Tanglewood Conservatories Blog

In a recent article in Smart CEO magazine, Alicia Rodriguez talks about “The New Mythology – How collaboration and collective wisdom will inform tomorrow’s leaders”.

She says that right now, she is seeing a shift in leaders thinking about their roles in moving their organizations into the future.

“There is a new mythology enlivening our organizational culture, one that speaks of connectedness, participation and collective intelligence. You can see it in business, in politics, in technologies and in our culture.”

She goes on to make a point that unlike the traditional models, new types of leadership skills are required for those who are to thrive in the ever more rapidly evolving and complex environment we find ourselves in. There is simply too much required of one person and that the ability to successfully collaborate with and find wisdom with others will be the key to future growth.

She paints a picture of the new breed of successful leaders being able to discern wisdom and act collectively with others in their organization.

This brings me to one of the most important challenges we have undertaken at Tanglewood Conservatories.

Almost exactly one year ago, feeling the frustration that comes with trying to build and manage a company to become “the best in the world”, I realized that everyone here at Tanglewood Conservatories is actually in the very same “boat”. In fact, we all are. Everyone I know really wants the same things out of life. We all want to be happy, have our lives mean something and be able to provide amply for ourselves and our families. In our jobs, we all want to make enough money, feel that we are doing something worthwhile, have the opportunity to go further and feel secure.

The problem arises in that we do not realize that we are all in this together nor do we realize the tremendous strength that would come if we did realize this and were able to work together to accomplish a shared goal.

Most of the time people, even when professing to be “working together” are actually working at cross purposes, each trying to do what they see as best for themselves, often at the expense of others.

I pictured a boat with all of us at Tanglewood sitting in positions along each side with oars in our hands trying to get someplace. The trouble is, I am the one who has decided where the boat should go and no one else really knows where that is. Since no one else knows where the boat is going – or if it is really going anywhere at all, I am the one who has to row the hardest to try to get there.

Some people in the boat are rowing a bit (they see some personal benefit for themselves in doing so), others are just sitting there looking out at the scenery and some people are actually rowing backwards, especially when they think I am not looking.

What I finally realized, is that I CANNOT get where I want to go in this way. I don’t know if it is because I simply am not strong enough, or smart enough to make it happen, but it is NOT working.

So, just about a year ago, Nancy and I decided to embark on an experiment. We decided that we would share with our “team” this concept and try to get everyone to understand that since we all really do want to go to the same place, it would be much better for all of us if we could figure out how to get everyone rowing really hard, in unison, in the same direction.

To that effect we hired Mark Boersma and his team at Synergy Systems, Inc., an executive level coaching firm (www.synergysolutions.net) to help us evaluate our company, deal with some on gong difficult issues and chart a course forward.

Mark is an extremely skilled and experienced guide who came highly recommended through our contacts with several friends in executive positions.

My intent is to now begin to share with everyone this ongoing process and the results which we have begun to see.

Synergy Systems’ and Mark’s personal help have been more than instrumental in this process and I will talk about this in more detail as I chronicle the transformation that has begun to take place at Tanglewood.

I will be coming back to talk about this subject frequently in my blog as it is one of the most critical at Tanglewood Conservatories and I believe it will be relevant to lots of other people right now as well.

Thanks for your interest,

Alan