The Choir Director Corner Podcast
The Choir Director Corner Podcast
097. Lessons that Choir Directors Can Learn from Ted Lasso
After several days off due to snow and dangerous wind chills, I knew it was going to be a challenge to get my singers back into our routine. As they started coming into the room, I thought to myself:
"I'm going to have to go all Ted Lasso on these guys today!"
And it got me thinking--there are lots of lessons that we as choir directors can learn from Ted Lasso. In Episode 97 of the podcast, I discuss seven of the lessons that we can take from Ted to build community and move our choir programs forward!
Ted Lasso is just one of the "roles" that we can play when it comes to motivating our singers, as well as dealing with conflict resolution. In one of this month's video workshops, I discuss ten roles/strategies that you could use to turn around your unmotivated singers. Sound like something that would be helpful to you? Then join us in the Choir Director Corner Community Membership, over at:
choirdirectorcorner.com/membership
and get access to online courses, our Monthly Missions video workshops, a library of PDF/Google Doc classroom resources, our NEW Choir Director Corner Searchie Hub, and more!
And hello my friends. Welcome to the Choir Director Corner podcast. My name is Matt Walker, I'm your host. Thanks so much for stepping by and joining me for today's episode. Well, I don't know about where you are currently, but, boy, we have run into just an awful stretch of weather. The past couple weeks I think we've had five snow days, slash wind chill days. We've had, I think, over a foot and a half of snow over the course of seven, eight days, and then just bone chilling wind chills down to negative 30, negative 40 below. So we've missed a ton of school. I know my family up in Alaska. They're probably like that's nothing, you should come up here, but it's been pretty brutal. So I hope it's warmer where you are at.
Speaker 1:And today's episode is kind of related to that because recently I think, we had five days off in a row. We had Friday, saturday, sunday and then Monday was the holiday and then Tuesday we had another day and so finally then we came back on Wednesday. So it'd been almost a whole week since I had seen my singers like, oh, they're going to come in fully rested, super excited, and they started coming into class and the first thing out of one of their mouths was can we have a nap day? I'm like what in the world are you talking about nap day? You literally just had five days off. How could you possibly need a nap day? Come on, people, let's go. And in my brain I was just like, yep, I am going to have to go Ted Lasso on them today, and so that's kind of where today's episode comes from.
Speaker 1:Now, if you have not seen Ted Lasso, my advice would be you know what, if you don't want to pay for Apple streaming, I totally get it. You know what. You just got to do it. Yeah, splurge for a weekend. Just set aside a weekend. It's only three seasons of the show, sadly. I so wish there would be more, but there's just the three seasons. So you got a weekend to yourself, or even a couple of nights in a row where you've got some time. Just break down, do it for a month and then you can cancel it, just, if anything else, so that you can binge watch Ted Lasso. It's totally worth it, one of my favorite TV shows ever, and I think there's probably because I see a lot of similarities between Ted Lasso and myself, and so I don't want to give away too much for those of you that haven't watched it, although there are a couple of things specifically that I will talk about from the show. But there are just so many terrific lessons that we, as choir directors, can learn from Ted Lasso, and, as I thought about my class the other day and just having to lead with positivity is kind of what Ted Lasso is known for. But there's a lot of other things that are involved with that as well, and I started thinking to myself. There's a lot of things that we can take as choir directors to improve our rehearsals, to build community in our programs, to recruit but also retain as well, right, but let's talk about it. Here are some lessons that, as choir directors, we can really learn from the great Ted Lasso.
Speaker 1:Number one allowing yourself to be vulnerable is a strength and not a weakness. In our society today, oftentimes people see any sort of admission that we have made a mistake as a weakness, and Ted Lasso is wonderful proof that being the ability to be vulnerable is a wonderful strength and not a weakness. And there's a lot of things that go into vulnerability, right. The wonderful Westinobo when he was asked what's the most important attribute of a choir director, he did not say having a musical ear or having piano skills or having a beautiful voice. He said vulnerability, and when I think about him there's a lot of things that go into that. Number one authenticity. You know he was always his true self, no matter who he was with, and was incredibly human, was definitely willing to admit when he made mistakes, was the most humble person that you would ever meet, even though he was, of all the people I think I've ever met, probably has the most reasons not to be humble, but he truly was just a wonderfully humble person, leading from a place of empathy right, if we are willing to admit mistakes and we are then also willing to give grace to others and to try and be understanding of their particular situation and putting ourselves in their shoes. So, leading from a place of empathy something that you see Ted Lasso certainly doing that in a number of important situations in the show and also those that can be vulnerable, are definitely, I think, invested in a growth mindset.
Speaker 1:And a little bit about Ted Lasso. You know the premise of the story. He is a small college, american college football coach, and he goes to England to be a football, a soccer coach. So totally different sports, totally different country, and so he is someone that definitely you can see is invested in this growth mindset, because not only did he have to learn about this new country, learn about the professional sports environment, but a whole new sport, and so he demonstrates a wonderful growth mindset. And then the willingness to try new things as well. I think when we are vulnerable, we put ourselves in the positions to try new things because when maybe we're not so worried about what other people are going to think Right, and that's something that certainly that Ted Lasso does throughout the series as well. So that first lesson allowing ourselves to being vulnerable and admitting mistakes that's truly a strength and not a weakness.
Speaker 1:Number two everything starts with building relationships, and that's you with your team I eat your singers but then also the team members or the singers with each other as well. Yeah, two kind of different types of relationships, but they're both really, really important, and you see Ted do this especially at the beginning of the series, but throughout the series, very little of what he's concerned about at the very beginning is what sort of the strategy, or the X's and O's of soccer? His assistant coach, the hilarious coach beard. He's sort of the X's and O's guy, but, ted, he doesn't worry too much about that part. He is much more concerned about building relationships with his players, with his bosses, with everyone in the team, with journalists, all these different people. That his primary focus is building the relationships, and boy it really, as you can imagine, pays off in his success and the success of the team as well. So remember that everything starts with building those relationships.
Speaker 1:Lesson number three your whole team improves when you empower those around you. And I think as choir directors sometimes we tend to be a bit of control freaks. Yeah, I am raising my hand as I say that. Not always the best at asking for help, not always the best about delegating, sometimes I fall into the. It's just faster if I do it myself. Yeah, but when you start to empower those around you, there's so much that other people can bring to the table and actually there are things that other people can do better, probably much better than what I can do. And then that then allows me to focus on the things that are truly important and that I truly am good at, and at the same time, by empowering others, you are making them feel like they are a more important and valued part of the team. So number three, looking at how you can empower those around you. None of us accomplishes anything by ourselves. It truly takes a village, and Ted is someone that definitely is a great example of that.
Speaker 1:Number four kind of related to that along with empowering those around you, allowing your team members to have input makes them feel valued, and then they are more invested because they feel valued. So in what ways can you allow your team, your singers, to have input? Right, and I would take that one step further If you're having trouble engaging the greater community around you, getting parents involved, well, in what way could you allow them to have input so that they feel like they are more of a part of your program? Because if you do that, they are going to be more invested and, yes, they are going to be more willing to get involved and, to you know, be of assistance when you need it for certain things. So what are some ways that you can allow your team members, your singers, to have input? Right, ted does a great job of this His players with his coaches. Again it gets into the empowering part a little bit, but again he is someone that, by allowing his players and those with the team to have input. He shows how good of a listener he is, and maybe that is a really important part of this lesson as well. By allowing your singers to have input, this is going to force us to listen right, and so are we spending time being a good listener, or are we doing more of the talking and the giving directions? Right? The more we can allow them to have input, the more time we can spend listening. Again, you're just helping your singers, the people related with your program, to feel valued, and when you do that, they are going to then want to be more invested. They're going to want to play a bigger part. They're going to want to take more responsibility, which is what we need. So that's number four.
Speaker 1:Number five no one, no one person is more important than the team, otherwise known as the no jerks rule, right? So trying to encourage our students to do their best when they are having to put up with some toxic behavior from their peers, it's virtually impossible, right? It just doesn't work. No one can do their best, and you certainly cannot allow yourself to be vulnerable when you can't trust those around you to be kind and supportive, right? And to be good collaborators, to be good teammates and so Kind of.
Speaker 1:My general rule is if there's anything that's going on in my rehearsal, in my program, that detracts from someone else's experience, that prevents someone else from learning or creates sort of a negative experience for my singers, for my students, I have zero tolerance with that. And on the rare occurrence it's been pretty rare, I don't think it's happened in, certainly in the past few years but if there is ever an instance where I have one student that is interfering with the ability for others to learn, is creating a negative and, dare I say, toxic environment, to me there's zero tolerance. I am removing that toxicity. Yeah, I am removing that student unless they can agree to follow certain things Right. This is no slap on the wrist, this is no calling parents. Certainly those things happen right and certainly it can't be a one and done type of thing. This is a thing where, if it's happening over a longer period of time, you've got to document each instance and if they refuse to for lack of a better term follow the rules, if they're continuing this behavior, then they just can't be there right.
Speaker 1:And I understand that there are certain lots of you out there where you've dealt with that type of situation and you don't have the support to back you up right from your administration. There are certain things that you can do to get around that, but for that sort of thing and I think this is something that Ted does really well I don't want to ruin it for you. Yeah, but this happens. A really good example. This happens fairly early on in the series, so when you see it you'll know what I'm. Oh, this is what Matt was talking about. Yeah, but no one person is important than the team. Yeah, and there is, in my part, a zero tolerance policy and I make that very clear as the expectation that is your quickest ticket out of my rehearsal and out of my program, right is to be disrespectful or to treat someone else in any sort of negative way, right? So that is a great lesson that we learn from Ted very early on in his experience no one person is more important than the team. That's lesson number five. Number six be a goldfish.
Speaker 1:Now, if you've seen the series, you're probably laughing as I talk about this. I have to talk. I won't talk about the specific situation, but I do kind of have to explain this. Yeah, for those of you that haven't heard, this be a goldfish. Ted is talking about the attention span of a goldfish, I think it's I can't remember what he says like 10 seconds, 12 seconds, something like that Super short, right.
Speaker 1:And it comes up in the way that he's talking about how you have to not dwell on your mistakes, and I think that is something that I personally struggle with, and when you know other choir directors that I talk to that are struggling with certain things, I think that's something that I see as well. So maybe that's just the artist in us I don't know what it is but we tend to really dwell on our mistakes, and Ted's perspective is hey, don't dwell on your mistakes. Yes, we should learn from them, but then, once you've learned the important lessons from those, then you need to give yourself grace and allow yourself to move on, right, and this is a really important lesson for us. This is maybe an even more important lesson for our singers, right, because you know I work with teenagers. With teenagers, the worst thing that could possibly happen is that they make a mistake in front of others. Yeah, they are absolutely mortified of that happening, because they've been in so many situations where they are made fun of because of because of making a mistake, right, and so we have to.
Speaker 1:You know, along with being a goldfish, we have to make sure that our fishbowl is a welcoming and inviting place, right. We have to make sure it is a safe space, and so our singers know that it's okay to make a mistake right, and it's okay to laugh at ourselves too, right, but that we're not going to dwell on them and we're going to keep forging ahead. The most important thing is that we learn from the mistake, but we're not going to sit here and dwell on it and we're not going to ostracize each other for doing that. Yeah, because everyone's going to make a mistake at one point or another. I make them all the time, right, and I think that's maybe one of the best ways that you can do. It is that when you make a mistake, you laugh at yourself and then you just move on, right, and so it's showing them by example. Hey, I'm going to be a goldfish, I am not going to dwell on this mistake. You know, I'm going to take 10 seconds to laugh at myself, and then we're just going to move on. Yeah, we're going to keep learning and keep getting better every single day. So a wonderful, wonderful lesson from Ted Lasso yeah, be a goldfish.
Speaker 1:And finally, number seven positive feedback can be a powerful motivator. Yeah, and as I talked about, you know, at the beginning of this episode, ted leads, you know, nine times out of 10 with just this fierce sense of positivity. Yeah, on occasion to his detriment, yeah, but he is also reasonable when he needs to be. Yeah, it's not all rainbows and flowers and bunny rabbits. Yeah, you know, when he needs to be serious, he can do that. He can do that and you'll see parts of that in the show as well, but the vast majority of the time he is leading with positivity and he's giving positive feedback on a regular basis. Yeah, and that is, I think, part of his building relationships.
Speaker 1:And you see, particularly at the beginning of the series but throughout the series, when he's got people that come into his world that are really sort of distrusting and they don't necessarily think that he is authentic just because he radiates this positivity all of the time and just kind of feel like, yeah, this just can't be, can't be real. Right, it's through his positive feedback that he's able one of the ways anyway is able to build relationships and people start to see that he really is being his authentic self and it makes all of them want to do better for him, right, they want to play better, they want to be a better boss, they want to be a better colleague, and you see this over and over and over again and how he sort of wins people over and brings them into his community that he's building through positive motivation. Yeah, and it's a wonderful, wonderful motivator that he uses, but more than anything, it's just another way that he's building relationships. So, talking about motivation right and I've been dealing with that quite a bit and thinking about that the past few weeks and certainly trying to get my singers back into a routine after all of these missed days right Certainly got me thinking about motivation and how I was going to go about that. And I've also talked with a lot of choir directors recently about how motivating singers is one of their biggest challenges in their job, because they've got singers that are apathetic, singers that are unmotivated. How do I deal with this?
Speaker 1:And so one of the video workshops that I've put together recently for our Choir Director-Chorner Community Membership is what to do when your singers are unmotivated. Now, on one of the episodes here recently, I've talked about the reasons behind that, but this particular video is going to talk about all the ways that we can respond, and I sort of frame it as what are the roles that we can play? All the different roles as Choir Director, and so the choir Ted Lasso is one of those roles, yeah, where we're just leading with positivity. We are celebrating all of the winds, big and small, we are praising in public the specific behaviors, the specific work ethic that you want to see, yeah, and just really leading with positivity. That's sort of the choir Ted Lasso. And so that's one of what I have is listed as 10 different roles that you might play in this response to your unmotivated singers, your apathetic singers, yeah, and so this is just one of the monthly video workshops that we have inside of the Choir Director-Chorner Community Membership. So if that sounds like something that you could really use in your job as a Choir Director and working with your singers in your program, in your organization, then hop on over to ChoirDritterCornercom, forward slash membership and join us as a member and get access to all of our monthly video workshops, our online courses, digital PDFs and other resources and so much more.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks so much for listening to today's episode, my friends, I hope. If you haven't watched Ted Lasso, I hope this episode motivates you to do so, and if you have, I hope this has been a wonderful reminder about all of the great things about Ted in that show and the reasons why we love that show and that character, and thinking about some of the things that you can take from Ted and incorporate into your work as a Choir Director. Well, thanks again for listening and until next time, keep being awesome. Are you looking for resources that will save you time and frustration? Want to dive deeper into topics related to your teaching? Then check out the Choir Director Corner Community Membership over at ChoirDirectorCornercom. Forward slash membership.