New learnings from this year:
- Any group of people can become a class. All that’s required is a lecturer, a topic, and a roster. The group doesn’t even need to assemble for the class to work.
- Classes are useful for measuring individual performance and for enforcing individual accountability to standards written for individuals.
- A group of people becomes an ensemble only when the individuals in the group subordinate their own needs and desires to those of the group.
- The only way people will forgo the pursuit of individual goals for the benefit of the group is if there is safety for the individual within the group environment. Individuals must know that they will not be lost or rejected if they risk themselves for the group. It’s counter-intuitive, but the group has to protect the individual so that the individual can risk himself or herself for the group.
- Creating, protecting, and maintaining a safe environment where an ensemble can emerge is the first and most important task of the group’s leader. The leader must identify, confront, and if necessary remove individuals whose behavior is divisive.
- Leaders model and enable safe environments by risking the rejection of the group and surviving over and over again. There is no safety in a group where the leader uses his position to protect himself.
- Ensemble does not just happen. It is an accomplishment that goes against our natural impulses. It must be modeled, it must be taught, it must be built, and it must be celebrated when it is achieved.
- The leader / director is the chief risk-taker in the group and has the most to lose if the group fails to create a safe environment and become an ensemble.
- Rehearsal is the privilege, joy, and reward of ensembles.
Advertisement
0 Responses to “Rehearsal and Ensemble”