Controlling the means of production
Leadership Ensemble: Lessons in Collaborative Management from the World’s
Only Conductorless Orchestra
By Harvey Seifter
Owl Books, 2003 (pbk)
Reviewed by
William Marshall
VERY FEW people seem to talk about worker’s control and
management these days. You don’t generally get it from the TUC (they put their
emphasis on pressing the European Union to legislate for the Ruhr model of
collaborative capitalism). However the ideas have turned up in an unusual place
– America! And they have been well written up.
This is a very interesting book, well worth reading, on
workers’ control and management, even though it is about New York’s Orpheus,
which is the world’s only conductorless orchestra.
We are not talking here about some Heath Robinson
contraption of pulleys, string and interactive parts or a complex governance
formula; it is the appliance of democracy to the production process and it is
bringing success.
It is a good story. For 30 years this orchestra has done
without the manager who directs the performance, the autocratic and domineering
conductor. That’s why, the Orpheus website proclaims, "the result remains
revolutionary: an orchestra with no conductor".
When you think about it the whole idea of the conductor
being the ‘maestro’ in charge of interpretation and performance, cheered by
audience and musicians alike, for the work the musicians do, is an illusion. In
fact it’s an important illusion, which across the whole economy affects most
people’s perceptions about themselves and their ability to control their own
lives. Apparently job satisfaction for orchestra people, according to one poll,
is low and only marginally above that of prison guards! This orchestra just
simply asked who was really producing the music and drew all the conclusions.
As they are quick to point out, being conductorless doesn’t
mean they are leaderless – far from it. Everyone takes part in elections for the
leaders of particular works and takes a place in the leadership. They actually
have more leadership from more people; it is their operation and it shows.
They say, "what is now known as The Orpheus Process is the
very zenith of democratic artistic collaboration. In the absence of a conductor,
the individual musicians of Orpheus must rely on one another for repertoire and
programming choices, interpretive decisions and ultimately the responsibility of
successful performing and recording".
"Central to the collaborative personality of Orpheus is its
unusual process of sharing and rotating leadership roles. For each and every
work, an elected committee of musicians determines the concertmaster and
principal players of each section. These players in turn constitute the ‘core
group’, whose role is to develop an overall concept of the music. The ‘core’
then presents their interpretations to the whole of the orchestra for
consideration and rehearsal. In the final rehearsals all members of the
orchestra participate in refining the interpretation and execution. Members take
turns listening from the auditorium for balance, blend, articulation, dynamic
range and clarity of expression. In recording sessions the orchestra crowds the
production booth, listening to the playbacks. This unique process unleashes the
talent, vision, creativity and leadership of each member of the group".
The constant reporting back means that productions take
longer to get on the road but the quality of the output is boosted tremendously.
With such an experiment now having a proven track record of
success it has attracted attention and the orchestra themselves have developed a
consultancy. "The exceptional results that Orpheus achieves by relying on a
tremendous degree of personal responsibility are relevant to a broad spectrum of
organizations in the business, academic, not-for-profit and public sectors" they
say.
Of course the people promoting the model now are those most
dangerous revolutionaries… er, management consultants. They like to extract some
aspects for their own purposes. I saw this book given a full-page review in the
Financial Times.
A number of companies have indeed adopted some practices for
their own purposes. There are some who are interested in improving the
productivity of a work force by giving the illusion of control and involvement.
The other reason, as is made clear by Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley (who
points out that 25% of all office workers in the US are now managers), is to
help more senior managers identify fertile areas for cutbacks.
However we should consider the ideas behind the Orpheus
experience for what they actually are and extricate them from those who in
effect argue for self-managed exploitation.
The great bulk of managers currently manage the workforce
for ‘command and control purposes’, to reinforce the hierarchy (‘management’s
right to manage’, to quote Margaret Thatcher) and to mystify the whole process.
But while the process of management will always be necessary, Orpheus shows how
it can be done democratically and how leadership can be rotated.
A famous chamber orchestra using a revolutionary approach to
its work does seem a bit idiosyncratic; could it be applied in a car factory?
Well, yes.
For their own reasons a number of large corporations are
trying to learn from it. "Interest in the applicability of the Orpheus model is
widespread and growing. For the past three years, Orpheus has been the subject
of a case study by J Richard Hackman, a professor of social and organizational
psychology at Harvard University". Novartis, Kraft Foods, Morgan Stanley – all
use it. But surely we can take this as an example of what – in a reconstructed,
socialist society – everyone could be doing?
True, this is not as dramatic as the workers’ control
established in the Royal Ordinance Factories in World War II in the East
Midlands, or the ‘Lucas Plan’ of socially useful alternatives to arms production
drawn up by Lucas Aerospace workers in 1976. It is however being treated
seriously by some serious capitalist people. The ideas contained in it are an
example of real democracy across the sector of life where most people are
affected yet excluded from control, in the workplaces.
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