I’m in sixth grade. I made a mistake in music class. 

Mr. Scott turns red and breaks the little stick that conductors use. 

He didn’t belittle us, but he genuinely got angry when his students didn’t perform as well as he knew we could.

Yes, I was afraid of my elementary school band teacher. But damn we had a good band. 

—

Fast forward a couple years. I’m in middle school and we have a new band teacher. He’s super chill. 

We goof off (as middle schoolers are known to do), and he doesn’t seem to mind. 

We regress in skill. The band is now terrible. It was so bad that I quit the next year out of embarrassment. 

—

The surface-level takeaway is that you need to get angry to have good performers.

Not true. 

The difference was high standards. 

One teacher expected more from his students. The other expected less. 

—

Talented people thrive in cultures with high standards. 

They wither away or walk away in places with low standards. 

I’ve seen this time & again at work. 

But no examples are as clear to me as those distinct differences in band.