The ‘Mixing-Desk Metaphor’: ‘Pound-Notes’ poised to ‘go live’!

Posted by James Reader on 11 August 2010

It was a pleasure to attend this morning’s BRX Bloomsbury meeting and co-present (with BRX regular and my business partner John Hamilton) a commentary on the progress of our company ‘Pound-Notes’ – by definition, a ‘teamwork and leadership development’ provider business, poised to go to market sometime this Autumn.

With a little ‘post-production’ colouration from me, John re-iterated from his first presentation, back in April of this year:

“In the recording studio, the mixing desk is centre of operations; put simply, each fader represents a musical instrument. Push a fader up (let’s say controlling a guitar’s volume) - our guitar would get a little louder…pull it down…well, you get the picture.

Imagine we try that with a piece of rock/pop music (with all its component parts playing – bass, guitar, drums, keyboards, backing vocals, vocals…) and grab hold of the ‘drums’ fader (drums being the driving force of the music) …what would happen to our musical performance if these drums were to drop out altogether?

Now suppose these drums represent Sales…

…just as our remaining instruments keep playing, so Marketing, Accounts and other departments may also keep functioning…but what of the overall effect on company performance?

Hmmm?!

During the Pound-Notes one-day inter-active course, by exploring this (unique!) ‘mixing-desk metaphor’, delegates will acquire a more focussed sense of their roles within the team and develop an enhanced view of the role their team plays in their overall corporate structure.

How does this work? Well, we (they) make a pop record – a day-long course seeing delegates record every element of a well-known song’s accompaniment (drums, bass, guitars, keyboards…you name it) and work with a top London session singer between 2-3pm (only!) on the big day to achieve a lead vocal, supported by the team’s freshly-created backing track.

A hit single and a successful business have much more in common than we may at first imagine…get the ‘balance’ right – in both cases – and you’re in business!”

John put one of our many mixing-desk metaphors to the BRX group, questioning what might an ‘out-of-tune’ guitarist represent and how might we react to it within a corporate team environment (?) The panel promptly identified that our guitarist was not ‘fitting-in’ with the team around him, not ‘sympathetically working with the other instrumental parts’. When questioned ‘what intervention might be required here?’, the group’s response was poetry to my ears – “sack him!”…possibly…”retune it?!”…yes…in real terms – retrain him! I truly believe that, in our ‘mixing-desk metaphor’, we have a strong model for delivering a true sense of the importance of delegates’ roles within their team, no matter how small their contribution is perceived by an individual and further, how crucial their collective role in the overall effectiveness of their company is.

I (albeit somewhat at the last minute, delegated from ‘guest’ to ‘co-presenter’ at some unearthly hour of the morning!) offered the group an update as to company progress since April:

“Both John and I are excited; the four months prior to today have seen such progress and we are very close to bringing our service to market – ultimately adding tremendous value to individuals and, in turn, teams and companies globally!

Our one-day course was delivered to four employees from a consortium owning two motorway service stations, employing in excess of 100 staff. The course, held at EQ Studios, London and led by John proved a rewarding and successful day for all – we were able to confirm that the pace and structure of the day was well-balanced and crucially, our aims/objectives were delivered effectively to delegates – from results gathered during two reflective plenary sessions during the day.

Following this, we received psychological input from a Psychologist and Behavioural Geneticist operating out of Kings College, University of London. We are now beholden of an endorsement from her that succinctly concludes:

‘If you are ready for your team to achieve what they are really capable of, then this course is for you.’

…I’d add…if a manager identifies that a team member is not ready to help their team achieve what they are really capable of…they should send him/her along to us too!

And so to absolute evidence that BRX meetings such as today’s really do generate progress: as a direct result of fellow ‘guest’ Peter Armstrong’s reaction to John’s company-presentation of April, John and I were able to meet with Sony Europe’s Head of Talent at their Head Office in Weybridge. A tremendous 1.5hr meeting of energetic, deep-thinking and candid discussion took place as to how Pound-Notes courses might add value to colleagues/teams at Sony – a lengthy meeting developing well-beyond ‘pleasantries’ as their psychology-background Head of Talent understood our metaphor and its powerful potential for use in building a more efficient, harmonious organisation where colleagues value their roles, the roles of others around them and communicate with each other to positive end – in short, building a fully-fun(k)tional, rockin’ and rollin’ team!

Through this same meeting, we became aware of the demand for such a course to be delivered to larger groups, beyond four delegates in a smaller studio facility. We have developed a model for a one day course, delivered to between 14-20 delegates at a major London recording studio; where required, we now have the potential to interact with 100 employees within just five working days.

Finally, bringing the Pound-Notes story ‘up-to-date’, two days ago saw the filming of a promotional video – four delegates, a top London session singer and myself as course leader, engaged in activity within John’s EQ Studios…filmed to compile footage for a two minute video with two functions: i) delivering our ‘mixing-desk metaphor’ and ii) delivering a sense of the one-day course’s itinerary – action and reaction by participating delegates. The completed video should be finished within a week or two; with a considerable re-write/re-structure of our website at www.pound-notes.com to follow in preparation for the uploading of the video, we’ll be ready to go to market very shortly!”

With much discussion following, I left this first-ever BRX experience charged, feeling supported by group members – who seemed to genuinely ‘believe‘ in the rationale behind our proposed Pound-Notes ‘experience’ and suggesting clear pathways to intellectually secure the concept, exploit a whole host of HR contacts offered from the group during the morning and with long-term suggestions for growing the business into a globally licensable entity…tremendous, positive consciousness – great…and thank-you!

Although Pound-Notes is in its infancy, its current rate of development and early inroads into major corporate organisations can, in part, be put down to contributions from BRX meetings – at the very least, setting Mr Hamilton’s creative drive on fire every Thursday morning – and that’s infectious, if not slightly scary!