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Enjoying Your Work Richard Brislin |
Enthusiasm can be
a useful quality
in many workplacesPeople I play music with sometimes ask me about using their musical skills to either work full time or to supplement their incomes. Their interest stimulated me to investigate the question, "Are there good musicians who have a difficult time earning money with their talent?" I believe the answer is yes, and there are identifiable reasons for their difficulties. One problem is some people do not realize they must move from being musicians to being entertainers.
Good entertainers create a sense of a special time and place and are enthusiastic about their music. They create the feeling that "this is the most important concert and time with people that I have ever experienced." Let's use the example of an acoustic guitarist who plays large numbers of Hawaiian songs. Even if the guitarist has played "Pearly Shells" or "The Hawaiian Wedding Song" a thousand times, audience members never think about this possibility. They listen to the music as if the performer is playing it for the first time in a public setting. Good musicians who lack the skill of entertaining may play a piece flawlessly but not generate excitement among audience members if the sense of "specialness" is lacking.
Another reason for the need to create this special time is that musicians are not competing for audience members' leisure time guitar dollar, traditional music dollar or even acoustic music dollar. They are competing for people's entertainment dollar and they must move beyond aficionados interested in a specialized genre of music. Entertainers know that people could be spending their leisure time money on a movie, play, symphony, evening at a restaurant and so forth. This is the dollar musicians are competing for, and they must find a way of communicating with people who don't know much about guitar music and who know nothing about Hawaiian music.
Musicians should communicate a sense that they are the sorts of people who would be great guests in an audience member's home. Acoustic guitarists will not regularly perform in auditoriums that seat 1,000 people or more. They are more likely to find audiences in places that seat 300 or less. Musicians, then, need to create a sense of intimacy and a sense of two-way communication with the audience. Some musicians do this by telling interesting stories about specific songs and tunes. They tell where they learned the song, who taught it to them, who wrote it, what historical events were happening when the song was written, and so forth.
These guidelines concerning enthusiasm, a special time, knowing the competition, and two-way communication are useful in many different workplaces. People making sales call, for instance, do not show boredom with potential customers just because they are pitching a product for the thousandth time. Successful salespeople treat customers as special individuals, just as successful entertainers behave toward their audiences.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of
human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount
of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should ideally be high and
it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as
people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration,
University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the
College Relations Office: cro@cba.hawaii.edu