Great Leadership Isn’t About You | Harvard Business Review
“…leading people well isn’t about driving them, directing them, or coercing them; it is about compelling them to join you in pushing into new territory. It is motivating them to share your enthusiasm for pursuing a shared ideal, objective, cause, or mission. In essence, it is to always conduct yourself in ways that communicates to others that you believe people are always more important than things”.
What Great Managers Do Daily | Harvard Business Review Great managers are engaged at work – in what they do and with others around them – and take the time to engage their teams, through one-on-ones and fair distribution of workloads.
Seven Surprises for New CEOs | Harvard Business Review These “seven surprises highlight realities about the nature of leadership that are important not just for CEOs but for executives at any level and in any size organization”. An illuminating read.
Last night’s gig by Guns N’ Roses marked the end of an era.
It was a great gig; the band was tight and everyone pulled out all stops to give their all.
Kudos to Slash, especially – he was holding the act together with his instrumental pieces.
However, Axl Rose’s singing was a stark reminder of how we are all mortal.
His vocals aren’t as good as they used to be – understandably so, because of age and a lifetime of various forms of abuse.
He demonstrated a much more limited vocal range and inconsistent singing quality e.g. songs like “Sweet Child Of Mine” were pitch perfect and performed to almost album-like quality, to the note.
On other songs it was especially apparent that he was masking the decreased ability to reach a certain pitch by slurring his words or taking tonal shortcuts.
I thought this mortality was most ironically epitomised during “November Rain”, when he sang the line “nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain” and “Knocking On Heaven’s Door”:
Mama take this badge from me
I can’t use it anymore
It’s getting dark too dark to see
Feels like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door
End of an era… Axl Rose’s voice is shot while Slash is the only thing holding the band together #GNRSG#GnRSingapore#GunsNRoses
The performance aside, I want to detail some of the experiences for posterity, and also, in case it’s good feedback for anyone who wants to organise a concert:
The drive there was terrible.At one point, the jam along Changi Coast Road got so bad that people started getting out of their cars and running to the venue.
Jam along Changi Coast Road so bad that people are getting out of their cars and running to the venue #GNRSG#GnRSingapore#GunsNRoses
With the coastal hook, it would provide gig-goers an alternative mode of transport plus get commuters there in a quicker time and with a more scenic view.
While stuck in the jam, I also had some time to think about whether we should’ve taken the shuttle bus.
Because it wasn’t mandatory, taking the shuttle bus wouldn’t have helped.
So there’s a need to give a larger incentive to get people to take the shuttle bus e.g. disallow parking at the venue, give discounts for early birds, etc.
The gig management itself was terrible.
No one collected our tickets at the door, which made me feel like we shouldn’t have bought tickets.
For Pen B tickets holders, part of the view was blocked; the organisers had erected some kind of barrier, for reasons I know not.
If you buy a more expensive VIP or Pen A ticket, you pay more to be closer to the action.
If you buy a cheaper ticket, you do so with the cognisance that you will be farther from the stage – but your view shouldn’t be blocked.
At some point in the night, they closed the token top-up counters (we could only pay using a token, which we had to top-up using cash or credit).
I had $10 left in my token and the money was non-refundable. So if there weren’t any items with which I could spend the $10, I would’ve been shorted.
I’m not sure if they had announced beforehand that top-up counters would be closed.
Even if they did, who would remember/who would want to take a break from music they wanted to listen to, just to top-up their tokens before the counter closed?
Last but not least, it seems they didn’t check the tickets.So at a later point in the night, we managed to get into Pen A because no one seemed to care.
That was the saving grace of the night – but it also made me wonder if I should’ve bought tickets at all…