Keep your team in harmony
Keep your team in harmony
We had a fascinating new business meeting this morning – an inspiring architect/designer with a growing firm. As often happens in these introductory meetings, we started riffing on the value of branding. He felt clear on his vision – but was disappointed that his team wasn’t feeling the same way.
My colleague Marawan offered this analogy to explain the value a brand brings to teams. “A brand is what gives a business harmony,” he said.
“A brand is what gives a business harmony.”
On any team, you need different types of musicians to play different kinds of instruments. They may play those instruments beautifully on their own – but for them to sound brilliant together, they need to be playing from the same songsheet.
But as we continued our discussion, our prospect posed an interesting question. What if he didn’t want to be a conductor? What if he wanted his team, his orchestra, to be able to perform on their own without him.
“That makes you Mozart,” said Marwan. As a Mozart, you’re the visionary. You define the brand philosophy. But then you need someone else to run the day-to-day. (EOS® Traction would call this person the Integrator.) But that makes it even more important to have everything that lives in your head documented, so everyone on your team sees your vision as clearly as you do.
The beauty of running a self-managed business is that it frees a visionary to be a visionary – to be the Mozart – and leave the rest of the members of the band to not just to play their parts, but to interpret it in a way that begins to build a more harmonious tune. Inevitably, the leader doesn’t even need to write more music – others can start to contribute their own variations on the theme.