Chapter 94.
Let People Find It

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads and the boss drives.

—Theodore Roosevelt

Scott again recalls coach and teacher Rodney Mercado and his master key to getting remarkable performances out of the people he taught and motivated:

If you heard any two students of Mercado play side by side, you would absolutely swear that they did not have the same teacher. You would say it was physically impossible because their playing styles were so radically different. Most people who take music lessons are aware that listeners can identify who a student’s teacher is by how the student plays.

But with Mercado, not only could you not do that, you would absolutely swear that they couldn’t have the same teacher, that it just couldn’t be possible.

So how did he accomplish that? For one thing, he never told us “don’t,” he never said no, and he never told us how to play the instrument.

A typical example, a very fundamental thing, was how to hold the bow. He would say, “Okay, Scott, what I’d like you to do is to try holding your hand this way,” and he’d have me adopt an extreme position, like holding my hand as far to the right as I possibly could while still being able to use my bow. He’d have me play some music that way, and then say, “Okay, fine. Now I’d like you to do the opposite,” and he’d have me put my hand all the way to the left, as far as I could possibly put it—a very uncomfortable position—and then he’d say, “Play this passage.”

He would then ask, “Now, if you had to choose one of those two extremes, which one would you choose?”

“Well, all the way to the right, because it’s a little less cumbersome than all the way to the left.”

“So what that’s telling you, Scott, is that you probably want to hold your hand position somewhere between all the way to the right and all the way to the left, and it’s probably going to be more to the right than to the left. So find the way that works the best for you.”

And if I said, “Well, what about if other people say you have to hold your hand a certain way?”

Mercado would then reel off a number of examples of professional violinists who did it differently. He’d ask me to reason it out.

“So what is that telling you, Scott?”

“Well, that there isn’t one right way to do it.”

“Right, so find what works for you.”

And that was his teaching method.

So, I learned from that, and in motivating people I adapted it to mean that there is never one right way to do something. Rather than showing my people the “right way” to make a phone call, or gather information from a client, I will let them develop their own ways. The lesson learned for me way back in music class was that people will motivate themselves in their own way if you gently guide them toward the outcome you want.