Listen.

The most dangerous phrase in the language is “we’ve always done it this way.”    This is from Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, we champion this quote.  How might it apply to your band?

Over the past 12 years we’ve worked tirelessly to fulfill our mission to honor others through our music.   We help nurture and communicate to our members the value of the relationships which sustain our success, with the aim of improving piping and drumming quality, culture and tradition; we do not compromise people and the art.

We have to be sensitive to the fact we are dealing with people and a range of skill levels, so we tend to be conservative; yet, we can’t be static.

We might be able to buy a small island if we had a dollar for every time we heard a version of “We’ve always done it this way” or “Our band doesn’t do that“.  Doing things differently or trying new things fundamentally has nothing to do with being reckless or risky, but it does take courage and confidence to continually iterate in order to improve.  Courage to challenge yourself, question assumptions, and possibly admit you have been wrong.  Confidence you are smart and capable enough to responsibly navigate something new and make a correction if necessary.

How else will you know if “doing great” is really only “okay”?  We’ve found the bands and players who have the courage and confidence to try something new make significant gains in generating more success on and off the field.