October 2022
Musician Offers Nuggets of Wisdom at the 2022 IPMA-HR Annual Conference
Gaining Insight and Wisdom from Challenging Situations
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Kai Kight knows how to make an entrance.
The classical violinist-turned-composer arrived on Friday to deliver the closing day’s keynote address at the IPMA-HR Annual Conference 2022. Violin in hand, Kight played an original composition as he slowly made his way from the back of the room to the stage.
With hundreds of IPMA-HR members and event attendees soaking in the music while finishing their morning coffee, Kight recounted a personal anecdote that set the tone for the hourlong opening session.
Kight recalled a trip he made with a friend through Northern California. They made an early morning stop at a tea house.
“We ordered our tea, and I pulled out my phone at the table,” recalled Kight, a Los Angeles resident who grew up near Washington, D.C., the site of this year’s IPMA-HR event. “The guy who owned the tea house didn’t like that at all. He sprinted from behind the counter, pointed to a tiny sign in the corner [that asked patrons to refrain from using their cell phones] and started preaching about the importance of ‘being present’.”
“He spoke in a voice so soft that it was almost condescending,” Kight added with a laugh. “I was a little annoyed, because I only took out my phone to set it to ‘do not disturb.’ My friend and I were the only ones there.”
Minor annoyance aside, the exchange gave Kight something to long think about.
“So often, we say things like ‘be present.’ And, when hearing music, for example, if the listener isn’t present, isn’t engaged, that means the music isn’t doing its job.”
Kight said his mind then went to “a darker place.”
“I started thinking about my grandfather, who grew up in rural Georgia in the 1930s and ’40s,” Kight said to a now-hushed crowd. “I started thinking that his experience in the deep South at that time probably wasn’t that great.”
For a person of color in that environment, at that time, always “being present” in the moment can be a tremendous mental burden. In other words, Kight said, someone in his grandfather’s shoes might have good reason to want to forget his or her present circumstances from time to time.
“We judge the many ways to disconnect from reality without really thinking about the reason why we want to disconnect,” he said.
Kight carried that thought with him, and said he pondered this idea again on his flight from Los Angeles to the nation’s capital on the night before his Friday morning presentation. `
“I started thinking about being present and what that means. What if this could be a moment to not only be present, but to recreate the present,” he said. “What does that mean? I think it means stepping back from always pushing through in situations and seeing the big picture.”
Making the Cut
Drawing on his experience as a musician,Kight then recounted a series of events that helped him gain some additional big-picture perspective.
Earlier in his career, Kight performed as part of an orchestra, while spending his spare time working on his own original music. Sometimes this creative diversion came at the expense of rehearsing material that the orchestra was performing.
As such, he said, he often showed up at orchestra practice “not as prepared as I could be or should be.”
One day’s practice made Kight’s preparation, or lack thereof, particularly clear.
“I got there, and the conductor—who was the most terrifying person I ever met—called for a ‘down the line’,” said Kight, describing a scenario in which a conductor calls on orchestra musicians to play a specific passage, individually, in succession.
“He picked a part that I didn’t really know,” he says. “So, when it gets to me, I stand up to play, and I’m looking at the music for the first time. The conductor was not a fan of my ‘air violin.’ He shut me down after about five seconds, and he told everyone that I couldn’t play in the next concert.”
In that moment, Kight had a sobering revelation.
“I was so focused on bringing my own music to the world that I lost sight of the responsibility that I had to the people next to me.”
And, as the realization that he was out of the orchestra set in on Kight, he began looking for other ways to share his music.
“So, I found out about this contest in the D.C. area, where the winner would have a chance to be a soloist at the Kennedy Center,” he recalled. “I walked in and immediately felt like I was at one of those early 2000s American Idol auditions, with the judges sitting at a table right in front of the stage.”
One of those judges looked very familiar to Kight.
“It was the conductor,” he told the audience, referring to the same conductor who forbade Kight from performing with the orchestra after the rehearsal episode.
He and the other judges came equipped with red pens to jot down “when I hit a wrong note or missed a beat,” Kight said.
Kight noticed how the judges put those red pens to work more than once during his performance. But their marks didn’t prevent Kight from making the cut.
“Weeks later, when they selected the winners, they made everyone come back for the announcement,” he said. “And, when I got there, I saw they had written my name on the list. I was going to perform at the Kennedy Center.
“So, they didn’t hate what I did. Those red pens didn’t mean [my performance] was terrible,” Kight continued. “It meant that they heard enough [promise] to think it could be even better.”
Kight paused to draw parallels between the judges’ role and that of the HR and people leaders assembled in the audience.
“If the conductor doesn’t stop the music when something’s wrong, all that means is that the problem is going to become harder to fix, and it’s going to eventually present itself in a more consequential situation.”
Reevaluating How Your Perform Your Role
Kight encouraged the roomful of HR professionals to relay the moral and takeaway of his story to their own situation at work. “Think about something you need to use the red pen for, and how using it could lead to something better. Then use the red pen on yourself.
“I would imagine that, as HR leaders, you’ve had to use the red pen many times on your own strategies in the last few years,” Kight continued, noting the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic and its significant effects on the workplace.
Indeed, the pandemic has drastically and permanently changed how, when and where work gets done. It’s also offered HR leaders the chance to reevaluate how they perform their roles, and how they lead their teams.
HR leaders shouldn’t be afraid to honestly assess themselves, to give themselves some space and time to process all the changes and new ideas they’ve had to absorb in the past few years, and to adjust, accordingly.
“Why do we run from the red pen?” he asked. “The red pen [imparts] wisdom. It is insight gained.”
06 October 2022
Category
HR News Article