Still strategizing

As creative types, we can sometimes find inspiration or insight related to the practice of our art in unlikely places. These last couple of weeks, for me, that came from a war correspondent and a college football coach. 

In the first instance, I was listening to a recent interview on NPR with journalist and author Thomas E. Ricks. In the conversation, he was using his experience as a war correspondent to provide analysis of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In his perspective, much of the success of the movement seems to have come from the way movement leaders adhered to certain principles of war. Specifically, he cites how activists were well-disciplined and focused on preparation, and how they followed up each demonstration with detailed analysis of how the campaign went and what they could do better in the next event. In short, as he says, "They were a learning organization." 

He goes on to praise the leaders for their establishment of, and follow-through on, specific strategies. "Strategy is essential," he says. "If you don't have a strategy, you have basically a car without a steering wheel." 

He also felt that the steps they took in working toward their established strategies were informed by their self-identity. Movement leaders had to clearly define who they were as a movement and what overarching mission they were trying to accomplish. "From that," Ricks says, "tactics will flow." 

In fact, Ricks believes that some of the early failures of the movement stemmed from both a lack of planning and from focusing on goals that were too big to have easily identifiable next steps. It was after these mistakes that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was brought into the movement. As Ricks describes, "King sits down and says, 'OK, what are we going to learn from this?' And he stews on it a lot. And the lessons are, let's be more focused in our goals. Let's not try to change everything at once." Ricks believes it was this willingness to be honest with themselves about what they were doing and how they were doing it that allowed them to develop the necessary strategies to find success. 

The second instance of inspiration has much less historical significance. Even so, it allowed me to make a connection to our work as singers. 

I was reading a preview of the Utah/UCLA football game, which took place on October 8th. The lead-up to the game included a fair degree of hype since it involved two nationally ranked Pac-12 conference rivals. Utah was ranked #11 and was favored in the game despite UCLA's surprising 5-0 record and #18 ranking. With UCLA coming in as the underdog, head coach Chip Kelly was discussing his team's approach to the game. "We know if we're going to beat Utah, it's going to be because of our preparation during the week," he said. "Things don't just happen to you; hope isn't a strategy." 

As I have discussed in a previous article (inspired by a blog by voice pedagogue Matthew Edwards), strategies and goals are different from hopes and dreams. Of course, it's perfectly fine (and probably important) to have hopes and dreams. But without smaller, achievable goals along the way—and strategies for how those goals will be achieved—those hopes and dreams can feel so vast and far-off as to be more frustrating on a day-to-day basis than they are rewarding. 

In both of the instances above, we can see how much value is placed on the direction we get from having specific strategies whenever we are working toward a desired end result. How can you bring more strategizing into your practicing this week? Look back at your goals from the start of the semester. If your progress toward any of these goals has stagnated, let's devise some new strategies. 

Now go practice.