Act Like an Owner

This morning I saw an interesting spot on Good Morning America about Richard Montanez, the  Vice President of the Pepsi Company. His story is fantastic. He was working on a production line for Frito Lay and inadvertently invented Flaming Hot Cheetos. There is a new feature film being made about him and his life. The story is fairly simple but inspirational and a great lesson for all of us.

He was working on the production line and a few Cheetos were unusable because the cheese coating machine broke down and the delicious corn snacks we're unable to be coated. He decided to take the plain Cheetos home and experiment little bit. He put some chili' powder on them and tried them out. They were fantastic! He scheduled a meeting with the president of Frito-Lay and the rest is history. He had created Flaming Hot Cheetos.

I absolutely love this story because it illustrates one of the principles that I have preached to my students for about 10 years. It is the concept of "leading from any chair" in the orchestra that I initially learned about from Ben Zander's wonderful book, The Art of Possibility. 

In a recent interview, Montanez encouraged his colleagues at every level of the Pepsi Corporation to "act like an owner." In other words, everyone needs to take the responsibility for the larger success of the company no matter what their role is. This concept is exactly the same as encouraging every musician in the orchestra to lead from any chair. 

No matter who you are, from the middle of the first violin section to the back of the viola section to the middle of the bass section to the front players in every section, everyone should take ownership in the quality of the performance and act as a leader from the beginning of the concert cycle to the very end of the last performance. This is how great ensembles are developed. Everyone must buy in at the highest level of leadership and investment. 

Leaders are invested. Leaders are active thinkers. Leaders are prepared. And leaders think about how the group can be better.  Leaders move with purpose.  Leaders in the orchestra are artists from the first sight-read to the final cadence of the performance.

These are all traits of Montanez and his success story. And these can be traits of yours as well.