Leadership in Harmony

Whenever I've faced the question of how to define my leadership ambitions, I've struggled with the challenge of expressing the value of being Number Two. Its not just the fact that people assume you have no potential if you admit that the top rung of the traditional hierarchical ladder isn't one that you particularly want to reach. Its also the challenge of presenting an alternative metaphor and model for leadership that can make sense.

As a hobby violinist I have always enjoyed playing music as an antidote to the stresses of the modern working world. I can come home feeling utterly tired and weary after a long week in the office, but still manage to feel re-energised after picking up my violin and playing for an hour, particularly when I play with others in an orchestra. There is some part of the brain that I use when reading music and translating it into melodious tones from my violin that otherwise seems to lie dormant.

But why should that be? Its worth perhaps thinking through why the experience of playing music in an orchestra is a useful metaphor for other parts of life:

• The notes are to be followed, but interpretation can't be proscribed: There are clear limitations and boundaries to music-making. The notes that are provided by composer and music distributor ensure that all members of the orchestra, whether they be the xylophonist, harpist, flutist or violinist, are all on the same page. Literally.  But being able to read those notes and play them 1-for-1 is a pretty basic ability in most orchestra-standard players, despite moments when passages are hard. The real talent comes through individuals interpreting the notes and rendering from them a harmonic whole: A piece of music that hangs together with style, character, and meaning.
• Speaking is silver, listening is gold: Reading and playing music is a noble skill in itself. It demonstrates a level of competence and a degree of experience that will generally only come through application, practice, hard-work and seizing opportunities to play pieces again and again. The real accomplishment of the orchestral player however lies in their ability to listen to others, to watch the conductor, and to adapt and adjust accordingly. Only with all ears attuned to those around them can an orchestra hope to attain the kind of harmony that we as an audience expect and appreciate: Those who can't listen are doomed to enjoy only their own contributions.
• Not everyone aspires to be a soloist, but we all get a moment to shine: In today's celebrity-focused world, in which the majority of the content we consume revolves around an ever decreasing circle of the world's glitterati, there is an assumption that becoming famous is an ambition that we all hold. In fact, for many, this could't be further from the truth. For those of us who cringe as the Trumps and Kardashians of this world sate their need for media attention, orchestras provide an oasis of opportunity to be part of a greater whole, while occasionally enjoying a moment in the sun. Most orchestral pieces have moments where even the 2nd violins play alone.
• Every leader needs a deputy: More than anything else, my years of playing second violin have taught me that every great leader requires the support of many others to enable their vision to become a reality. Leadership of an orchestra, whether from the front desk of the first violins or the conductor's privileged view from the podium, requires a great deal of skill, naturally. As it does practice and dedication. But more than anything it requires the cooperation and input from the rest of the orchestra. Great leaders gain followers. Their leadership doesn't come without proof of its worth. And deputies, or second violinists, are instrumental in providing that support.
• It's all about the bass: The lady said it right when she suggested that is all about the bass. And not just for her. It is true of much orchestral music. While the melody may remain with the treble and higher octave instruments, leaving the texture, timbre and richness to emerge from the lower octave instruments in the orchestra, a concerto or symphony would be nothing to listen without that bass line. Holding the rhythm, setting the tone, providing the underpinnings for the flights of fancy that first violinists, piccoli, or horns enjoy, is the privilege of the unsung heroes of orchestras around the world: the oboes, the bassoons, the tubas, the double-bassists, the violas and the second-violins.

Having been both the leader of an orchestra on the first desk of the first violins, and the figurative "Schlusslicht" at the back of the second violins, I can comfortably fulfill either role within an orchestra. If I had to choose a preference, I would argue that over time the role of the second violin is more rewarding: A combination of underpinning, leading from wherever you sit, no less challenging, no less melodious, just as effective and, quite literally sometimes, less highly strung than that of a first violin. Without the seconds, and all the other supporting instruments, the whole orchestra wouldn't function and would lack the texture, tone and vibrancy that the bass line can bring.

Swimming along

After many years of abstinence, I recently rediscovered the joys of swimming. Over the years I have dabbled: Dragging my sorry carcass through the chilly waters of a couple of Switzerland's many pleasing Freibads, coupled with the occasional attempt in the Hallenbad to get serious again. But a recent change in my daily schedule provided me with the opportunity to reengage in swimming like I had not done since my teenage years. And the opportunity to confront some of the neuroses that developed in between times.

As a child, like any kid with the advantage of enlightened parents, I was taught to swim from an early age. The weekend trips to the pool with my father and sister were moments of great pleasure and togetherness for us as a family, made yet more memorable for the rare treat of salt and vinegar Monster Munch crisps which followed the successful completion of our natational exertions. As I grew, I recall attending swimming club for many years to follow, acquiring the various, multi-coloured milestone badges of swimming aptitude, which advanced in 100 metre increments to 1500 metres, and thusly attained were diligently sown on to my swimmers by my mother. The well-meant but shrilly piercing tones of encouragement emanating from our swimming coach, the bespectacled and short-haired Mrs. Kemp, still ring in my ears, I have discovered, whenever I pull myself up and down a pool.

At some point, the combination of an increasing consciousness about my developing body and the urge of other activities, curtailed my swimming activities. Once I had achieved a certain level of competence, I am sure that the need for a Kaizen-like continual improvement was deemed irrelevant. Since those years I ventured only occasionally back to the water, but I retained this sense of myself as a swimmer, able to carve through the water and effortlessly swim 1.5k. What confidence those little badges could bring to a person!

A moment of crisis however, was reached one year when I travelled to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and took part in a scuba-diving trip, without much in the way of preparation or training, which was to haunt my swimming for several years. Under water and unable to think straight, I tried to speak to a colleague while using breathing apparatus, resulting in a moment of panic that unsettled me and left me with some strange neurosis about swimming underwater and being able to breath properly while out of sight of dry land.

After slowly easing myself back into the water with some gentle breast-stroke sessions at my local pool, I have over the past two months built up my stamina and muscle tone, such that I am able to hack through 1k of crawl in something between 25 or 30 minutes, depending on how much effort I want to put in. First to return was the muscle memory of the crawl arm movements, the windmilling motion rendered effective underwater by the paddle-like positioning of one's hands and the s-curve movement beneath the body to the thighs, and then the crooked brush-past of the ears that leads to the gravity-assisted plunge of the pointed hand back into the water. Next came the rhythmic breathing, allowing myself to relax back into being in the water and underwater, and giving me a neat 1-2-3 stroke style with breaths stolen from beneath an arched upper arm on alternating sides of my body.

The leg movement was slower to reemerge from my mind, first manifesting itself in a demure, knees-together flippering that was ineffective in propelling me forward with the vigour of the Ironmen with whom I share my busy lunchtime swim sessions. Later the wider stance and full use of the legs and thighs helped to take some of the effort off my upper body, and helped me to start to understand how swimming can effectively deploy a host of muscles across the full body in a way that other sports cannot.

While the results of this regular swim are kind of immaterial, I do enjoy the feeling that 30 minutes spent in the pool (and the other 30 minutes spent get there and back, changed and showered) are more effective than a similar amount of time spent jogging or cycling. More muscles feel to be under tension more often in either sport and yet the impact on the joints is significantly lower, than at least jogging. While the dog can't join me in the pool, much as he would like, it is otherwise an ideal sport -- with the added benefit of reconnecting me with my past and helping me to over come some of my lingering inhibitions.

On Winter

Winter is a frame of mind. It is as cold or as unpleasant as you want it to be. The old saying that there is no such thing as the wrong weather, only the wrong clothing, is one that I have come to appreciate in my decade or so of living in Switzerland. And not just because of the Alpine winters. But rather because of the apparently mild winters of my home country.

In all my years of living in the United Kingdom as a child, I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the times when I really experienced snow. As a small child, I have a distinct remembrance, no doubt shaped and enhanced by what people have subsequently come to refer to as Kodak memories, of the snow on my parent's driveway coming up to the waistband of my down, all-in-one.

The clumping dry and sticky snow that clings to the fibres of your woollen mitts was a rare occurrence, but when it did come we made sure to make the most of it. Snowball fights were hand. Snowmen were made. Leaving patches of green lawn exposed as the two centimetre dusting of white was commandeered to create a dirty, grey Michellen man with a carrot for a nose.

And yet for most of the winter, the snow wasn't to be found and instead one experienced a cold, damp and biting kind of weather, the likes of which only the UK can serve. With winds said to blow unbroken from the Steppes and Siberia to the East and Northeast, further weaponised by their gathering of moisture over the inky North Sea, the winters in the North of England can only be endured. Once the wet cold penetrates the layers of one's outer clothing, the chances of reheating are reduced to such a point that an evening spent in front of a roaring fire, wrapped in blankets are less a romantic idyll than a hard reality.

Switzerland's preparedness for and efficient delivery from the plague of the white stuff is quite a revelation for someone like me who comes from a country where an entire motorway can grind to a halt overnight with the merest dusting of the stuff. Not only are the authorities and airport operators, the church wardens and farmers, all equipped to handle the annual occurrence with ease, but private home owners too. Shovels, snow scoops, and snow blowers are as much part of the experience of homeownership in this country as the garden grill and chair-set.

This year the snow has fallen sooner than anticipated. Six inches have fallen overnight and settled across the garden as a blanket over a snoozing form. The blood red blooms on our climbing rose are now smothered in white, caught out by the rapid shift from a balmy 14 degree day of sunshine on Thursday to Sunday's damp and grey atmosphere, with clouds heavy with more precipitation.

For all that, I refuse to see winter as a downer. One member of our household, at least, Walker the dog, enjoys this time of year better than any other, celebrating the opportunities that snow presents him to sniff scents deep under the surface of the snow-covered fields and paths that surround our house in Glarus. Walking him is a boost given the pleasures it presents. And with temperatures skirting around freezing point, that is saying something.

With a felt hat, solid shoes, and a down jacket of the appropriate quality, the Swiss winter can be enjoyed and celebrated. Which can hardly ever be said of the damp fug of the United Kingdom. Another winning argument in Switzerland's favour.

A Good Slide

There is an expression this side of the roast-potato divide that invites New Year's revellers to have a good slide. I have never entirely understood it and given the current weather and the states of the streets in the city of Zurich the risk of some of us taking it literally rather than figuratively is significantly increased. I assume that it means that we should start the year well, by sliding into it, rather like one might slide along an ice skating rink, full of grace and style and poise.

Before I start to develop visions of myself as some kind of latter day Torvill and Dean, well Dean, as I can't be both Torvill and Dean, then I should note that I did start the new year with a slide. But it was more of a kind of skaty slide, a flailing, fumbling, falling slide as I ran for the number seven tram in morning. My ability to celebrate the New Year in a Swiss style obviously still requires a little practice. After eight years, I am still only a novice.

What I did do, however, was start a new activity. I have never really been one for new years resolutions since epiphany is about as far as I generally get with them. However this year I felt the time was right for me to take on something new, expand my horizons and generally lift myself out of the fur-lined rut.

Having become increasingly alarmed about stories of downhill skiers crashing into obstacles and into each other I decided that I would shun the conventional and take up a less dangerous sport. As options I ruled out horse riding, bungee jumping and sledding and settled instead on cross-country skiing.

There has apparently been an explosion of interest recently in cross country skiing brought on by those who in the course of nordic walking have found that they enjoy the movement of arm swinging and determined striding forward. For those of you unfamiliar with nordic walking, this when a walker uses ski poles to propel themselves along, giving them a sense of rhythm and purpose that is somehow missing in the traditional sport of simply going for a stroll. That you look faintly ridiculous seems by the by.

Cross country skiing uses the same principles. Long poles. Tight lycra. And two rather long skis strapped to you toes. The result is a feeling of schoocing rather skiing, sliding ones way through the countryside on little grooves dug into the snow. Things are fine on the flat – slog slog slog schooch schooch schooch – but uphill starts to get a little tricky. The answer is to either jog – apparently great for the gluts – or step out of the groove and do some nifty duck like herringbone walking. Actually come to think of it, this is presumably why Charlie Chaplin loved Vevey as he was close to the Cross Country courses where his splay footed walking style would come in useful when climbing hills on cross country skis.

All of this is all well and good, the problems arise when heading downhill. My usual downhill style of lean back and enjoy view unfortunately resulted in me coming clear of the grooves and sliding headfirst on my back down the side of a hill ending in a crumpled heap across both lanes of cross country traffic, like a lorry load of lycra and carbon fibre ski poles dumped across the autoroute. Everyone was very patient as I got back up and settled back into the groove. And no one can deny that I started 2009 with a slide.

Annus Horribilis

The British Queen once described her year as an annus horribilis – a rough one basically – after her castle burned down and her children proved for the first time that the British Royal family is in fact composed of human beings by getting divorced en masse.

If you were a Swiss banker you might be saying about the same thing around about now. Apart from a certain US based hedge fund manager, I can’t imagine many people who have had a worse year than some of the poor souls on the Bahnhofstrasse.

It has been a peculiar year in Zurich: confusing if you support the SVP, great if you a US democrat and probably quite expensive if you were the owner of any of the plethora of paintings that went missing from art galleries in a spate of art crime.

Just to give you a quick overview, I can recap you on some of the things that we have been through in Switzerland and some of the international events, just to keep it all in perspective. So in January, Toni Brunner became president of the SVP and, er, the US presidential campaign got into full swing.

In February, the French president married his glamourous French girlfriend and in March Medvedev became Russian president. In April, the Chinese Olympic torch caused outcry and an Austrian man was found to have kept half his family in a cellar for all their lives. In May, the SVP began to implode while in June the long awaited arrival of summer, well, never really happened. Spain won the European footall championships and in UK Roger Federer lost in Wimbledon. The Iphone took us be storm in July apparently, offering you the potential not only to talk while you walk but also listen to music, look at you tube clips, check your email and increase you likelihood of walking into a lamp post. I know, because I have done it.

The Swiss army began to show signs of battle fatigue in July after ti was revealed that its leader was a stalker. This followed the tragic deaths of several soldiers in a rafting accident and begged questions about precisely what a neutral nation like Switzerland was doing spending millions on an army that is effectively institutionally redundant… In August, the Swiss pick up a couple of gold medals at the Olympics and the US select Barack as their democratic nominee. In September, the particle accelerator at CERN was switched on and the US economy began to go into meltdown. There was apparently no linkage.

In October, Austria’s political firebrand was killed ina car crash, in November Barack was nominated, Samuel Schmid stands down, Merz recovers from a heart attack and Christoph Blocher considers going for a second run at the Bundesrat. In the end, it is Ueli Mauerer who makes it in, promising that Switzerland will get the best army possible – an excellent intention for a neutral country.

Throughout this all runs the thread of the global economy standing on a precipice, banks collapsing, bankers collapsing, the US economy collapsing and the particle accelerator being paused for some remedial action. An annus horribilis it may have been but hopefully we have avoided complete meltdown for another year.

Cold North Wind

The snow is already turning to slush but is it a sign of the long winter that is ahead of us? A recession. The prospect of job cuts. And a Christmas that could potentially be so parsimonious that it will make Scrooge seem like Santa Claus himself.

But it is not just the weather that has turned cold. Something in the political climate did the same thing.

For many years, Switzerland has had a somewhat complex relationship with its northern most neighbour: the big canton to the north – that would be Germany – has been a source of many things that have made Switzerland better (namely qualified company managers, fast cars, discount supermarkets and, allegedly, the large cash deposits). However, the Swiss seem generally ambivalent towards their teutonic cousins: in what was to my mind one of the most shocking examples of xenophobia that Zurich has seen recently, a German radio DJ was effectively hounded out of her job last year by a groundswell of opposition to her non-Swiss pronunciation.

Now, Germany’s purposefully uncharismatic finance minister Peer Steinbrueck has raised hackles with his suggestion that Switzerland be put on a blacklist of tax havens, with many arguing that this is a thinly disguised move to knock the stuffing out of Switzerland’s banking industry. It is an age-old battle and resurrecting it again is a sure fire way of testing the Swiss’s patience with their neighbours.

In Germany, such rhetoric – particularly from someone as bluntly spoken as Steinbrueck – is part of the rough and tumble of politics; a game that the media willingly plays along with until some other equally incendiary statement is made. But in Switzerland, where one’s word is taken at face value, such utterances normally carry far more weight and are seen as being a likely indicator of future policy. Perhaps they have a point: after all it was Steinbrueck who kicked off the massive tax evasion probe earlier this year that threatened to spill over from Liechtenstein into Switzerland.

The Swiss People’s Party, the nation’s most popular political grouping, appears to have seized this resentment, however, as the motivation for their latest policy position: their leader Toni Brunner surprised Switzerland earlier this week by saying that it will fight the continuation and extension of a labour treaty with the European Union under which most of Zurich’s German population, and me incidnetly, have got permits to work here.

Are the SVP redirecting the anger felt by voters over the attack on bank secrecy towards another target? Are they rising to Steinbrueck’s bait? Or are they positioning themselves for their next Swiss elections by drumming up some popular support.

A referendum on the free movement of people accord and extending it to Bulgaria and Romania will be held on February 8. Three of the four parties in the government, as well as the business lobby, are recommending they accept the deal.

It appears then that the move is an attempt to show that two can play at that game. It remains to be seen whether the vote will trigger another spate of icy temperatures and frosty weather from Switzerland’s northerly neighbour.

An Era's End

House prices and credit cards. Stock market investments and tracker funds. Manolo Blahniks and Cosmopolitans. In a couple of decades we will be looking back on the past eight years and wondering what got into us. How did a seemingly rational western world become so obsessed with the creation and retention of material wealth that the defining TV programme of the era was based solely on the concept of shopping and sex? I refer of course to Sex and the City, a show which now seems so hilariously outdated that a movie released earlier this year already looks anachronistic.

Another indication came this week that an era has ended: the news that Madonna, the Ur-Material Girl, and Guy Ritchie are to divorce. After having fed our desire for celebrity gossip for so long, the media hyped star couple finally called it quits, after -- guess -- eight years. So what's going on? Is our post-millenium hangover finally kicking in, eight years after the event? The Credit Crisis too has its roots in that new millenium fever that convinced us we were going to be richer than ever before and that it would be easier than ever before to get rich. Eight years on from the start of the boom, the bubble has finally burst.

The credit crisis came home to Switzerland this week too. A secret plan to boost UBS's coffers with government money was, well, kept secret until the very last minute and announced together with a package of other measures that will ensure that Switzerland continues to be known for its banking prowess rather than as being a country that used to be known for its banking prowess. The result is a partial privatisation of UBS that has left the bank's employees feeling rather bemused: we are no better than subsidized egg farmers, one of them told the NZZ newspaper. The difference being, I think, that you can't make an omelette out of collateralised debt obligations.

So, without getting too maudlin, it's all starting to feel rather fin de siecle around here. After spending eight years trying to keep up with the Ritchies by spending big on our credit cards, it seems we might be entering an entirely new era of austerity and prudence. Now is the time to be thinking about downsizing, cutting back, tightening the belt and all those other cliches that are used to describe the grim reality of a world in which a daily cup of Starbuck;s Cappuccino suddenly seems excessive and wasteful and a 100 gram bag of Marroni appears to be a healthy, nutritious and above all cheap alternative to starvation. In East Germany, apparently, sales of Marx's communist treatise "Das Kapital" are going through the roof. Now there's a sign.