Question

How might a jazz quartet, rock band or concert orchestra be viewed as a metaphor for a team in a business situation? Perhaps you should observe one or more of these types of groups in action before you reflect on your answer this question.

Answer 1

Music in its various forms can be compared to the business scenario and teams. As mentioned in the example we can take a look at 3 major forms of popular music: jazz quartet, orchestra and rock bands.

To understand the similarities it is vital to understand the music first.

Jazz quartet: Quartet music is composed of 4 singer or instruments or combination of both. But the limit is set to four. The musical composition is created in such a way that every member of the 4 gets equal span of attention and everyone plays a major role in the performance. A lot of immaculate planning goes into creating the music so that every aspect is in sync with each other

Rock band show: Rock bands are typically known to be driven by creative output and most of the time perform unplanned riffs and cameos on stage. The bands are also known to be more focused on one or two aspects in every songs be that the songs or guitar solos or the bass/drum solos.

Orchestra: It is an ensemble of multiple musicians performing each note to note in matching manner and providing a composite well practiced performance. The orchestra`s usually take years to practice together and get in sync with each other. High level detailing and planning goes into such teams.

Comparing the musical forms to business teams, we can easily identify such teams within the organization. There will always be teams who have good leader who ensures that his team is also put in the limelight and collective decision are taken. Lot of detailed planning also takes place. The second type of team will be dynamic in nature, creative and very often not follow the timelines given to them. Additionally there could be teams which are similar to orchestra who do thorough research on data, do detailed analysis and come up with conclusion only when things are crystal clear to them.

I have experienced one of the above teams in my current role. My role is similar to one in jazz quartet since we are a four member team and my manager ensures that all decision are taken collectively and we are given ample opportunities to learn and grow into the spotlight.

The IT team in my organization is very similar to rock band in terms that they are not able to follow timelines properly. They are able to provide out of the box solutions but the projects are never delivered on time.

The data science team is similar to orchestra. They have detailed studies on data, do detailed analysis and present well-structured decision making inferences from the data. Spending some time with them, we can understand that they must have spent a lot of time getting expertise in their domain before joining this team which is similar to the case with an orchestra. They also lot of different team members belonging to various backgrounds of discipline and education giving them a big diversity in the team.