Consistency Is King

             "Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity"
                                                                - Bruce Lee

In our experience as choral singers and conductors, we've come to place an extremely high value on consistency. In fact, we would suggest that consistency may be the single most valuable quality that a leader can possess, trumping many other, flashier qualities like personality and skill set.

We've all worked with that "star player"- the choral singer who's at such a high level that we just can't bear to let them go, no matter how many times they're late or absent from rehearsal. The antithesis of this person is the stalwart chorister of moderate talent, who's always early to rehearsal, who's never missed a single day. As we progress in our careers and begin to observe the long-term trends in organizations, we've come to believe in the supreme value of consistency and reliability, both in choristers and conductors. We can confidently state that organizational trust and long-term, sustainable success follow consistency, as naturally and predictably as day follows night.

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KIRSTEN: When Krishan and I originally founded the SACRA/PROFANA Summer Choral Intensive program for high school students in 2014, it was successful in that we were able to recruit so many young singers in the area. In 2015, we reached almost 100 students and parents. These families trusted in the consistency of communication from SACRA/PROFANA, and from myself as Education Programs Coordinator.

When other local organizations and teachers began to see how many students were gathered to attend SCI, I began receiving several requests to send out advertisement emails or to hand out flyers to our SCI students and parents on behalf of other programs, choral opportunities, and private studios. Though it struck many as overly protective, I denied all of these requests.

SCI students and parents relied on the consistency of my communications. I would spend hours on a single e-mail, making sure that the information was as clear and concise as possible. Being a rather verbose person, I would begin with e-mails that were pages long, and would slowly whittle down to a few important paragraphs and bullet points. Allowing even one organization or teacher to advertise through my communication would mean that I would have to allow every organization or teacher that same courtesy.  Soon, I would have parents and students ignoring e-mails from me, assuming they were spam from other sources.

Relationships with choristers, parents, and audience members are fragile, and completely reliant on trust and consistency. While I didn't necessarily please the numerous colleagues asking me to help them advertise, I did strengthen the relationship between the SCI families, myself, and the SACRA/PROFANA organization as a whole.


KRISHAN: When I was hired for my first full-time Music Director job at a church in Providence, RI, I inherited an Associate Music Director- a middle-aged woman who had been at the parish for decades. She was essentially self-taught, and was fairly opinionated about keeping certain things the way they had always been. As a recent college graduate looking to shake things up, I was initially frustrated by the fact that my Associate was "cramping my style"; I wanted her to enthusiastically get behind my brilliant, unorthodox vision for reshaping the music program at the parish, since I was clearly the expert. Despite our differences in musical taste, we developed a warm relationship within the first few years, based on mutual respect and personal trust. And as time went on, it became abundantly clear to me why this woman was so beloved in the parish. She was never late. She was always prepared, and absolutely refused to "wing it" or to do anything without adequate prep time. She was stunningly consistent.

When I began working on my Masters at Yale, I kept my church job in Providence, commuting from New Haven on the weekends. The drive typically took anywhere from 90 minutes to 2 hours. One weekend, I planned the commute poorly and realized about 40 minutes before Mass that I wasn't going to make it on time. In a panic, I phoned my Associate, who lived about 5 minutes from the church. She was able to cover for me at a moment's notice; it was one of many times that her consistency saved the day. Without showing up, all of my musical expertise and training counted for exactly nothing.

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It doesn't necessarily take prodigious talent or genius to rise to the level of greatness, if you can be consistent in implementing positive values. Here are some simple steps for choral leaders:

1. SHOW UP. We're consistently dismayed at the number of people in leadership positions who can't even do this reliably. Just showing up- consistently, reliably and on time- puts you in the top 10% of your field.

2. START ON TIME. The subject of timeliness has already been discussed here (ad nauseam!), but it's worth emphasizing. Starting consistently on time creates a culture of productivity and accountability.

3. HAVE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE. We all encounter frustrations in our work, but being able to respond to these with grace and good humor is a powerful way to build trust with your ensemble. When members of your ensemble worry about whether you're in a good mood on any given day, it's a sign that trust isn't really there.

4. TREAT EVERYONE THE SAME. "Star players" don't get special allowances (if anything, they should be leading by example). If there's a policy on lateness or absenteeism, it must apply to everyone (including the conductor!).

5. COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY. E-mail is a great tool for giving your choristers advance notice and reminders of upcoming events. But communicating via e-mail also brings the responsibility of communicating consistently- they need to trust that your e-mails are timely (not last-minute) and necessary (i.e., you don't e-mail them more than once a week).

As we demonstrated in our examples above, consistency is hard. It's difficult to show up on time, every time, and we all fall short occasionally. But the goal is to create a high enough level of consistency that we only miss the mark once in a blue moon (ultimately, we hope that our instances of inconsistency are so rare that our choristers become truly alarmed when we're not on time!). You can begin by setting small goals; start with Step 1, and go from there.