'Lead by Listening'

 

It turns out that a boardroom discussion and a jazz performance have more in common than you might think.

That was the premise behind “The Sound of Success: Listen Your Way to the Top,” a Sept. 23 interactive presentation hosted by the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship as part of its Startups & Sandwiches series. The interdisciplinary session brought together Annie Booth, assistant professor of jazz studies at CU Boulder’s College of Music, and Visda Carson, associate teaching professor of strategy, entrepreneurship and operations at Leeds. They were joined by four musicians: Andy Carson (sax), Milo Lewon (piano), JJ Mazza (drums) and Mateo Perez (bass).

Deming Center Executive Director Erick Mueller started the presentation by noting that listening is consistently listed as a top skill sought by employers.

“Recruiters look for listening,” said Carson. The key thing they seek is candidates who demonstrate curiosity, she added.

Carson explained that there are three levels of active listening. At first, we hear but don’t necessarily listen because our minds may be distracted. The next level involves greater attention but still may be more self-focused than speaker-focused. At the highest level, attention shifts to full engagement.

Bridging Coltrane and conversation

By pairing musical examples with interactive exercises, the presentation showcased how active listening involves both ears and eyes, fostering a cohesive give-and-take that demonstrates presence and interest.

Active listeners bring curiosity and empathy to a conversation, tuning in to nonverbal cues and their surroundings to build connection and contextual understanding.

Four student musicians demonstrated the concept by playing three versions of John Coltrane’s composition “Mr. P.C.” The first time, each musician focused largely on their own part, creating a chaotic, discordant sound. The next version was improved, but it lacked synchronicity in tempo and had a disjointed feel.

Finally, the third version—representing the highest level of active listening—came together in a harmonious, cohesive whole, much the same way a successful conversation flows.

Booth explained how certain musical techniques are useful metaphors for conversations. The musicians demonstrated “comping,” a jazz term for “accompanying,” showing how they listened and looked to one another for cues while supporting the music as a whole. They also demonstrated “call and response”—a kind of musical conversation in which one musician played something that another responded to in either a matching or complementary way. 

Jazzing things up

The beauty of jazz is that it is improvisational, but it still relies on structure and framework, much like a conversation, Booth explained.

“You can go anywhere in the world—and I think this is about music more broadly—and not be able to speak the same language as someone else but frequently come to consensus about a shared repertoire and the shared language of jazz … and communicate in real-time.”

Ultimately, active listening is all about how we show up for one another, said Carson.

“How has studying music made you a better businessperson?” Mueller asked Mateo Perez (BusAna, Mus’28), a double music and business major and bass player. 

“One of the biggest things I’ve used as a jazz person coming into the business school and as a transfer is reading the room and first listening to what other people have to say,” Perez said.

CU Boulder music student and drummer JJ Mazza (Mus’28) emphasized the same point, summing it up this way: “Lead by listening.”