Jan van Eyck - The Ghent Altarpiece - Singing Angels (detail)

I attended a couple of gigs recently.

The first featured a progressive young jazz act. Abstract melodies, elusive rhythms and virtuoso playing. Very impressive all round.

As the concert drew to a close, the bandleader addressed the audience from behind his keyboards.

‘I’d just like to thank you all for joining us on our journey this evening. I know we’ve been through some hard times together.’

He paused and played a couple of chords in a minor key.

‘These last few years have been tough. And we owe it to ourselves to engage in a little self-care.‘

This thought met with nodding approval from the people sitting near me.

‘So for this final number I want everyone to put their hands in the air and sing along with us: ‘I love myself.’’

The audience duly complied and the whole hall swayed to the euphoric conclusion to the set.

‘I love myself! I love myself! I love myself!’

I confess I didn’t join in. I’m old and not inclined to participation.

I turned to my companion:

‘When I was growing up, this would have been considered a sin.’

The second gig featured Lee Fields, a veteran R&B singer. Born in North Carolina in 1950, Fields is one of the last soul survivors, a representative of an era of soaring vocals, sweet harmonies and deeply felt emotions. A diminutive figure with a sparkly blue jacket and a winning smile, he channelled Stax and gospel; James Brown, Percy Sledge and Bobby Womack. He begged and beseeched, sobbed and swooned, and occasionally performed a dramatic spin on the spot.

Fields’ exercise in audience participation came with his song ‘What Did I Do?’ - a sorrowful confession of a man’s responsibility for the demise of a relationship.

'I took all the love that you gave to me,
Then I took all my things and set you free.
What did I do?
Baby, baby, baby, what did I do?
You were all the world to me,
But I didn't give you nothing but misery.
What did I do?’
Lee Fields, ‘What Did I Do?'

At Fields’ invitation, the crowd joined him in a mournful repetition of the key refrain. He had the whole of Koko’s Camden swaying in unison with arms held aloft.

‘What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?’

Raised as a Catholic, I’ve always been comfortable with doubt, guilt and regret. And so I too joined in.

‘What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?’

Afterwards I was quite struck by the difference in sentiment between the singalongs at these two gigs: one was an exhortation to self-confidence; the other an act of contrition.

Both sentiments are relevant in life and work. Some occasions and some people need support, encouragement and reassurance. Other times and individuals require humility, introspection and self-examination.

One of the challenges for a leader is to distinguish between these two modes and to apply them appropriately.

You’ll find colleagues with low self-worth who constantly need to be boosted and buoyed up. But you’ll also encounter colleagues who are too conscious of their own talent and too disrespectful of the contribution of others. They need to be taken down a peg or two; to be exposed to a little proportion and perspective.

This requires some skill. Get it wrong and you’ll destroy the confidence of the humble, whilst enhancing the self-esteem of the arrogant.

'I may not be the richest man,
But I'm gonna give you everything I can.
I always try to do my best.
When I fall short, I let love do the rest.
It rains love when I'm with you.
It rains love when I'm with you.
You're my sun when the clouds roll through.
It rains love when I'm with you.’

Lee Fields, ‘It Rains Love’

No. 410

JMW Turner was born in 1775 in Covent Garden where his father was a barber and wig-maker. John Constable, born in Suffolk a year later, was the son of a wealthy corn merchant and miller.

Together these artists introduced a vibrant new way of depicting landscape. While their predecessors had set out to paint the natural world through mythical idealism or realistic accuracy, Turner and Constable sought to convey its true soul.

Turner painted shipwrecks, fires and fogs; violent seas and fierce storms; the smoke and steam of the industrial revolution. Constable was more gentle at heart. He painted picturesque waterways and working farms; elegant steeples, shimmering rainbows and gossamer clouds.

Sadly the two artists never got on. Turner, who had been something of a child prodigy, regarded Constable as an upstart. Constable praised Turner in public, but in private described his work as ‘just steam and light’. In the Royal Academy exhibition of 1831 Constable had one of Turner's paintings moved from a prominent position and replaced with one of his own.

At the Royal Academy exhibition the following year Constable and Turner were assigned places alongside each other in one of the main galleries. Constable had been working on ‘The Opening of Waterloo Bridge’ for fifteen years. In the days before the exhibition, artists were allowed to apply a final coat to their paintings as they hung on the gallery walls. And so Constable painstakingly set about his finishing touches.

Turner was showing a sombre seascape, a picture of Dutch ships in a storm,‘Helvoetsluys’. Just before the exhibition opened, he realised his work suffered by comparison with Constable’s. And so he marched in and painted a small bright red buoy in the middle of his canvas. It drew the eye, creating a compelling contrast with the green sea around it. Turner left without saying a word.

Constable was incensed.

‘He has been here and fired a gun.’

The critics agreed that Turner’s simpler, more restrained work made ‘The Opening of Waterloo Bridge’ look complex, fussy and ostentatious. The exhibition was a disaster for Constable.

There’s a lesson for the marketing world here.

John Constable - The Opening of Waterloo Bridge

You may be going merrily about your business, doing a decent job, progressing steadily along the tracks. Your brand may be well regarded by consumers. Everything may be OK.

But then out of left field the competition does something radical that rewrites the rules; that reframes the market; that changes the way you’re viewed. Suddenly you no longer seem quite so relevant. You appear a little off the pace, a little out of sorts. Suddenly you look like yesterday’s brand.

BA was solidly respectable, thoroughly dependable. And then irreverent Virgin arrived on the scene and made it somewhat stuffy and old-fashioned. Levi’s was cool and contemporary. And then dissident Diesel appeared and made it safe and conventional. Orange made Vodafone feel corporate. Apple made Microsoft appear square. Sipsmith made Gordon's look dreary. Fever-Tree made Schweppes taste sweet. Eat made Pret seem over-sauced. And so on and so forth.

We should watch out for the seemingly insignificant red buoy that appears out of left field; the subtle touch of the brush that at a stroke makes us seem less relevant. We should beware being repositioned by the competition.

When we play it safe, we leave space for others to shine. If we want to be a leadership brand, we have to lead.

'When least expected,
Fate stumbles in.
Bringing light to the darkness,
Oh, what a friend.
I needed someone to call my own.
Suddenly, out of left field
Out of left field, out of left field
Love came along.’

Percy Sledge, 'Out of Left Field' (Dan Penn / Spooner Oldham)

No. 189

Two Singalongs, Two Sentiments: Some People Lack Confidence, Others Lack Contrition

The Red Buoy: Beware Being Repositioned by the Competition