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Doing nothing much well is critical

Where we sat provided a clear view of one of the trombonists.  He sat there for ages and ages and appeared to be "away with the fairies" or doing nothing.  When the time came he took maybe two seconds to get ready played a few bars and put his trombone down - and back  to doing nothing.

Two things struck me: -
  • The organisation was relaxed about it - the rest of the orchestra didn't reduce its pace or effort because he wasn't working as hard as them, the conductor wasn't pointing at him or stopping the show to have a discussion about his effort, he was happy to do nothing when that was what he had to do;
  • The right thing for him to do was nothing - imagine if he had felt like "I need to be doing something" and so played some random notes here and there.  

There are sometimes in business (and life) where the best thing to do is nothing for the moment.

While I was busy thinking about this my daughter thought I had gone to sleep and so gave me the "nudge".  Not sure she knew that I was meant to be doing nothing :-)


 

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