Leadership topic - Compression

Every record made before the digital era had to be squeezed to fit what was carrying it. Acetate, vinyl, tape: each one had a ceiling, and the signal got Compressed until it fit under it. On Nevermind that happened twice over. The vocals went through a UREI 1176 or a dbx 160, doubled and layered and re-verbed, and then Andy Wallace Compressed the whole thing again at the mix. What the world fell in love with in 1991 was a Compressed signal.

Compression is the leadingWithMusic label for the same thing done to a person. It is what you take out of your own signal so it will fit the room you are standing in. I am a bigger than life extrovert, and in corporate America I Compressed mine to fit. I found ways to still stand out, ties and matching suspenders, never wearing the jacket. But the walking fast and the talking fast all had to come down. So did the empathy, because to do the work of layoffs you have to put some distance between yourself and the person across the table, and that distance does not switch itself back on at 6 o’clock.

A Compressed signal does not sound quiet from outside. It sounds like noise. I heard Nirvana at first as a lot of noise, and it was not until the acoustic sessions that I could hear the composer in the words and the music. Nothing about them had changed. The Compression had just come off far enough for me to hear what was actually there.

Leaders lose people this way constantly, and not because the signal is poor. The room learns your Compressed version, decides that is who you are, and stops listening for the rest. Meanwhile you are the only one in the building who knows how much is being held back. The answer is your hand on the dial instead of someone else’s. Since going out on my own I have been letting mine out slowly: more feelings, more joy, more pain. Is that what you are looking for? Come along for a ride to help you be less Compressed…