The Symphony of Leadership: Monique Cooper's Journey

In this episode of the Leader Lounge podcast, host Dr. Amy Taylor-Bianco engages with Monique Cooper, a multifaceted leader with a rich background in music, theater, and organizational management. They explore Monique's early leadership experiences, her creative endeavors in music, and how these elements intertwine with her organizational skills. The conversation also touches on Monique's aspirations in consulting and her unique approach to leadership that combines creativity with structure. 

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OnBrand Podcast Studios produced this episode. Special thanks to Audio Engineer Alex Winnenberg, Producer Nick Winnenberg, and Marketing Specialist Cori Stokes.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Leader Lounge podcast here at the College of Business at Ohio University. I'm your host, Dr. Amy Taylor Bianco, professor, business psychologist, and executive coach. And I'm here with serial entrepreneur and two-time Bobcat alum, Nick Winnenberg. who is now leading our alumni board for the Master's in Management. And we are joined today by guest Monique Cooper, who is many, many things, but she is also the current president of the Master's in Management here at Ohio University. Monique has an incredible background in really just about everything, whether it's music, writing, leading operations and management, consulting. She's recently done even more consulting. So we cannot wait to talk to her and hear more. Welcome, Monique.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13

Thank you. I'm glad to

SPEAKER_00: 1:13

be here. Glad you're here. So we're going to start going back a bit in life. So when you were a kid, what were some of the first experiences that you had that maybe you knew then or maybe you reflect back now and realize were leadership experiences? Were you led something or it doesn't have to be something, someone, you know, what were your early leadership experiences?

SPEAKER_01: 1:44

Wow. If we're going way back, we can go way back to preschool and kindergarten, where my precocious little self was one of the MCs for the kindergarten graduation when I was in preschool alongside one of the second and third graders. I don't remember if she was second or third. I remember her name, but not which grade. But yeah, I... hurried on in there and I went okay so this is like what I want to say and this is how I want to do it can I be up there with her and can I say these things and um you know any group of friends definitely was the one that's like you know we could we should why don't we um and then let's see more officially I was a section leader starting in high school um for the choirs that I was in. So what that means is whatever voice part you are, there's usually a leader or two in there that helps run sectional rehearsals, that helps do warm-ups, that can be called up front to help lead the choir from time to time in a rotation, depending on how the choir director wants to run it. I was always in, you know, the little like groups that you would have like in the you know the morning announcements when you're in school yeah so I was always like helping spearhead little groups that would help do the morning announcements or do like words like perseverance courage you know throughout elementary school uh and then just kind of just kept going every um extracurricular or job that I've had I kind of end up spearheading some sort of project somewhere um And here we are being president of the Student Leadership Board for the MSM program.

SPEAKER_00: 3:45

And it's so many different things. I think Monique comes in, like, just want to say that she comes in and she organizes you. She gets things done. So I'm not surprised that you were a leader in preschool. That's just phenomenal. Not surprised at all.

SPEAKER_03: 4:03

It's the least surprising thing that's ever actually been discussed on this podcast. Yeah, it's... This might get edited out because it's so boring.

SPEAKER_00: 4:10

So I want to go. So I, you know, have more experience with you later. Monique and I met when she started the master's program. She had this whole life before that as a singer, as a I don't know, like tell us about like your early training and voice. Just what you were what you were doing.

SPEAKER_01: 4:33

Well, another thing. Less surprising fact that I can throw out there is I was a theater kid. So starting as a choir kid, a band kid, a theater kid, you know, I did nine musicals in the course of a few years. Two of them I helped write and then put them. So that was fun. That was a program that I did. I went to like my undergrad degree was in vocal performance. And then I did an arts management certificate. I was part of the pilot program for that, all the while being an administrative choral assistant for the whole program, as well as an administrative assistant for a tangential program that helped to bring all of the different arts departments together for a big project. So I got to work on some really cool projects, meet some really cool people. and keep learning more about vocal performance and just performing in general. You get to learn a lot about language in that as well. You do a lot of diction classes. And then I had a band for about five seconds where we did bar gigs or outside gigs. I've been hired in to sing the national anthem for things like monster trap rallies and um there was one time it was like national night out and i was singing it and i had to time it just right because a skydiver was supposed to land on the last note and that was a last minute gig so i got there and they're like yeah by the way and i was like oh okay that's pretty cool um so a lot of music um You summoned a

SPEAKER_03: 6:30

skydiver with your voice is what I just heard. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 6:33

I summoned a skydiver with my voice. I've taught middle school and high schoolers. I conducted a choir, a church choir for about three years. I, yeah, I've just a lot of music, a lot of community work. I've done, I've worked in Two arts organizations. I worked in an educational nonprofit, a well-known educational nonprofit for a while. And then now I work for a small liberal arts college and I'm doing a lot of that operational work and getting departments organized.

SPEAKER_03: 7:16

I knew when I originally met you and the first time I met you was a fireside call. I think it was, if not your first semester, it was maybe your second, but I think it was your first.

SPEAKER_02: 7:25

And

SPEAKER_03: 7:26

I was talking with Connor right afterwards. I was like, who was that girl that had, like, the three questions? And she was like, oh, Mo, she's a new student. I'm like, she is going to be on the board, period. And I think we even told Dr. B, too. We're like, all right, what do you know about her? Because she's one of us now. And just adopt it. You just radiate this natural leadership that I think is so infectious.

SPEAKER_00: 7:46

You absolutely do. How do you go back and forth between, like, You're really, really creative. You've got these incredible, I mean, you've got a book that you're working on that has its own language, you know, that you created. You've got all this music and just creativity. And then you organize and structure projects and systems and people. Like, how does this work, those two different pieces? How do they work in concert?

SPEAKER_01: 8:18

Well, I think more than people realize, they go hand in hand. Music has structure. It's its own language. So to be able to read music is to be able to speak another language. Yes, you're going to have markings that are in Italian. Yes, you're going to have markings that might like some words that might be thrown in from Latin or French. But to understand the sheet music, you know a language. So that is structured. The learning of it is structured. So just because I'm going and singing these songs, the process to get there is very structured. The process to organize a choir is very structured. And then, you know, like you said, the book has its own language. So I'm sitting here structuring this world while still being able to think in those creative, you know, clouds almost. And it all just ties in together. And so you have to be creative in order to come up with the solutions to organize well. So you can't just go in and be like, okay, so this is how I organize every single place that I work for every single department, every single job. You have to really get to know what's there, use the resources around you, take into account the user friendliness of the organizational systems that you're building in. And then get creative on what's going to make them or help them use it. What's going to encourage and promote the consistency of the organization. So for me, I like to make things colorful. I like to... toss in you know a couple fun little alliterations here or there that makes them like go oh yeah this thing it has this thing our brains retain these moments so you get to get creative in how you organize you get to be creative in how you structure so it all just ties in

SPEAKER_00: 10:24

together right so A lot of the skill sets that you have really translate into consulting, which I know you've done at different times and you've been doing more of recently. How do you take the different skill sets that we talked about? How do you use those in consulting? And can you talk about a recent consulting gig where you did something like that?

SPEAKER_01: 10:46

Well, with being in school, I've kind of slowed down on the external consulting. But as part of school, we had a consulting opportunity for one of our classes. And I would definitely say that the skills that I've brought with me into those scenarios are going to be more of the interpersonal dynamics that come from or were honed from my time in the art. Not that I've left it entirely. No. Kind of a hiatus a little. But, you know, you have to really learn to get to know people, talk with people, promote people. your idea, your show, really try to bring people in, draw people in. And so with consulting, it's similar. So yes, you're listening and you're taking a lot of time to really get to understand what the needs are, what the focuses are. But then once you have the package, you know, idea, once you've come up with the solution or your solution package, you really have to figure out how to present it in a way that it'll be well-received from who you're talking with and who you're consulting for. And so we really did that in this last project. I brought not only tools that I've had in other jobs or on the technical side of how to organize, but that interpersonal element, really talking about how a focus for this project was remote employees versus in-person employees and how to kind of balance the interactions between the two because the in-person was getting a lot more information quicker was getting a lot more development opportunities and promotional opportunities versus the remote so you know it really helped them think about how to incorporate their remote and include their remote employees. And so you really had to, you had to touch that a little delicately because a lot of people have strong opinions about remote work and in-person work and which one is better, which one is not, you know? So you kind of had to navigate that. And so my team did a really good job at kind of packaging all of the ideas and experiences that we brought to the table and presented it and the client received it really well.

SPEAKER_03: 13:19

That's awesome. That's really awesome. And I love the fact that you're transitioning and like you're still using the artistic skill set and with your leadership and your development. I think it's so interesting on this podcast. We talked to Kai Caesar. So a couple episodes ago and his focus was very much like the empathetic, all people, all, all. What do you need? How are you going to get there? And you're saying structural organization, but with the people in mind and those in our personal skills and mind, too. It's so interesting to see how people use those skill sets differently in their leadership journey. And I remember when you were originally taking over that leadership role, there was, you had a lot of things going on. Life was very chaotic and you still said yes, and you still dove in. So can you walk me through how you get your head around taking a leadership jump like that, even when things are sometimes uncertain?

SPEAKER_01: 14:08

Well, having an idea of who the team is and knowing that you're not doing it entirely alone is really helpful. I was lucky with the board to have a solid team of incredible individuals who are willing to jump in, who are excited to work on projects, who really believe in building up this program. So that made the decision a lot easier, even though I had all of these personal things going on in life. And then just also knowing that it's not the end of the world if something flips you know the somebody especially with a project like this like somebody's not going to miss a paycheck if I need a day off but even if in the you know job world it's still not the end of the world we work so we can live and I think that that gets lost in translation a lot we work for the life we want to live. And as hard as it is to navigate and as hard as it is to exist in some of these systems that we've been handed and put in, it really helps bring perspective to the moment. So you can really take a moment of you're getting frustrated and things aren't working and you're overwhelmed and oh my gosh. And you can go, it is important, but it's not the most important. And it kind of gives you that space that you need to look at it with fresh eyes, to look at it in less of crisis mode.

SPEAKER_03: 15:49

Yeah. So my wife, Rami, I know you know Rami very, very well. So I struggle a lot with figuring out the overwhelmed feeling and taking over leadership roles when there's so much going on, the chaos and saying yes.

UNKNOWN: 16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 16:04

One of the things that she told me was life is glass balls and plastic balls. And when you're juggling, it's important to know the glass balls. That's important to know the plastic balls because you're going to drop some balls. Make sure you're dropping the plastic balls. So for you as a leader, how did you differentiate those plastic balls from the glass balls?

SPEAKER_01: 16:23

I've gotten good at kind of in my head, really separating and compartmentalizing, like what is going to have the biggest snowball effect? negatively impact the most people um what is going to negatively impact you know something if i let like if it slips like what level of impact how um i just i'm i'm good at that risk assessment and you know with practice kind of having that moment um i've led a 54 person team through tax season three locations And you get kind of used to corporate yelling at you. You kind of get used to the clients yelling at you. You kind of get used to that mindset of you gotta, you gotta, you gotta. And it's like, okay, I gotta, but what do I have to the most?

SPEAKER_03: 17:17

It's what's my biggest gotta.

SPEAKER_01: 17:19

Right. What's the biggest gotta? And then, you know, if some of the less, you know, harmful, impactful gottas kind of slip for a minute, It's not the end of the world. Yeah, you might get a talking to, but let them just sit and listen, understand and move on because you're only human. You can't juggle everything.

SPEAKER_03: 17:42

Yeah. And shout out to Dr. B too. I mean, one of the things, the takeaway is that I talk to people about and they don't believe me is that management's a science. Change management is a science. You can go through and you can look at it and have those conversations. And you're right. It is predictable. Love

SPEAKER_02: 17:56

it.

SPEAKER_03: 17:57

I have one last leadership question for you. And this has always amazed me because I've seen you lead in multiple different environments with different people. You're very adaptable. You change. You are very good at style flexing or social monitoring, whatever kind of buzzword you want to attach to it. You've also led 53 person teams of accountants or at least math minded people. You've also led choirs full of artists. Those are two very different personality types. How do you how do you adapt your leadership based off of your audience?

SPEAKER_01: 18:25

Well, I think that at my core, my leadership style is about the same. You know, I'm going to lead from the front line. I'm going to, you know, make sure that you know that I am available. I'm there. I am in it with you. So you just talk to people. And they're so just task driven and numbers driven and focus on that part. So most of my job was managing the client. So yes, I oversaw 54 people. And yes, I had to give the directions, help them work with their schedules, all of that. But a lot of what I did was buffer stuff. And as a good leader, you have to know when you have to let them handle stuff and when you have to be a buffer. And so in that realm, this is who I am. What you're seeing here is how I lead. And So that's how I was in the office. Sometimes I would walk through the office once we locked the door singing just to give them something to smile about or making witty commentary just to get them to laugh because it would be a jam-packed day of 13-hour clients. And then in the choirs, there are people that are still focused on the technical side of music, really trying to get those notes, trying to understand the dynamics, trying to... convey the emotions that they get from the music while also trying to convey the emotions that the composer or the director really wants conveyed so it's about still being up there like hey like i'm here with you let's work together um you know i'm gonna be out there promoting this you got this we got this let's learn it and you know people came to me like i can't figure like i can't handle this return like this needs to go to someone else like i don't have time Cool, I'm going to move this over to somebody with the skills that can handle this. That's not a problem, you know, with the choir. I'm really struggling with this passage. Cool, let me sit down with piano and help you with it. You know, it really is just about being there for people, regardless of where you're at. And, you know, being able to hear coach, being able to manage up, manage down, manage sideways, really just being there with people.

SPEAKER_03: 20:46

If you could go back to Mo, and I think you said first grade or second grade when there was an upperclassman, but at that point he was like four at that point, so I'm not sure he called upperclassman. What advice would you give to early Mo as she's starting her leadership journey from lessons you've learned?

SPEAKER_01: 21:02

I would say don't listen to all the people that had an issue with a precocious child, a precocious girl. A girl who was very opinionated, who always had ideas, who was always system-minded. Don't listen to the people that say that you're bossy just because the situation is in flames and somebody steps up to take care of it.

SPEAKER_02: 21:26

You

SPEAKER_01: 21:27

know, just don't listen. Really be yourself. Stand in your truth. And as hard as it is, hear what people say, even if it's bad. Confess it. And still stay slick stand in your truth. And it really helped that one of our guests, Fireside guests from last term was Tiffany Cooper. And I've had her throughout my whole life showing me that even when you stumble, you can get back up. And, you know, there was a her degree was in a speaking field. And I would go and listen to her talk. And like there'd be five people talking before her. And everybody would be chattering, playing on their phones. She would stand up there to speak and everybody was silent. And I'm sitting there analyzing it through my life, like what brings us? And I was like, authenticity. Authenticity brings us. You know, you stand if you are sure in what you're saying and you stand in that truth and you bring a care for people and you bring a care for the work that you're doing. And you are willing to grow and continue learning. You know, the rest is details at that point.

SPEAKER_03: 22:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 22:45

Important details, but details.

SPEAKER_03: 22:47

That was a very good mic drop moment. And I want to ask last question that Dr. B had earlier before. I think we had some technical issues earlier. Obviously, you're good in the role you're in right now. Don't think you're moving away from that. But what are your next steps? Do you like to be busy?

SPEAKER_01: 23:01

I do like to be busy. Well, I would like to continue my education with some professional certifications after graduation. And then I would like to help my Tiffany Cooper as a subcontractor almost. She likes to subcontract out sometimes with her consulting business. So I can help with that as well as just partner with her on some stuff. And then slowly start building my own consulting firm from just the occasional freelance to a solid thing.

SPEAKER_03: 23:39

But Dr. B, do you want to go ahead and wrap it

SPEAKER_01: 23:40

up? And finish my book. No, I

SPEAKER_03: 23:42

finished your book. Yeah, I slowly read it. I have a blank. I slowly read it. All right, Dr. B, you want to wrap it up?

SPEAKER_00: 23:47

Love that so much. Stand in your truth. It has been so good to have you on the Leader Lounge podcast. Thank you for being with us. And thank you to Ohio University's College of Business for hosting us, co-host Nick Winnenberg. And finally, thank you, audience, for listening and joining with us on this journey. Thanks, everyone. Have a good one.