imapMyTeam Blog

The Beat and the Tempo; Who’s Your Drummer and What’s Their Rhythm?

On a recent drive from New York to Pittsburgh I had lots of time to think and listen to music. Earlier I had created a playlist called ‘Drum Fix’ and queued it up for the drive home. In listening to one great song after another I focused my ear on the drummer. If you’re passionate about music, I think you will agree – all great groups have a great drummer!

While most great drummers become well known for extreme precision in providing their creative and complex beat patterns, their first and foremost responsibility is to provide a solid tempo and rhythm for the rest of the band. A great drummer is always listening to the rest of the instruments (parts). They know when it’s time to slow down or speed up the tempo to either simply hold the band together, or to deliver a truly unique performance.

Companies typically have a corporate culture that creates an operating rhythm or beat and tempo that they like everything played to. Leaders are a lot like drummers. They have to understand the outcome (song) that the company wants to play, and then they need to lead their team by providing the beat and tempo to accomplish that.

Leaders, like drummers, have beat and tempo responsibility and set it for their team.

It gets interesting when the team is comprised of many people each of which has a beat and tempo that works best for them – and what works well for them may not be in sync with the beat and tempo that is being set for them.

How does the leader take a group of people, with varying capacity for beat and tempo, and make a beautiful song? The “Getting Things Done” snapshot report in imapMyTeam is a one good place to start!

There are 3 important keys to understand about the team when it’s important to move at the “tempo of business.” Unlike a band playing a song, not everyone tackles action items the same way or at the same pace and there is no “correct” approach. However, moving forward at an appropriate pace is essential.

• Process for making decisions,

• How they prefer to move those decisions into action and,

• How they are most comfortable working all of the various ‘to-do’s’ on their action lists.

The Getting Things Done snapshot helps the leader understanding each individual’s:




Have conversation with your ‘band’ about how you can best support them in the above three categories and soon you will be playing sweet music that meets the needs of the business.