WD-40 - risk & iteration
Recently, I found out that WD-40 stands for Water Displacement - 40th formula. This blew my mind to realize that built into the name of the company is an inherently message. What it told me was:
They didn't get it right the first, second, third, or even twentieth time. They kept going until 40. And they were allowed to do so.
Naming the company WD-40 identifies and highlights a core value, one that normalizes taking risks and iteration in solving problems.
Once I got past the brilliance and impact of the name of the company, I thought about the importance of that core value.
I asked myself: What is it that usually makes us stop at the second, third, or even twentieth try? Do we even try to iterate as much as we can at our artistic work? Yes, we probably all want to, but do we feel like we are allowed to - especially in the large ensemble context?
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As musicians, we are trained in contexts that involve fear. Biologically, fear is good. It is an innate mechanism to warn us about danger and protect us from it. But in our musical situations, we don't fear physical danger. Instead, we fear shame, being shunned and losing belonging, and falling from our current status.
And like our response to physical danger, the response to these psychological dangers (or fears) can be visceral - fight, flight, or freeze.
When we fight, we stand up for ourselves and put up a fight - most of the time using blunt force.
When we flee, we avoid conflict and hide our thoughts and feelings within ourselves where it feels most safe.
When we freeze, we simply don't do anything, which is a form of hiding as well.
When we fear losing status and belonging, the feelings are so visceral that it becomes normal to see fear as a motivator when we are students or followers - and when we become a leader, we naturally think we must use it as a motivator too. We tell ourselves that:
If they're not afraid of losing their job, they won't do a good job.
If they think their paycheck is dependent on reaching a quota of clients, they will be motivated to work harder to achieve that goal.
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OK, so fear motivates. Now, we can explore what it actually motivates. While it could of course motivate action, fear also motivates covering up. We actively cover up mistakes hoping our bosses will miss them. We also internally cover up our thoughts - by choosing to not speak up against something we don't think is the best idea, or by choosing to not share our half-baked ideas because what if it has a negative outcome and it impacts our status negatively?
When we cover things up to protect ourselves, the best outcome is to not cause a scene or not attract attention. The fear of attention - and more precisely the potential negative outcome of that attention - is what scares over 25% of humans about public speaking.
WD-40 CEO Garry Ridge puts it this way: "the only time the people know they're doing a good job is because nobody yelled at them today."
***
In the large-ensemble context, the status quo is to not attract attention by avoiding mistakes, to not have our own artistic ideas because it is not our job (it's the conductor's job), and to let complaints or solutions for problems simmer secretly among the group for fear of retribution.
What if we worked in a context that valued not getting it right the first time and bringing risk to the fore as an essential and necessary catalyst for progress?
What if we adjusted our responses to failed attempts at taking meaningful risks?
What if fear was not a motivator to get us to do things, but rather something we're motivated to overcome?
Could we imagine what that would be like in terms of the day-to-day workflow? What kinds of decisions would we make? What kinds of questions would we ask? What kinds of problems would we solve? How many times would it take to solve those problems?
Could you imagine what all that would feel like?
Let's keep imagining these scenarios for our work, and I believe we can do great things with it.
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