The Push and Pull of Great Teamwork

“Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower

I was struck by this quote that I heard again recently and it made reflect a little bit on some of the different analogies I’ve used that relate leadership to playing music, and specifically the role of the drummer in a band. Simply because I have played in the same band for the last 10+ years, I had come to reflect on some of the similarities I have felt sitting in the drummer’s seat and my own leadership experiences.

The drummer may not always be seen (in the smallest of venues I can be squashed in at the back, hidden behind the horn section, the singers, guitarist and bass player!) – but you will definitely be heard…..and more importantly you have a real responsibility for holding the band together, setting the tempo, and crucially for keeping the time through your playing.

Sometimes you need to push forward to keep the momentum and pace, sometimes you need to pull back and allow different band members to shine, or even to slow the pace when it’s getting away with itself. You also need to be prepared to recognise that if you set the pace wrong in the first place, you will need to correct it along the way.

I’ve felt those moments in a leadership context too.

There are plenty of articles that talk about the difference between a manager and leader – the manager who pushes and the leader who pulls. That resonates with me…..and I’m reminded in my coaching experiences very often that the best answers to the questions being asked are the most powerful and resonant when they emerge, pulled from the different perspectives, conversation, intuition and exploration, that also includes the feelings and emotion in the room. While a straight piece of (pushed) advice might be appreciated, it’s usually better when wrapped in the experience of the moment and what is needed at that time (pulling the conversation along together with that nugget of extra information and additional perspective).

Simply handing out advice feels like the ‘pushing’ bit. The part where you think “I recognise what’s happening here and I have the answer!”, and you throw it into the conversation, expecting it to move on from there. The combination of that thought and that action is very often the moment when you stopped really listening, especially if you’ve attached yourself to that answer instead of being open to evolving it to a better one. That requires that you a continue on and that you are really listening to the perspectives and noticing the shifts around you as that better answer emerges.

So if you’ve felt those moments to “push” along, maybe in some sense of impatience, haste or frustration that things aren’t picking up exactly how you had imagined they would, what do you do? I really do believe that the answer lies in a continuous curiosity, a willingness to use questions to deepen understanding and the sharing of advice as a guidance and input to prompt rather than to force it all along. Why? Because in all cases of teams I’ve ever worked with, the long game always plays out best when all voices are heard, everyone is able to contribute, they are compelled and pulled by a real sense of direction together, and it doesn’t feel like being forced, or pushed, against your will.

So how does all this work out with my original drummer in the band analogy?

Well, the one thing that unites the band I play in is that we all play for one reason and one reason alone.  We love to perform. We want to perform to the absolute best of our abilities, each and every one of us, and we want to entertain our audience. We want to infect them with our passion and energy for the music. We want our audiences to have fun and to have fun with us, be inspired and to want to see us again. And for that we are prepared to practice even when we sometimes don’t feel like it, to prepare and make sure we know our parts, and have the mindset that "we know our shit" and be ready to go for it.

As the drummer in this band, I know that I will need to “push” when we’ve started off too slow, or “pull” when we’ve set off too fast (usually through my own over excitement in the moment – the great drummer’s sin!), and certainly not to crowd out those great moments for the other band members to shine. I also know that it won’t always be me that does that. But, because I know that everyone is in it together, we’ve already made it through the questions -  the “whys?”, the “who are we’s?” and the “what fors?” -  it doesn’t really feel like push and pull at all. It actually just feels like we are out to do a great concert, with everyone playing their part, and that it just feels really good to be playing together and feeling those electric moments when we absolutely nail it.