The Swiss Project Management Journal
The Creative Project
Leadership in the Public Eye
Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer - Orchestra Conducting. By Paul Selwold
When Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer gives her speech, she
jokes a bit about the perception the public has of the
orchestra conductor. She says, in their eyes, the
conductor is the lucky individual who comes on
stage, enjoys great applause, then turns her back to
the audience for two hours while the orchestra
basically does all the work, and when the job is
finished, she gets to turn around and receive more
applause and even a bouquet of flowers! But this is
not at all the reality.
T
Orchestra Conductor Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer in action
something does not quite go as planned.
Even a very tight deadline can usually be
adjusted an hour or two, or a follow-up
with a bit more of the intended deliverable can be arranged. However, an or-
chestra concert does not have this luxury.
The scope (program, in this case) and date
are set well in advance, and people pay
money to see the results of what you can
do. Wiggle Room? Hardly. What the
Foto: Adrian Moser
he conductor must meet a tight budget, an even tighter deadline, work
with many stakeholders behind the
scenes, and (somewhat shockingly) after
roughly a year of preparation, planning,
and negotiating, she has only about five
days of actual face time to figure out what
it will take to get the orchestra to perform
as she would have them do.
Imagine the pressure: You have one single
opportunity to demonstrate to this collection of one thousand judges whether you
can lead a team of around a hundred people, each expert in his or her own field, to
get it to perform in a coordinated fashion
for two hours, and during which every
flaw or error will be stored in the minds
and memories of those who are judging
you. And that is not all.
In order to prepare for this, you have
about one week to get to know the team’s
strengths, weaknesses, and collaboration
beforehand. All project managers are
asked to be leaders, and everyone who
has prepared for the PMP exam will
remember learning about different theories of leadership. But let us be honest
with ourselves: most project managers
have a little wiggle-room in the schedule
and budget to accommodate whenever
Project Management Institute
SWITZERLAND Chapter
8
2016 Edition