Improvisation – Taming Wicked Problems

Success Story: Keith Jarrett and the “Unplayable” Piano

Joseph Bentley — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 20:51:42 +0000

September 28, 2017

“1400 paying customers, one piano,
no score.

This is not the calculus for a successful concert.”

“For One Night Only”
BBC Radio 4
29 December 2011

On the afternoon of January 24, 1975, Keith Jarrett and Manfred Eicher were sitting in the lobby of a hotel in Cologne, Germany, waiting for Vera Brandes to arrive. Brandes was the 17-year-old producer of the concert that Jarrett was to play that night at the Cologne Opera House. Jarrett, the American jazz musician, and his manager and producer, Manfred Eicher, were in middle of a tour of 24 solo concerts – 11 in Europe – which had begun on October 16, 1974 in Washington, D. C and was scheduled to end on April 20, 1975 in Waterville, Maine. “These solo concerts were major events in terms of twentieth-century music…they are without precedent, not only in jazz history, but also in the entire history of the piano,” wrote biographer Ian Carr in Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music. “They were not renditions of composed music committed to memory, nor were they a series of variations on composed themes. They were attempts at very long stretches (up to an hour at a time) of total improvisation, the creation from scratch of everything: rhythms, themes, structures, harmonic sequences and textures.”

Fully aware of how demanding that playing such improvised concerts could be, Jarrett had insisted that they schedule a concert every other day. Since Jarrett had played the night before in Lausanne, Switzerland, January 24th was supposed to be a day of rest. However, when Brandes called and told them that she could schedule a concert in the Cologne Opera house, Jarrett agreed to come. Having driven all that day from Switzerland in a small Renault 4, and Jarrett and Eicher were exhausted. Jarrett wanted to visit the Opera House before the concert to look at the piano. The concert was planned for 11:00 pm, the only time Brendes could arrange for the hall, so Jarrett’s plan was to examine the piano and the hall, then return to his hotel, take a nap and then have dinner before the concert.

If all went well, in a few hours Jarrett would stride on to the stage of one of the most important musical venues in Europe and begin to play.

It did not go well. In fact, it almost didn’t go at all.

“Keith Cannot Play”

For Vera Brandes, January 24 was the happiest day of her life. At 17, she was the youngest concert producer in Europe, and the concert at the Opera House was by far her most ambitious and potentially successful effort to date. When she arrived at their hotel she was excited to tell Jarrett and Eicher that the concert was completely sold out. Jarrett could expect an audience of 1,432 jazz aficionados in the audience.

When they reached the concert hall late in the afternoon, it was immediately clear to Jarrett that the piano on the stage was not the piano he had expected. “Keith played a few notes,” recalled Brandes. “Then Eicher played a few notes. They didn’t say anything. They circled the instrument several times and then tried a few keys. Then, after a long silence, Manfred came to me and said, ‘If you don’t get a new piano, Keith can’t play.'”

What had started out as the happiest day of Vera Brandes’ life was turning into the worst.

In agreeing to the concert, Jarrett had requested a specific piano – a full-sized 9-foot concert Bosendorfer – that he had heard another jazz pianist play during an earlier tour of Europe, and the Opera House administration had agreed to provide it. What Brandes had not realized until that moment was that the Opera House crew had failed. When they could not find the requested piano, and caring little for a late-night jazz concert, they had delivered a small Bosendorfer – “like half a piano” remembered Brandes – and had gone home. What Jarrett and Eicher found was “this tiny little Bosendorfer, that was completely out of tune, the black notes in the middle didn’t work, the pedals stuck. It was unplayable,” said Brandes. Jarrett was dismayed: It was a “piano which hadn’t been adjusted for a very long time and it sounded like a very poor imitation of a harpsichord or a piano with tacks in it.” Biographer Ian Carr’s description was just as severe: “[Jarrett] had to adapt to an instrument which sounded like a…barroom piano…it was barely passable in the middle and lower resisters, [and] the upper registers sounded tinny.”

With an unacceptable piano, it looked like there would be no concert. Jarrett left the hall and returned to the car, ready to get back to the hotel and to get some much-needed rest. Faced with the humiliation she could expect when 1432 concert-goers arrived at the Opera House and found no Keith Jarrett and no concert, a desperate Vera Brandes followed him. Standing in the rain and speaking through the open window of his car, she pleaded with him to play. Jarrett looked out at the bedraggled teenager and took pity on her. After a few moments of silence, he said “Never forget. Only for you.” She never did forget. Thirty-six years later to the day, when the BBC brought a number of people who were involved with the concert back to Cologne for a reunion, she said “It still brings tears to my eyes.”

Brandes immediately went to work to find a replacement for the woeful piano. After calling everyone in the music community she could think of, she eventually located the Bosendorfer that was supposed to have been transported to the Opera House. What she could not find were the means to get it there. She then recruited a group of friends to help her push it through the streets of Cologne, but had to give up that idea when the piano tuner, who had just arrived to work on the “unplayable” piano, told her that trying to push the piano in the rain would ruin it.

“…the hell with everything else.”

Back at the hotel, Jarrett ran into one problem after another. Exhausted, he tried to nap but couldn’t manage it. Then he and Eicher went out to eat, according to Jarrett, “…in the hottest Italian restaurant I’ve ever been in, and I was sweating profusely. We were sitting with about ten people and everyone was served before I was. My food arrived fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be at the hall, and I had to gulp down food that was not very good in an overheated restaurant, having not slept for twenty-four hours.”

Tired, frustrated, uncomfortable, and in pain – he wore a brace throughout the whole tour in a futile attempt to reduce the chronic pain in his back – he made his way to the concert hall. “I remember going out on the stage,” he said later, ” [and] I was falling asleep. All I had to do was sit down and I’d be, not really falling asleep, but I was nodding and spacing out…When I finally had to go out on stage to play it was a relief…It was: I am now going out here with this piano – and the hell with everything else!”

“It was magic”

Jarrett walked onto the stage, sat down at the inadequate and flawed piano, and in front of 1432 people who, in the darkness were invisible to him, and began to play. When he played the first four notes, a ripple of laughter ran through the auditorium. In a moment of sly humor, he played the Opera House’s intermission bell, a signal that a concert was about to begin. “But just as quickly,” wrote Corinna da Fonseca-Wolheim in an October 11, 2008 Wall Street Journal article titled “A Jazz Night to Remember,” “the reaction turned into awed silence as Mr. Jarrett turned the banal and the familiar into something gorgeous and mysterious… In the Jazz world of 1975, the sheer beauty of the program was revolutionary.”

Vera Brandes, standing in the wings, held her breath: As she remembered later, “the minute he played the first note, everybody knows this was magic. Something is going on here that is going to be remarkable.”

And the magic continued for over an hour. People who were there remembered how absolutely silent the people were, as if they could hardly believe what they were hearing. They seemed utterly transfixed by the improvisations that Jarrett was creating. Brandes, unable to stay in one place, roamed throughout the hall. “I wanted to see it from all perspectives. Each door I opened, it was the same kind of magic.”

Witnessing “the act of creation itself.”

The Koln Concert is undoubtedly Keith Jarrett’s most famous album and many consider it to be the best concert he ever played. Certainly it is the one most beloved by Jarrett’s fans. By 2013 the album had sold more than 3.5 million copies, making it the best-selling solo jazz album or solo piano album ever. Musicologist Peter Elsdon considers it to be a worthy fourth member of the pantheon of the best jazz albums ever recorded which include Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (1959), Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters (1973), and Dave Brubeck’s Time Out (1959).

But it was more than a best-selling album. It was, according to Fonseca-Wolheim a “lasting work of art:”

“..It is not likely to be forgotten…In fact, what makes the album
extraordinary is that the music, created out of nothing over a space of an evening decades ago, has stood the test of time as a lastingwork of art. Far from being a memorial monument, the record givesthe listener the opportunity to witness the act of creation itself, to
participate in the making of art.”

How Did It Happen?

After the concert, Jarrett did not seem to understand what he had wrought during that hour on the stage. It was not until later in the car on their way to another venue of the tour that he and Martin Eicher listened to the cassette of the concert, and, in spite of some reservations about the technical quality, decided to release the recording later that year. It was received with ecstatic reviews. On December 29, 1975, Time Magazine listed The Koln Concert as one of their Records of the Year.

After the world-wide success of the album, many people, including Jarrett himself, have attempted to explain how it happened. “It sounds free,” said Jarrett, “but it also sounds like it’s moving from one thought to another without any separation, without any jump…I think,” he continued, “that the album is full of really rich ideas…”

Semi-Comatose State

Biographer Ian Carr heard in the music a “warmth and friendliness” which he felt were rare. His term for it was “benign.” Why benign? “…there is none of the struggle and stress which exhilarates and disturbs” on Jarrett’s other great solo albums, suggests Carr. Why no struggle or stress in the music made in Cologne? Carr believes that the turmoil and turbulence that had taken place before that concert had drained it away, leaving Jarrett in a “semi-comatose” state making his time on the stage “a refuge from that struggle and stress – an escape.” As a result, the music unfolded at a leisurely pace which resulted in “greater simplicity and a folksy, ruminative quality [which] gave the whole concert a clarity…which makes the music much more accessible to a lay public.” Nevertheless, he added, “Jarrett creates some hypnotically beautiful music which has an identity of its own.”

It Was The Piano

Others believed that it was the piano with all of its liabilities that made the difference between a good performance and the “performance of a lifetime.” Manfred Eicher, Jarrett’s colleague and record producer said “Probably he played it the way he did because it was not a good piano. Because he could not fall in love with it he found another way to get the most out of it.”

Since he could not “fall in love” with the piano, his approach had to change: the condition of the piano set limits on what Jarrett could do. He quickly discovered that he would have to play much louder. “What’s important to understand is the proportion between the instrument and the magnitude of the hall,” recalls Vera Brandes. “Jarrett really had to play that piano very hard to get enough volume to get to the balconies. He was really – pchow – pushing the notes down.”

He also had to make further adjustments. Since the lower registers of the piano were unresponsive, and the higher registers sounded “tinny,” he had to confine himself for most of the time to the middle registers. And that led to a lot of repetitive rhythms because according to Carr, “it is in the lower middle areas of the piano that such rhythms ‘speak’ and sound best.” And since the pedals did not function properly, Jarrett largely gave up sonority in favor of rhythm. “…He plays the entire concert within the limitations of his instrument, “writes Carr, “and even within this narrow confine, he achieves a state of… inspired grace.”

Improvising Improvisation

Jarrett is renowned for his mastery of improvisation. A claim that he is among the most skillful improvisers on the piano, if not the most skillful, would attract little disagreement (If not Jarrett, then who?). He mastered his craft by taking on a personal challenge that can only be called audacious: In 1973 he scheduled a tour of Europe during which he played eighteen solo concerts, and then again in 1975, he followed up with a second tour of twenty-four solo concerts. At each of these concerts, he would walk out on to the stage, sit down at the piano, and for an hour or more he would improvise: go wherever his musical muses wanted to go. Gradually, and with great effort and dedication, he became what biographer Ian Carr called the “greatest improviser of all time.”

There is ample evidence that supports Carr’s claim. When recordings of two of these concerts from 1973 – Lausanne, Switzerland in March and Bremen, Germany in July – were released as a boxed set with the title Solo Concerts, according to biographer Ian Carr, they “caused an international sensation, received ecstatic reviews” and were given dozens of awards. The reviewer for Down Beat gave it five stars and asserted confidently: “If this is not music for everyman, then everyman is lost in the void.”

By the time Jarrett arrived in Cologne in January of 1975 he was as ready musically for the Opera House concert as he could be. But as we have seen. the Opera House was not ready for him. An unexpected complication had been added into the mix: he had to play the concert on a substandard, wholly inadequate piano that sounded like it belonged in a bar rather than on the stage of the Opera House.

Yet for the history of jazz, the sorry state of the piano may have been a blessing. Jarrett could no longer rely on a superb instrument to showcase the remarkable improvisation skills that he had so painstakingly learned during the previous years. Forced into uncharted territory by his fatigue, discomfort, and pain, and by the presence of an “unplayable” piano, he had to improvise differently: he had to improvise new ways of improvising. As it turned out, he was more than up to the challenge; he exceeded all expectations, including his own.

Jarrett’s Choices

In the 1940’s the American psychoanalyst Karen Horney proposed a model of human behavior that identified ten basic behaviors that were the foundations of all neuroses. She divided these ten behaviors into three categories: Moving Away, Moving Against, and Moving Toward people and situations.

Moving Away behaviors are those that result in people leaving, retreating from, or abandoning unpleasant and difficult situations.

Moving Against are generally aggressive and hostile actions, including condemning, attacking, blaming, and humiliating.

Moving Toward are those behaviors that accept situations as they are, often embracing them, and then exerting good-faith efforts to make things better.

No one would have blamed Jarrett if, on that rainy night in the winter of 1975 in Cologne, Germany, he had chosen not to play the concert and had returned instead to his hotel in order to rest up for the grueling concert dates that lay ahead. After all, the explicit conditions that he had spelled out in the contract had not been met. Not only had the promoters not provided the piano that he had specified, what was left in its place was a parody of a grand piano.

Few would have been surprised if he had lashed out at Vera Brandes for the deplorable conditions that he encountered and ended up blaming her for the whole mess.

But that was not what he chose to do:

– He moved toward the problem and began to make choices that led irresistibly to what became among the greatest solo concerts that he, or anyone else, has ever played:

– After seeing the piano and realizing that it would not do, rather than return to the hotel, have dinner and get much needed rest, he took the time to listen to, and be influenced by, the anguished teen-ager standing in the rain and pleading with him to play.

– His decision to play the concert was a decision for her benefit rather that his own: “Never forget,” he told her. “Just for you.”

– He put aside his fatigue, discomfort, and frustrations and, in his words, by “emptying myself,” let the unconscious processes take over the making of the music, began to play.

– He adopted a “what the hell” attitude: “When I finally got out on the stage and play it was a relief…I am going out here with this piano – and the hell with everything else.”

– And he held nothing back. In Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives, Tim Harford describes Jarrett playing that piano that night: “Standing up, sitting down, moaning, writhing, Jarrett didn’t hold back in any way as he pummeled the unplayable piano to produce something unique.” As one person who was there said 36 years later, “He was utterly there!”

Embracing the Mess

Organizational theorist Russell Ackoff once observed that most of the situations we call “problems” are not problems at all, but “messes,” collections and combinations of potential problems that are in a state of constant flux. “[We] don’t solve problems, we manage messes,” he wrote. That most people lack the skills necessary to be good problem solvers is a truism. That most people lack the abilities to manage messes is an unhappy reality.

When Jarret arrived in Cologne on the rainy afternoon in 1975, what he discovered was a “mess.” Rather than moving away or against it, he moved toward it and, by finding and dealing with the problems in the mess one at a time, began the difficult process of “managing” it.

When Vera Brandes heard the first notes that Jarrett played that night, she said, “Something is going on here that is going to be remarkable.” Paul Gambaccini, the moderator of the 2011 BBC Radio 4 program “For One Night Only: Keith Jarrett and the Koln Concert” had his own opinion: “Even the simple superlative ‘remarkable’ is an understatement.”

“It wasn’t the music that he ever imagined playing,” wrote Tim Horford in 2016. “But handed a mess, he embraced it, and soared.”

Success Story: George Washington at Newburgh

Joseph Bentley — Sun, 17 May 2015 17:19:59 +0000

May 12, 2015

In Steve Martin’s play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein find themselves in a bar in Paris in 1904. One year later, Einstein published The Special Theory of Relativity, and Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon.

In this scene, Germaine, a waitress, is trying to be helpful to Einstein. The issue she is trying to help with is “How many people do you have to influence in order to be successful?”

Germaine: Einstein, I’m trying to help you here. You want your book to have impact, don’t you?

Einstein: Sure.

Germaine: And it you want it to have impact, you’ve got to have people read it, don’t you?

Einstein: Yes…

Germaine: Okay, in your field, how many people do you figure have to read your book to have some impact?

Einstein: One.

Germaine: No, no, no. In order for your book to have impact, you’ve got to get a lot of people to read it; every man in the street has got to have one.

Einstein: No, only one. Max

Germaine: Max?

Einstein: Max Planck, a German physicist, very influential. If he reads it, he makes my reputation.

Germaine: Well, you’re lucky. If your market is one person and you know his name, you can put a limit on what you’re going to spend on advertising…

We Are In the Influence Business

This issue – how many people do we need to influence in order to make progress toward our goals – is an important one, and, together with its counterpart, “How should we go about influencing these people,” make up a substantial part of our personal agendas. Whether we like it or not, we are all in the “influence business,” from trying to make a good impression, to attempting to persuade others to agree with us, to recruiting others to join us in our plans and projects. Once in a while, like Einstein, our focus is on one other person: A colleague, spouse, boss, child, or neighbor. Many times, however, we are faced with the more complicated challenge of influencing many people at the same time. Our efforts to convince and persuade others continue throughout our lives. We are never finished with our attempts to bring people over to our side.

While there are many issues about which we want to influence and persuade others, if we intend to make progress toward our goals there is one that is among the most important: Helping other people understand the differences between tame and wicked problems. When we are working with other people on problems, most of which will be wicked, understanding the nature of the problem on the table is a critical first step. After all, what we are facing is not a common, run-of-the-mill problem but an uncommon one, one with special characteristics and complicating elements.

Why Worry about Differences Between Tame and Wicked?

Why is it important that we persuade others that wicked problems are different? Among the many reasons there are three that stand out. First, Quantity: Most of our most important problems are wicked and not tame. There is and there will be an endless parade of wicked problems to be addressed and managed. Second, Quality: Wicked problems are qualitatively different than tame ones. The difference is not just apples and oranges, but more like apples and watermelons. And finally, Approach: Understanding the difference between tame and wicked helps reveal an important truth: We cannot treat wicked problems as if they were tame. If we do – a frequent mistake – we will make little progress, and the probability of making things worse rises precipitously. Wicked problems require an entirely different approach than do tame ones.

What we must be good at, then, is teaching and persuading others about the nature of the problems we face, then guiding them toward the most appropriate action steps to take . Unlike Einstein and his task of persuading Max Planck, we often find ourselves going beyond attempting to persuade one other person and instead, reach out to groups of people: Families, teams, organizations, and in the case of elected officials, communities and nations.

George Washington Saves the Nation

An example from our country’s history offers us a success story in how to persuade others and helps us identify the skills and abilities needed to do it successfully. As the Revolutionary War was drawing to a close, George Washington, in circumstances fraught with danger, faced up to a problem that was not only wicked, but one that threatened the very survival of the emerging nation of the United States.

In March, 1783, the Revolutionary Army, while waiting for a peace treaty with England to be signed in Paris, was wintering at Newburgh, New York. On March 10, an unsigned paper circulated among the senior officers of the army. It invited them to a meeting to be held the next day to consider measures to pressure the Continental Congress into meeting their demands for redress of their many grievances. Congress had been consistently delinquent in paying salaries and providing resources with which to wage the war against England, and the officers by then had had enough. Since the meeting had not been called by Washington, who was Commander of the Armies, it was contrary to regulations and bordered on mutiny. Even more ominously, the letter hinted that the only way forward was for the military to take over the government.

Alexander Hamilton, among others, told Washington not to be concerned. The officers would meet and discuss their complaints, he believed, but it was not serious and the matter would be quickly forgotten.

Washington thought otherwise. As the historian Alexander Flexner wrote in George Washington in the America Revolution (1775-1783), he was filled with ” ‘inexpressible concern.’ He had been prepared for nothing like this. He considered it a ‘storm which had gathered so suddenly and unexpectedly’….He saw that if the army were allowed to terrorize civilians for political ends, the whole future of the United States would have been turned into a new course.”

So Washington wrote to Hamilton that it was his duty to “arrest on the spot the foot that stood wavering on a tremendous precipice, to prevent the officers from being taken by surprise while the passions were all inflamed, and to rescue them from plunging themselves into a gulf of civil horror from which there might be no receding…”

Washington then took two preemptive steps: First he issued an order expressing “disapprobation of such disorderly proceedings;” and second, he called a meeting of his own to be held several days later on March 15. If the officers decided meet on March 15th, rather than participating in a possibly treasonous meeting they would be attending a legal one sponsored by Washington himself. Washington gave them cover. He wanted the officers to gather together where he could have a chance to confront them directly. When informing the senior officers of the meeting, Washington had indicated that he would not attend, and that the “senior officer in rank present will be pleased to preside and report the proceedings to the Commander in Chief.”

When the meeting was called to order by the second in command of the army, Horatio Gates, the “conspirators,” according to Flexner, “were pleased to see that Washington had adhered to his resolution:” He was not present. Suddenly, a door near the front of the hall opened. “Everyone turned their heads, and then His Excellency strode out into general view.” Washington appeared to be “sensibly agitated.” For the first time in his military career since he had won the hearts of the army in 1776 in Cambridge, “he saw in the faces of his officers not affection, not pleasure in his being present, but resentment, embarrassment, and in some cases anger.”

Washington came prepared. In a speech that lasted 15 or 20 minutes he told the officers that he not only sympathized with them, but he supported them in their efforts to find remedies for the many abuses that Congress had heaped upon them. What was of greatest concern, Washington added, was the way that they choose to express their dissatisfaction and unhappiness:

“Let me conjure you, in the name of our common country, as you value your sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity,…to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes..to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood gates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood.”

When Washington finished speaking, he looked at the men he had led in the past six years through so much sacrifice and realized that he had failed to move them. “…the chill in the Temple had not thawed,” writes Flexner. “The familiar faces looking up at him were uneasy, perplexed, sullen.” After pausing for a minute of two, seemingly unsure what to do next, Washington reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “This was a letter from a member of Congress” Washington said,”that would show the officers that that body was trying to deal with their problems. He would read it.”

The officers stirred impatiently in their seats, as if to say “You cannot convince us with more empty words.”

Then, in Flexner’s words, “suddenly every heart missed a beat. Something was wrong with His Excellency.” He seem confused and uncertain. “Then, fumbling in his waistcoat pocket he pulled out something that only his intimates had seen him wear. A pair of glasses. With infinite sweetness and melancholy, he explained, ‘Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.’ ”

“This simple statement,” continues Flexner, “achieved all that Washington’s rhetoric and all his arguments had been unable to achieve. The officers were instantly in tears, and, from the behind the shining drops, their eyes looked with love at the commander who had led them all so far and so long.”

Washington then read the letter, turned and walked out of the hall, mounted his horse and rode away. The incipient revolution was over and everyone knew it. All except the most determined of the conspirators “returned to their quarters with a sense of happiness at their own noble behavior and with gratitude to their leader who had led them [back] into virtuous paths.”

The Newburgh Conspiracy was one of the greatest tests of Washington’s leadership, and it was resolved peacefully and respectfully.

What If He Had Failed?

If Washington had failed to persuade the officers to change course they were on “The result would have certainly been been..bloodshed,” writes Flexner. If the officers of the army had attempted to take over the government, the state’s governments would certainly have resisted with force, and the result would have been civil war. “Had expeditionary forces captured all thirteen capitals, even that would not necessarily have pacified the countryside.” And what would have followed? Flexner believed that eventually there would have emerged from the tumult and turmoil several small nations, each of which would have been susceptible to threats from the European powers, especially England.

“Americans can never be adequately grateful” writes Flexner, “that George Washington possessed the power and the will to intervene successfully in what may well have been the most dangerous hour the United States has ever known.”

Why Washington Succeeded

During the Revolutionary War Washington faced many crises that threatened to bring to an end the struggle for independence in the American colonies. The mutiny of the officers at Newburgh was without a doubt the most serious. When faced with this most “wicked” of wicked problems, Washington rose to meet the challenge and was able to exert his “power and will” upon the hundreds of angry and frustrated officers who had decided to take matters into their own hands.

How did he do it?

He perceived the difference between Signal and Noise: Throughout all of the years of the war, the soldiers and their officers were unhappy, restive and frustrated with the way they were treated by Congress and by the various states that had sent them to war. Yet when Washington learned of the scheduled meeting, he instinctively knew that this not the normal “noise” in the system, but an important “signal” that something serious was afoot.

Being able to separate out the “signals” from the “noise” is an important, even crucial ability.

He moved toward the problem: When confronted by a wicked problem, one can turn Away From the Problem – ignore it, leave the field, deny that it exists; or can turn Against the Problem – attack those who seem to be responsible; or move Toward It – ready to do whatever is required. Washington moved with alacrity and energy toward the festering problem that threatened to create such havoc.

He was prepared: In preparation for his appearance before the officers in the Temple, he spent the better part of a day preparing what he wanted to say to them. Did he also plan his gesture with the spectacles? No one knows. Whether planned or intuitive, however, it was a brilliant move.

He embraced the “mess”: Once Washington grasped the importance of what was about to happen, he made himself responsible for dealing with it. He “owned” it. He went to the meeting prepared to take whatever actions were required.

He took the initiative: There was nothing timid or half-hearted about Washington’s actions. They were robust and decisive. He let the officers know at once that their actions were unacceptable. He set up his own meeting, then strode into the very center of the “mess” and took control.

He showed understanding for their concerns: In addition to letting them know that what they were planning was unacceptable, even treasonous, he called his own meeting and made it possible for them to avoid getting involved in unlawful acts.

He identified with the officers: Washington shared the officer’s concerns and he let them know it. Throughout the war his most frequent communications with Congress were to plead for more support.

He did not attack nor blame: Rather than blame, accuse, or demean the officers, he reasoned with them. And when that did not work, he shared his own experiences with them

He possessed “political capital” and knew how and when to use it: Political capital is a non-monetary resource available to people to use when they set out to persuade or influence others. It consists primarily of three elements: One’s reputation in the eyes of important others; the positive quality of the relationships that have been built in the past; and one’s past track record in achieving success. When setting out to persuade others to come over to one’s position, those who have it can “call in their chips.” With the country at large, and especially with the soldiers and officers, Washington’s reputation was immense and unassailable. The history of the United States, and perhaps of the world, contains no example of a man so honored, so revered or so respected as was George Washington. At the same time, his relationships with his key officers, while not warm or intimate, were strong. When on March 15, 1783, he went to the meeting hall to meet with the officers, he possessed a reservoir of political capital and was ready to use it.

He was clear about the future consequences of their actions: When speaking to the officers, he reminded them that actions have consequences, and that drastic actions have drastic consequences. The officers were worried about their short-term privations and mistreatments. Washington focused upon the larger perspective and the long-term repercussions of the drastic act they were contemplating a revolt against the lawful government. He did what only he could do: Share the larger perspective of situations and events.

He reframed the event from treason to seeking common understanding and solving problems peacefully: Rather than accuse the men of treason – something that in a technical sense was true – Washington reframed what was happening from rebellion and treason to more positive ways of solving problems.

He did the unexpected: Having informed the leaders of the incipient revolution that he would not attend, he suddenly appeared and, catching them by surprise, changed the narrative from “let’s decide how to take over the government” to “let us reason together to find solutions.”

He was flexible: When he saw that the reasonable approach he had counted upon was not working, he changed his approach.

He made it personal: Among all of the ways to influence others, appropriate self-disclosure is among the most powerful. Sharing one’s personal feelings, worries and concerns in timely and appropriate ways can go beyond reason and logic and touch the emotions. This is tricky business, however, and must be done skillfully. When Washington, with “infinite sweetness and melancholy” explained that he could not read the letter without his spectacles because he had become ” almost blind in the service of my country,” he clearly touched the hearts of the officers, leading them to changing their purposes and goals.

His understood the power of a dramatic moment: Not only did Washington appear unexpectedly, but once he saw that his aim had been achieved, he knew it was time to leave. Without a word he left the hall, mounted his horse and rode away. His dramatic exit added to the emotional power of the moment.

Very few of us will ever be called upon to intervene in such a serious problem with such far reaching implications as Washington at Newburgh. But each of us will be offered many opportunities to convince others that what we are struggling with is not only a serious problem but is also a wicked one. Our ability to persuade others may make all of the difference.

Not If, But When

The reality is not if we will face a time when we must persuade others that the times are dire and require a different approach but when that challenge will present itself. The words of another great president are instructive. In the darkest days of the Civil Way, Abraham Lincoln wrote to the Congress, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew…”

Being prepared and ready to persuade others to think and act differently is both a challenge and an opportunity. When the occasion is “piled high with difficulty,” do we possess, as did Washington at Newburgh, “the power and the will to intervene successfully?” If yes, then when our time comes to lead others to “think anew and act anew,” we will be prepared. If the answer is no, then our learning agenda is clear. We have a great deal of work to do!