Olivia: A study at UC Berkeley found that the job satisfaction of a typical orchestra musician ranks just below that of a prison guard. Jackson: Whoa. That's bleak. I picture classical music as this elegant, fulfilling career. What on earth is going on there? Olivia: It's the perfect setup for what we're talking about today—how breaking the oldest rules of leadership can unlock genius and, apparently, happiness. Jackson: I'm all for more happiness and less prison-guard-level morale. What's the source for this revelation? Olivia: This comes from a fascinating book, Practically Radical: Not-So-Crazy Ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry, and Challenge Yourself by William C. Taylor. Jackson: Taylor... isn't he the guy who co-founded Fast Company magazine? Olivia: Exactly. And you can feel that journalistic, story-first DNA all over this book. He's not just giving abstract theory; he's on the ground, finding these incredible stories of transformation in the most unlikely places. The book itself got a pretty warm reception for its inspiring ideas, though some readers felt it was a bit of a cheerleader, focusing only on the wins. Jackson: A professional optimist, then. I can work with that. So where does he start? If you want to be 'practically radical,' what's the first move? Olivia: Well, the book argues the first step to radical change isn't a new idea, but a new way of seeing. Taylor calls it 'vuja dé'.

Jackson: Vuja dé? As in, the opposite of déjà vu? Olivia: Precisely. Déjà vu is that strange feeling you’ve seen something new before. Vuja dé is the opposite: looking at a familiar situation as if you’ve never seen it before. It’s about stripping away all your assumptions and asking, "Why do we do it this way?" Jackson: That sounds simple, but I imagine it's incredibly hard in practice. We're creatures of habit. Olivia: It is. And to illustrate it, Taylor uses one of the most powerful stories in the book, and it has nothing to do with a tech startup or a Fortune 500 company. It’s about the police department in Providence, Rhode Island. Jackson: Okay, you have my attention. Policing isn't exactly the first place I'd look for radical innovation. Olivia: In the early 2000s, it wasn't. The city was struggling with gang violence, and there was a huge disconnect between the police and the communities they served. The new Chief of Police, Dean Esserman, came in and saw the problem with 'vuja dé' eyes. He said, "We have moved from the 'cop on the beat' to anonymous blue soldiers. We are strangers in your midst." Jackson: I can see that. The police car replaced the foot patrol, and you lost that personal connection. Olivia: Exactly. So Esserman decided to do something that sounded completely insane. He took the weekly police command meetings—these high-level, confidential strategy sessions where they discuss open cases, gang activity, and undercover operations—and he opened them up to the public. Jackson: Hold on. He invited ordinary citizens into police strategy meetings? That sounds like a recipe for chaos, or at the very least, tipping off all the bad guys. How did that not backfire spectacularly? Olivia: That’s what everyone thought! But the opposite happened. Suddenly, you had community leaders, social workers, pastors, and even just concerned residents sitting in the room. They weren't just listening; they were contributing. A detective would mention a problem with a kid, and a pastor in the back would say, "I know his family, let me talk to them." Jackson: Wow. So it turned into a city-wide problem-solving session. Olivia: It went even further. Esserman built a partnership with an organization run by a man named Teny Gross, who employed former gang members and convicted felons as "street workers." These were people who had credibility in the toughest neighborhoods. When a situation got tense, the cops would call in the street workers to de-escalate it before it turned violent. Jackson: Cops and ex-cons working together. That is a 'vuja dé' perspective if I've ever heard one. What was the result of all this? Olivia: It was stunning. Over the first five years of Esserman's tenure, total crime in Providence dropped by 30 percent. Murders were down 39 percent. He didn't invent a new technology or get a bigger budget. He just changed the way he saw the problem—from one of enforcement to one of community relationship. He looked at the familiar and saw it fresh.

Jackson: So Esserman's genius was seeing policing not as enforcement, but as a community relationship. That's a total reframe. It seems like the next step in the book is about taking that unique vision and making it your entire identity. Olivia: You've nailed the transition. Taylor's next big idea is that in a world of endless choice, the only way to stand out is to be "the most of something." Not just a little bit better, but radically, fundamentally different. And his poster child for this is Zappos. Jackson: The online shoe company. I know them for their great customer service, but what makes them "radically" different? Olivia: It’s the extremity of their focus. Their CEO, Tony Hsieh, famously said, "Our whole philosophy is to take most of the money we would spend on marketing, put it into the customer experience, and let word of mouth be our true form of marketing." Jackson: A lot of companies say they focus on the customer, though. That feels like standard corporate-speak. Olivia: But Zappos takes it to a level that defies conventional business logic. There's a legendary story in the book. Hsieh was at a conference with some executives from the shoe brand Skechers. It was late, they'd been out, and they got back to the hotel craving a pizza, but room service was closed. Jackson: A classic late-night dilemma. Olivia: One of the Skechers execs jokingly suggested, "Call Zappos!" So, on a dare, he did. He called the Zappos customer service line and explained his predicament. The Zappos rep on the other end didn't laugh or hang up. She put him on a brief hold, looked up late-night pizza places near his hotel in Santa Monica, and came back with a list of five places that were still open and delivering. Jackson: You're kidding me. A shoe company's call center acted as a personal concierge for a rival company's executive to find pizza? Olivia: Yes! And that story became legendary inside Zappos as the gold standard. It’s not about the transaction; it's about the human connection. They take this so far that if you call looking for a specific shoe and they're out of stock, their reps are trained to search at least three competitor websites to find it for you and will direct you there. Jackson: That's wild. They're actively sending business to their competitors? What is the logic behind that? Olivia: The logic is that they lose that one sale, but they create a customer for life. They've built a "wow" experience that the customer will tell everyone about. That single act of service is more powerful than a million-dollar ad campaign. They're not just the best at customer service; they are "the most" customer-obsessed company, period. And it works—on any given day, over 75% of their sales are from repeat customers. Jackson: So being "the most" is about choosing one value and turning the dial up to 11, even when it seems irrational. Olivia: Exactly. It's about being different on purpose. In a crowded market, being pretty good at everything makes you invisible. Being the most of something makes you unforgettable.

Olivia: And both of these stories—the police chief and Zappos—point to a different kind of leader. It’s not the typical top-down, all-knowing genius. Which brings us back to that orchestra statistic from the beginning. Jackson: Right, the musicians who are less happy than prison guards. I've been waiting for the payoff on that one. Olivia: The reason for that low morale, the study suggests, is that in a traditional orchestra, the conductor is the celebrated genius, and the musicians are often treated as interchangeable, highly skilled technicians who are just there to execute the conductor's vision. There's no room for their own creative input. Jackson: They're instruments for the conductor's instrument. Olivia: A perfect way to put it. But there's an orchestra that completely shatters this model: the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. They are a world-renowned, Grammy-winning group, and they have no conductor. Jackson: How is that even possible? How do dozens of musicians stay in sync, interpret the music, and perform at an elite level without a leader out front waving a baton? Olivia: They do it by distributing leadership. For each piece of music, a small "core group" of musicians is elected by their peers to shape the interpretation. But in rehearsals, everyone—from the first violin to the third bassoon—is expected to speak up, offer critiques, and share ideas. It’s a system of constant, respectful, peer-to-peer dialogue. Taylor calls the leadership style that enables this "humbition." Jackson: Humbition. It sounds like a made-up word, but I have a feeling it's important. Olivia: It's a blend of humility and ambition. The humility to admit you don't have all the answers, and the ambition to create a system that can find the answers from anywhere. The leaders at Orpheus aren't trying to be the hero; they're trying to tap into the "hidden genius" of the entire group. Jackson: Ah, so the low morale for regular musicians comes from being treated like cogs in a machine. Orpheus flips that entirely by making every single person a leader. Olivia: Exactly. And it creates this palpable energy in their performances that audiences can feel. Every musician is playing with 100% commitment because they have ownership over the final product. Jackson: This sounds amazing, but the book has been criticized for being a bit too much of a cheerleader, only showing the wins. Does this 'humbitious' model work everywhere, or just in these very specific, creative environments like an orchestra or a software company? Olivia: That’s a really fair and important critique. Taylor doesn't spend much time on the failures of radical ideas. And you're right, you probably can't run an emergency room or an army battalion exactly like the Orpheus orchestra. But the underlying principles are transferable. It's about asking: "Where in my organization is there hidden genius I'm not tapping into? How can I create systems where more people feel safe to contribute their best ideas?" It's less about copying the model and more about adopting the mindset.

Jackson: So it seems the thread connecting all these radical ideas is letting go. Letting go of old assumptions, like the Providence police did. Letting go of the need to be average and safe, like Zappos. And letting go of the idea that the leader has to be the sole genius in the room, like the Orpheus orchestra. Olivia: That's a beautiful synthesis. It’s about moving from a mindset of control to a mindset of unleashing potential. And Taylor’s challenge to the reader at the end of the book is so simple but so profound. He asks, "Are you the most of anything?" Jackson: I love that. It’s a question that really sticks with you. Olivia: It is. And it’s a powerful question to take back to your own work or life. What is the one thing you or your team could be the absolute best at, even if the path to get there seems a little crazy at first? It’s not about being reckless; it's about being purposefully, practically radical. Jackson: That’s a great place to end. We'd be curious to hear what our listeners think. What's one 'practically radical' idea you've seen work in the real world? Or what would you want to be 'the most' of? Let us know. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.