderful game lack self-belief. Mine is often mistaken for arrogance- but if you don’t think you’ll be good, you won’t be.”
The author asserts that self-confident, hard-working people work on directing the outcomes of the controllable events in their lives, including their careers, and encourages not to underestimate how much control you can exert. Often you have more than you imagine. Once you decide what to do, taking action- rather than doing nothing- is usually the best course. When you act, apply your wits to “mold, shape, transform and reconstitute” your situation into the reality you want to achieve. This demands intelligence and boldness, the two requisites for successful decision-making.
We endeavor to help students at our music school in Odessa, Texas to see their unique talents and giftedness. Bringing awareness to each individuals uniqueness helps them gain confidence in their artistic pursuits.
There is a difference between ‘absolute’ performance and ‘relative’ performance, when it comes to competing in the business world. Absolute performance concerns achievements that you don’t measure against anything else. Relative performance, however, concerns your competitors and how you perform against them. Reasoning this out and deciding accordingly is strategic thinking. As you plan, understand that any improvement to your absolute performance- simply doing better, no matter how you measure things- will have an enormous effect on your relative performance: the success you achieve measured against your competitors.
While we understand the value of competition at our music school in Odessa, Texas, we encourage students to compete with themselves, making daily progress, even if it is slight. Incremental daily growth eventually becomes exponential and puts the student in a far more advantageous position when being compared to others.
In a highly competitive environment, you must be willing to gamble. Bold competitors will pass you by in not time. You must be bold as well. Authors Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghostal in “A Bias for Action” state that, in order to succeed, companies must engage in “Determined, persistent and relentless action-taking to achieve a purpose against all odds…never err on the side of complacency.”
The author encourages leaders to avoid the tendency to make decisions by focusing on small particulars, but rather to base decisions on the larger context, the “broader population”. An example of ‘winning’ based upon a small context is: ‘The Winner’s Curse’. Winning in the short-term, but losing in the long-term can be observe when a construction company, for example, places the lowest bid to win a major contract, but loses money on the deal because its bid didn’t adequately cover all its costs.
The process of decision-making can improve over time through what the author refers to as ‘disciplined practice’, which involves “action, feedback, adjustment and action again” also paralleling Kaizen’s sequential system of manufacturing, “plan, do, act, check.” ‘Disciplined practice’, however, is not as effective when it comes to making bigger decisions, which won’t provide immediate feedback. Effective decision-makers differentiate between decisions that benefit from deliberate practice and those that don’t, and they orient their thinking accordingly.
Perhaps one of the most important life-lessons students in our music school in Odessa, Texas will gain is the understanding that with patience and diligence great things can be accomplished.
Effective leadership goes beyond pragmatism and involves the added ‘social dimension’, in that the decision makers want to motivate employees and embolden them to achieve new levels of performance, productivity and profitability. Such inspiration requires leaders with the strength of character to make tough decisions and take difficult actions in challenging circumstances. Gene Kranz, flight director during the dramatic Apollo 13 lunar mission stated, “The leader must set the expectations and no matter what the difficulty must never waver.”
The ideal strategic decision maker is “part tactician, part psychologist” and “part riverboat gambler.” The tactician operates with a competitive mind-set, carefully planning his moves while considering how rivals will respond. The psychologist creates desirable outcomes by being an inspiring leader. The riverboat gambler is always ready to make a bold move. The best decision makers know when and how to assume each role.