The Power of the Herd Read Online Free PDF Page B

university’s communications department, there was precious little communication going on. And so, after experiencing the employee/employer dynamic from the leader’s viewpoint, I was suddenly thrust back into the labor pool to reevaluate both perspectives from the trenches.
    In its public role, the station played sophisticated, soothing sounds. Behind the scenes, however, its administration was unnecessarily secretive and manipulative, playing political games, most often at the expense of female employees, who were rarely, if ever, promoted. As a nationally recognized music critic and former program director myself, I had a reputation that garnered a certain level of respect from the administration. But watching colleagues deal with a capricious, incongruent system tested my patience. Consoling these people inadvertently became part of my job, as several of my most creative work-related friends would burst into the announcing studio in tears, telling me ever more disturbing tales of maltreatment to the tempestuous accompaniment of Rachmaninoff, Wagner, and Ravel. As a lowly announcer myself, I was powerless to initiate organizational change, yet as an individual with a certain amount of leadership presence, I could occasionally turn the tide in my own favor. The ability to teach these skills to my fellow employees eluded me, however, mostly because I was unaware of key nonverbal elements influencing the most frustrating, as well as the most successful, of these pivotal interactions.
    At the same time, I was perplexed by the famous musicians I encountered. Most people, radio station managers included, suppress emotion, hiding their true intentions behind bland smiles and passive-aggressive maneuvers, only to blow up at inopportune moments under stress. Yet artists rewarded handsomely for expressing emotion were likewise leading highly dysfunctional lives. It seemed that suppression and expression were two sides of the same dysfunctional coin, and my faith in the sanity of our species was deteriorating — fast.
    And so in my midthirties, while my husband was off touring Europe with several other musicians, I impulsively bought a horse. My intention was to ride into the desert, to get as far away as possible from the human race on a regular basis. Yet this beautiful, willful mare refused to comply with my escape plan. Nakia, a striking Thoroughbred ex-racehorse, tested me every step of the way, showing absolutely no respect for my hard-won reputation. It didn’t matter to her that a well-known music magazine flew me to Los Angeles to interview k.d. lang one week, then sent me to Japan a month later to write a cover story on Brian Eno. There was no way I could impress my mount with stories of how another publication was arranging dinners with classical violin virtuosos Isaac Stern and Anne-Sophie Mutter in between meetings with jazz great Wynton Marsalis and rock guitarist Carlos Santana. She didn’t even care that I talked to Johnny Cash an hour before I drove out to the barn one day. Chatting with a country music legend did not make me a passable rider. All those years sitting at a desk, writing, listening to music, and talking into a microphone had cut me off from the fluidity, assertiveness, and balance in motion that even the most generous horse demands, and this mare was hell-bent on showing me exactly how my “prestigious” career made me weak and ineffective.
    Yet a strange thing began to happen. As I became more adept at motivating my horse, focusing her attention, and gaining her respect, relationships at home and work improved. People commented on the change, yet no one could pinpoint what had shifted. I also noticed nonverbal dynamics at play in myself and others that were reinforcing dysfunctional patterns on both sides of the employer/employee relationship, though at first I had no idea how to change the situation. It was as if someone had suddenly turned a spotlight on interactions