Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Delaware County, PA (Delco"") and the surrounding Philadelphia Metro Region.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Dr. Michael Brenner: "Notes" For Elevating Leadership and Transforming Workplace Dynamics
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Dr. Michael Brenner: "Notes" For Elevating Leadership and Transforming Workplace Dynamics
Harmony isn't just for musicians—it's the secret ingredient for exceptional workplace teams. Dr. Michael Brenner, founder of Right Chord Leadership, visits the Good Neighbor Podcast Studio for an interview with host Bob Blaisse, to reveal how musical principles can transform organizational dynamics in profound ways.
With 40 years as a professional musician and 25 years in leadership development, Dr. Brenner occupies a unique position at the intersection of these worlds. His insight? The same principles that create beautiful music—harmony, rhythm, coordination—also create thriving workplaces. Just as he can play notes on a piano that sound pleasing together, he explains in this episode, how workplace and organization teams can work together in ways that produce either harmony or dissonance.
What sets Dr. Brenner's approach apart is how he moves beyond technical competence—what he calls "table stakes"—to focus on the human dynamics that truly differentiate high-performing organizations. Through engaging, music-infused training sessions, participants experience firsthand what it means to "play from the right sheet of music." They develop crucial skills in emotional intelligence, accountability, conflict resolution and effective communication—the true chords of workplace excellence.
In this episode, Dr. Brenner shares how his clients report rapid improvement in team cohesion and performance following his innovative sessions. Whether an organization is struggling with discord or simply seeking to enhance an already harmonious environment, the improvement can be phenomenal. Listen as the workplace doctor shares a sampling of his insights published in his new book: "Strike the Right Chord: The Emerging Leader's Guide to Exceptional Performance," the roadmap to his CHORDS Model™ and its six essential “notes” for elevating leadership and teamwork, to discover how your team can find its perfect pitch.
Right Chord Leadership
www.RightChordLeadership.com
Tel. 610-724-3621
Email: Michael@RightChordLeadership.com
www.linkedin.com/in/michaelybrenner/
--- About The Show--- Good Neighbor Podcast is a spotlight on local businesses in and around Delaware County, PA (“Delco” ) and Beyond... The executive producer and host, Bob Blaisse, is a community sponsorship advocate, business branding specialist, and publisher of several hometown magazines, including: Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors, Marple Friends & Neighbors and Newtown Edgmont Friends & Neighbors, mailed monthly to more than 12,000 homes in Western Delaware County, PA, and also available for reading online.
Welcome to Good Neighbor Podcast
Speaker 1Hello, delco. This is Michael Barkan, welcoming you to the Good Neighbor Podcast, where fans of local businesses and their neighbors come together. It's my pleasure once again to introduce my friend and neighbor, our host Bob Lacey.
Speaker 2Thank you, michael Barkan, for that introduction and Mike, we have another Michael who is going to be a guest here today on the Good Neighbor podcast, but he's got his PhD, michael, so we'll let the listeners know who that is in just a second. Hello again, everybody. Bob Blasey is my name and I am your host today here for the Good Neighbor podcast, coming to you from Delaware County, pennsylvania. Now, delaware County is one of 67 counties that are in Pennsylvania and it is also one of the smallest in geography. But right after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh counties, allegheny County and Pittsburgh, it's the third largest in population, just south of the city of Philadelphia and just north of the state of Delaware. Delaware County is just west, really, to the state of New Jersey. So down in the corner of Pennsylvania, southeast Pennsylvania, we have Delaware County and commonly referred to as Delco. So we refer to the Good Neighbor podcast here as Good Neighbor podcast, delco and beyond, because we're going to bring to you good neighbor businesses.
Introducing Right Chord Leadership
Speaker 2Businesses operate primarily out of Delaware County and beyond and today it's my pleasure to bring to you something different. This is a great business that is a little bit different. It's business for business, really, a consulting practice that is managed and owned by Michael Brenner, phd. Michael Brenner, who is the owner and founder of Right Chord Leadership, we're going to find out what Right Chord Leadership does. It going to find out what Right Chord Leadership does. It's my pleasure to introduce Michael Brenner. Welcome to the program today, michael.
Speaker 3Hey Bob, Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be with you and thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 2Well, michael, this has been a podcast that I've looked forward to because it's a little bit different. Many times we're talking about good neighbor businesses in our community that are retail businesses that can be visited, or maybe it's a service or a contractor that serves Delaware County and beyond. But today we're talking to you because you have a business that serves business for the most part a consulting practice, but also a kind of a leadership institute, if you will, by the name of Right Chord Leadership. And you know it's not by coincidence here that I'm sure that you've chosen to use the word right chord C-H-O-R-D right chord leadership, because this has got to have something to do with music. Is it music in leadership or leadership of people who are musical, or is it borrowing the word for a different reason? Michael, explain right chord leadership to us.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a great question, Bob.
Speaker 3I've been in this space learning, development, professional development, helping leaders and teams work at their best for about 25 years, but the Right Chord Leadership name and brand and company is about a decade old.
Speaker 3That came about when I decided to blend my background as a professional musician my background as a professional musician and I've been playing music professionally for about 40 years with my background in leadership, development, team development, working with organizations to cultivate collaborative, productive, effective work cultures, great leaders, great teams. And so I blended those two worlds, if you will, and I came up with this notion of right chord leadership, which, of course, comes from the phrase to strike the right chord, which is a phrase most of us are familiar with, to profoundly impact an audience, for your music to resonate with an audience. And I thought, gee, well, you can strike the right chord in an organizational context too. What does that mean for a leader or for a manager? It means to lead or manage in a way that resonates with your team, that inspires your team, that fuels your team, that motivates your team. And so that blending of the music and the leadership and the team building just came together very naturally and very organically to create the brand.
Musical Metaphors in Business
Speaker 2It's a great brand, it's a great idea.
Speaker 2I mean, I I'm looking at this a little bit in reverse, michael, and I'm thinking that in corporate settings, we know when we're not on the same page.
Speaker 2You know that's a saying we hear and we we know that.
Speaker 2You know we've even heard that saying singing from a different song sheet.
Speaker 2You know, in other words, like we're off key here, something's wrong in the way that we're not following what is our overarching mission and we all get along, but there's things that could make us be a little more harmonious with each other and you're recognizing those formula are really important in the business world and you're seeing really an example of how music can not sound good if it's not harmonious, if it's not on the right chord with each other, if the musicians aren't playing the same way or at the different times but the right way to match each other. Well, and you've taken that model that comes from your degrees in music and your understanding of education and saying, hey, you don't even really need to play a musical instrument, you don't need to really know how to sing or anything, but we all enjoy hearing music. But, more importantly, we know a music's attitude and so you're taking that concept into the workplace and tell me how that's going. Do you go out and give talks? Do you bring instruments with you, and what's the effect when you're talking to a group live?
Speaker 3Yeah well, bob, first of all, you nailed the metaphor just like you can play. I mean, the prevailing metaphor here is the chord, right? So a chord is a series of notes simply played at the same time, and just as I can play a collection of notes on a piano, on a keyboard, that happen to sound good together, they I can play a collection of notes on a piano, on a keyboard, that happen to sound good together, they blend well together, they're harmonious. You might say, oh, that's a beautiful chord, that's a very pleasing chord. I can play a different collection of notes and you'll have a totally different response. You'll say, oh, that chord sounds harsh, or it sounds grating to my ears, or dissonant.
Speaker 3Dissonant is the fancy word we musicians use, and so the same applies, just as you said, to a team of the chords we play together. The manner in which we work together can be in harmony, and then the work product is good, it's high quality, our customers are happy, or our work product can be dissonant. Where we're not on the same page, there's dysfunction, and so it's a very apt metaphor, I think, and you're right, you don't have to be a musician to understand the musical metaphor, the chords metaphor, and so, to answer your second question, it's really about taking the message to the marketplace at large. I think there's an enormous opportunity for people to learn how to be more collaborative together, how to build workplaces where people feel valued and appreciated and respected, where they're doing good work, they feel they're contributing to something meaningful and leaders are leading in a way that inspires and fuels the team and not just comes in and micromanages everybody.
Speaker 2This is different, michael. This is very different. I spent time in the corporate world and I remember people coming in to give training. I've been even in the retail world, when I was a young college guy or whatever, working a store. They'd bring in trainers and we'd be learning about product and how to manage customers.
Speaker 2But yeah, people are bringing into the workplace their own pressures and their own fears and their own you know personality types, that they know what the job is, but they may not really realize how, if we're not all on the same page, if we're not singing from the same music sheet or really working it from the same chord preparation, it's not going to sound good, it's not going to look good, we're not going to be at our best. And so what you're offering is the opportunity for a business, owner, business or an organization to say let me come in and inspire your workers, your team, your team to see themselves first as a team that they're orchestrating the goals of the business, the company, their jobs, but to orchestrate in unison with each other in the right way, with the right chords, so to speak, for that business.
Speaker 3Yeah, you nailed it. It's one thing to understand the technicalities of executing your job right. If you're a retailer, you know how to do retail work. If you're an engineer, presumably you know what it requires to be a good engineer. If you're a nurse, presumably you know what it is required to be a good nurse. But that's just. Those are table stakes. Right, you got to know the responsibilities of the job for you to have any hope of being successful at the job.
Speaker 3But beyond just understanding the technical responsibilities of executing the job, what else do you bring to the table? Are you a good team player? Can you get along with people with different personalities? Can you handle pressure and stress? Do you exhibit accountability for your behavior and your decisions? Are you an effective communicator? These are all the separate cords, if you will, that we play or don't play every day. That, in my experience, can really make the difference between a team or an organization that's excelling and thriving and one that is just barely getting along. It really comes down to the cords we play, and that's a question I ask my clients what chords are you playing individually and collaboratively? Because I want them to really think about how they're showing up with each other every day at work.
Speaker 2Michael, that's exactly what business owners think about. It's exactly what they want for their team, and when they have a problem on their hands, when there's the team isn't in sync with each other there's a reverberation that's off then they know that they need to get some results. We need to fix the problem and we have the fix here. We're talking to the owner. The founder of Right Chord Leadership, michael Brenner, is here with us today.
Speaker 2Michael's a PhD, with music education, I should say, and the ability to know how music plays a role in our life, even if we're not musicians, how we can understand let's call it the math of music, kind of know it when we hear it. And Michael comes in and says it, tells us, tells the groups that you speak in front of Michael, what really makes that group become the best version of themselves as a team. What a fabulous idea here. Michael, can you tell me too, how well is it being received? Are people coming out of your sessions or talks, and is it multiple days worth of teaching and how does the process work? If I'm a business owner and I'm liking what I'm hearing right now and I'd like to get you involved with my company, what can I expect that my audience, my team, is going to think after it's over.
Speaker 3Yeah. So fortunately I have a lot of very, very positive feedback just in terms of the musical metaphors and the musical language. It really translates beautifully. Bob, play from the right sheet of music to play the harmonies and the rhythms and the melodies together. Anybody can understand those metaphors, whether you're a musician or not, on everything from emotional intelligence to accountability, to presentation skills, to conflict mediation, to holding difficult conversations All of the critical topics that have come up year after year after year with my clients as really the keys to success and opportunities, even for teams and organizations that are doing well.
Results and Client Impact
Speaker 3You know, the championship mindset is I might be doing really well today and that's great, but I could potentially be even better tomorrow or serve my customers even better tomorrow. It's that growth mindset, that championship mindset. Of course, other clients are struggling, other clients have issues, problems. I can come in and help with those as well. All the programs, the sessions that I do, are entertaining, they're engaging, but they're also full of key tips and techniques and tools that people can leave with and implement in their work right away. And my clients tell me they see results very, very quickly. I bring my musical instruments to the sessions. We play music together, we talk about music together Once again to create harmony, to have people understand what it's like to play in sync, to play in rhythm with one another, and then sort of connect the dots back to their own workplace.
Speaker 2That's awesome. I mean, that is really a wonderful talent that you have to bring a bit of music into the life of the business world, the corporate setting, the retail setting, maybe even. But to help all of us who understand and love music. We might not be musical ourselves, but we get it and we really understand when music is playing on the right chords with each other. You bring those right chords to the specific roles and purposes of an organization. You teach them to see them, see the right order and to understand why they're doing what they're doing, to do it well, to do it better. And what a gift, and that is really a gift to the business world. What a great neighbor business.
Speaker 2If you would like to get a chance to meet Michael or to talk to Michael, visit his website and you'll learn more than you even learned through this podcast today. The website is rightcordleadershipcom and so it's rightcord C-H-O-R-D rightcordleadershipcom. Michael operates out of Broomwall, pennsylvania, but he travels to perform and to do his sessions, training sessions. So if you're a business owner, an organization leader, and you'd like to bring in something different that can really be different and maybe make a difference, I'm sure you're going to want to meet this good neighbor business. And, michael, I understand that you've just recently published your first book.
Speaker 3I did, bob. It's called Strike the Right Cord the Emerging Leader's Guide to Exceptional Performance, and it contains my whole philosophy and approach to leadership, development, building great teams and organizations, and it's available on Amazon.
Speaker 2Wonderful having you today on the Good Neighbor podcast.
Book Announcement and Contact Information
Speaker 3Bob, it was a blast. Thank you so much, and I really appreciate your time and interest.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Bob Lacey. This is Michael Barkan inviting everyone to get on the Good Neighbor team. Nominate your favorite local business to be featured on an upcoming episode by going to gntdelcocom or by calling Bob at 610-557-3745.