A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

A valid question which can be asked is "Why orchestration?" Why does one want to introduce a new term and concept that seems to be more related to music than organizations. Does it really have anything to offer?

There are three reasons for its use. One is based on an early experience discussed in the topic "Band Company - the first real experience in organizational theory." That experience provided the window through analogy to see what happens when individuals are asked to perform individually or collectively outside their range of performance of the organization itself. It is much the way a musician tries to play a part that they don’t have the particular ability to perform or the orchestration does not have the capabilities to do what is intended.

The second reason its use arises from the "technical" basis that underlies the Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity understanding and it application to organizations in Organizational Creativity. The energy the organization taps into to get an individual to perform any task is a creative life energy that flows from the source of life within the individual. In doing so, the organization is taping into life itself as expressed through the unique individual expression of life and the individual’s creative spirit.

The energy a musician uses to learn an instrument and become a musician is the same energy that an employee learns a job and becomes an organizational worker. In this regard, individuals are not interchangeable. Each possess is a unique creative life energy that is tapped and expressed within a given environment. Additionally, the way an individual consciously taps into the source of their energy is much like learning to play a four stringed instrument. Each string must be properly tuned for the instrument as a whole to sound correctly. So too the individual and their individual performance and their performance within a group. Much like a four stringed instrument, each aspect of one’s being must be tuned for the energy to freely flow within their being so as to not become bound or scattered and effectively perform a particular task. There is little awareness among individuals that, although they can perform a task effectively to meet certain performance criteria, such "successful performance" does not mean the are performing that task in a way that does not bind or scatter their energy at some level of their being. Short term this is not an issue but long term it is.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution and throughout the Twentieth Century it can be said that almost all aspects of life could be characterized as having been dominated with the idea of harnessing the individual's energy much the way one would harness a horse. It has been dominated by thinking that the world and the individual human are seen objectively or as an aspect that can be observed objectively. In many organizations workers have been seen as individual clogs in massive interlocking industrial production wheels. The belief has centered around the concept that we could train an individual worker to a defined level of performance and that performance could be sustained throughout the work day, day after day, week after week, year after year. This belief is central to position and job descriptions, performance standards and criteria, qualification requirements and to the systematic approach to training and instructional design theory which has been so effective at educating our workforce. Yet, experience had demonstrated repeatedly thought out this era this assumption is not completely correct and it has been inadequate to effectively deal with change. One of the major problems is dealing with the habits a routine creates. Although the understanding contained in this view of the worker and training is a reasonable approximation to truth, it is none the less only an approximation and a partial truth.

In any case, how and in what way the individuals can perform determines what the larger group can perform. What the whole can do is limited by the individuals themselves. In this regard, there is the need to orchestrate the individual within the whole. However, each individual, as each organization, is unique. What allows me to be creative and what gives one life to be able to perform at an optimum level in a given task is not necessarily what allows you to be creative and give your life to perform the same task. Similarly, there are parts of organizations that allow one to feel alive and parts that don’t. To say the individual is paid to do a job does nothing to protect the individual from losing their life and become lifeless on the job. Of course there are the needs of the job that must be done and it is often recognized some job are not very enjoyable and life giving. Often this fact is glossed over by the fact one is getting paid for something they would not otherwise do.

When we look at what motivates the individual, we are really looking at what puts "fire" into their life and gives them a passion and enthusiasm for what they do. The emphasis in the concept of orchestration is on the understanding that each player is a unique, individuated performer, whole unto them self, only playing a part, or role, within a larger performance. The goal is to get that individual to do so in a way that serves both themselves and the organization. In a well-orchestrated orchestra or ensemble, no one can play the other person’s part, that is, two parts at once. In the orchestrated performance, each part is needed. Although there may be multiple individuals playing a similar part, like three trumpets playing the same notes, each of the three trumpets is needed so that the total combined trumpet sound balances with the rest of the orchestra. In an orchestrated performance each part must be played correctly.

Because the energy that sustains the individual is a creative life energy, if the individual is not allowed to consciously create, both internally and externally in some way, the individual’s creative spirit will nonconsciously create typically through accident, illness, disease, and other types and kinds of problems in their life to challenge their creativity. Additionally, if what the individual does in life does not make the individual feel alive in some way, they will slowly shutdown the flow of their creative life energy withdrawing it internally and externally. Along with the loss of flow is a loss of awareness for awareness arises from the flow of energy. As awareness is lost the potential to overlook something of important that could create an accident or some other issue simply increases because the individual is no longer sufficiently aware and awake to prevent it. From an organizational view, if an individual is going to create problems in their life, it is undesirable to create them in the work place or carry them into the workplace from some other source. Understanding the flow of one’s creative life energy can greatly assist in understanding what causes organizational failures, and/or accidents or other similar organizational problems.

On this note of creating accidents or problems in the workplace it is important to realize the amount of time that is spent at work. It needs to be realized, an individual has 8760 hours of life a year (365 days time 24 hours a day). A normal year of work is about 2080 hours (52 weeks x 5 days x 8 hours). Subtracting maybe 6 holidays and 2 weeks of vacation or 128 hours leaves 1952 hours at work a year which is 22 percent of one’s life. Now if we sleep 7 hours a day (365 days x 7 hours per day) we sleep 2555 hours per year. That leaves us awake doing something only 6205 hours a year. Now 1952 hour is 31 percent of one’s awake life. If one works more than 8 hours a day, the percentage only goes up. So if one is going to deplete their energy and cause some serious misfortune or problem in their life while they are awake, there is a very good chance it will be done at work and affect other workers since almost one third of one’s life is at work. Yet, organization managers will say, "It is not my responsibility if the individual is not getting satisfaction out of the job" never realizing they may be creating their own problems by what they are doing or not doing to their employees.

The third reason to look at orchestration is just the shear number of influences that needs to be brought together into a harmony to achieve success. It is not only the individuals in the organization that must be orchestrated but also all the outside influences such a regulators, shareholders, stakeholders, neighbors, customers, suppliers and the like. When it all comes together it is more of a dynamic balancing act characteristic of the movement of the part in music or in a choreographed dance.

Although there are numerous items that must be orchestration within an organization to achieve success from an overview perspective of the Orchestrating the Organization approach, it is then appropriate to look at some of the key individual items that give rise to the pieces of the puzzle that need to be orchestrated to obtain optimum performance. Each of these items are a separate discussion topic. They are:

The premise of Orchestrating the Organization that the principles embedded within the process of orchestrating a composition for an orchestra provides the key understanding for managing organizations or groups of individuals in organizational change and transition or long term steady operations. For centuries we have looked at the individual as an interchangeable part but anyone who has worked closely with individuals know this is not necessarily true. Some individuals have a spark and competency that seems to come from beyond the experiences one has or what their training could provide them.

The key concept in orchestrating an organization as opposed to managing, leading or re-engineering the organization is that one needs to understand the dance that is to be performed, the choreography between the parts, within the parts, within the individuals who play the parts and the harmony between the players of the parts and how they come together to achieve that underlying intention. If one studies the creative process, they will see there is a creative tension between the masculine and feminine opposites at each and every level of being and there is an inner dance and outer dance at each level. Similarly, there in an inner organizational dance and an outer dance. In this regard, the orchestrator needs to be aware of the inner dance that will be required to accompany the flow of energy that is created.

The basic requirement of Orchestrating the Organization is to have clear intentionality at all levels for the reason why a group of individuals are choosing to work together and the alignment of individual intentions and visions and/or dream within the organization intention and vision. Orchestrating the organization is about recognizing the unique creative spirit within each individual is much like the combination of a musician and their instrument. No two combinations are exactly alike and each will have a different range of capabilities and style. The goal is the assist these individuals as unique creators to create a common creation.

The important point in Orchestrating the Organization is that there is some vision usually carried by an individual or a group of individuals that brings the group together to manifest. The emphasis here is on a common intention that is based on the vision or dream of one individual or a vision or dream that is commonly held. Either the individual agree to work together and support the manifestation of the vision that is held by the individual or they collective establish the common intention that they agree to manifest. Musicians getting together to perform a symphony or construction workers working together to build a particular building would be examples more in line with a vision that is held by one individuals and the other agree to help manifest that vision. The Declaration of Independence followed by the Constitution of the United States would be examples more in line with a commonly held vision where the participants agree together to manifest a commonly held vision.

Related topics
Integrating the intention for our life with the job

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