Ubuntu: Whole Through Others

I am taking you straight into the heart of South Africa where Drum Cafe was born nearly 2 decades ago. From the very core of this country emanates the heartbeat you’re feeling now, as your read this. We’ve convened here this summer to talk about the future of Drum Cafe, now a global force that has changed the way communities connect with each other, beat by beat. It’s been a transformative time for all of us and as usual, I’m eager to trace the experience back to you.

We’ve all sat in rooms for presentations. There’s usually a few strong take-aways. I’ve had so many from this conference, but the one that strikes me so deeply now is a concept that I have understood since I was a child. And given my proclivity to sharing nuggets of wisdom, here comes a gem.

“Umunto Ngumuntu ngabantu”

“I am through others.”

This is the concept of ubuntu – how each person is made whole by their interactions with the people around them. It’s an ancient believe that runs deep in all the tribes of Africa, as it binds together the collective life-force of each tribal member.  I hadn’t spoken about ubuntu for a while, and when we got into a lively discussion about it at the Drum Cafe conference, I felt electrified in a whole new way. Ubuntu is Drum Cafe.

Ubuntu asserts that only through sharing a common humanity can a person become fully human. We tap into that humanity every time we heal the separation between each other – imposed by hierarchy, business units, competition, geography, and fear of differences. If we begin to see ourselves through our connections with others – through others – we start to re-prioritize our thinking and our doing. We feel the gravitas behind each and every interaction we have, realizing that there is so much to gain from that moment of being.

It’s clearer than ever to me that each program Drum Cafe engages people in, is a chance to birth ubuntu into that culture as a permanent operating system behind all the others.  It takes interconnectedness to a whole new level and penetrates even the firewalls of the deepest corporate chambers. This old and proven concept can hold the weight of us and give us flight – all at the same time.

In Joy and Rhythm –

Natalie Spiro
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Primal Play

We’re still in the throws of summer time. The recent thrills of the world cup captivated so many of us. It’s over now and the daily buzz is gone, but there’s still a hum blanketing the globe. I feel it. It’s like the games sparked our love of country,  teamwork, excellence and most of all, our love of play – of primal play.

I’ve traveled over 3 continents these last few weeks and I’ve been keenly aware of a certain rhythm pulsing through. Maybe it’s my connection to Drum Café, and the daily reminder that we’re all so anchored by a certain collective groove.  I know that my passion for the work I do leads me to writing this blog to reinforce how relevant our work is to each program participant we reach. It’s one thing to have a powerful singular experience with drumming, but it’s another thing entirely to connect that experience to daily life there after.

So in this season of summer, when we’re more inclined to take off our shoes and feel the grass and sand beneath us, it’s worth considering how drumming figures into it all. We talk about the antiquity of drumming, how deep the tradition goes, but let’s not forget those erupting smiles! How much fun it is to drum! ? How crazy good does it feel to merge with skin, drum, sound, sweat? And there’s no better time than the summer to indulge in the spirit and power of this timeless gift.

I know that fall is around the corner, and we tend to use the change of seasons to burry our heads in the goals we set for the coming year. I propose that along with those resolutions, we weave in programs like the Drum Café offers. These awaken our primal sense of play, and our capacity to tap those parts of our brain and body that carry us to higher plains of awareness  -- and ultimately better means to be more effective.

Here’s to filling August with moments that add some hops to our steps.


In Joy and Rhythm,
Natalie Spiro
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The Beat of Tomorrow

They were ready to rally. Ready to rock. Kicking off Intel’s Global Marketing Summit last week was like opening for a stadium concert. The energy was incredible. And Drum Café had only to tap into a groove that was already beating in the souls of these people.

So how does a company that employs over 100, 000 people connect into each other? Intel has recently been celebrating the simplification of its massive brand. This commitment to internal focus and innovation has been pervasive throughout the company, and has helped all the regions commit to being Sponsors of Tomorrow by generating achievements on a daily basis. The marketing team assembled for this conference was about to spend a week truly looking at tomorrow and anticipating the voice of Intel that speaks to life beyond the PC.  I knew my job was to help them find their personal voices first. If we achieved that, then I knew their resulting communication flow would be unstoppable.

Several minutes after the first downbeat, the power in numbers and rhythms was  fantastic.  Our corporate program had engaged the whole room and we were ready to dig deeper. Instead of dividing the group by job titles, I separated them by regions.  Japan, China, Europe, Latin America, North America, Mid-East, Asia Pacific – each region was given its own instrument and its own rhythm to play.  Even when they played separately at first, the other silent regions seemed so keyed in – like they were completely rooting for the players.  I thought to myself, no wonder Intel is always ranked among the best places to work in the Fortune 100 companies. They really get the truth and power of supporting each other. That was so evident in the room.

I wanted to tap into one of their over-arching themes - simplification.  So with all the regions playing their own instruments and rhythms, I reminded the participants that at any moment they could shift and play the same exact beat. When they did, the sound was complex (due to the diversity of percussion instruments) but singularly as powerful as one heartbeat. So by simplification, we actually strengthened the overall experience of the drumming. It wasn’t hard for them to connect this back to Intel’s corporate strategy to unify their brand in a similar way.

So hat’s off to our Sponsors of Tomorrow. Their marketing team sure knows how to celebrate today.

In Joy & Rhythm,

Natalie Spiro
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Leadership and Corporate Culture

In the world of telecommunications, there are giants – big companies that span the globe and affect millions of lives every second.  It’s so easy to take for granted how quickly we can all connect these days. They make it possible.  My friends and family back in South Africa (who are watching the World Cup as I type this...) never feel too far away. So last week, when I worked with Ericsson, I personally understood the value of what they do. They’re in 175 countries and run over 1000 networks. Their leadership is committed to maintaining a strong, defined culture across all their regions.  Drum Café was tasked to connect into that culture – to find its pulse and ensure that it resonates deeply with their leaders.

So why the focus on culture? The Kansas City gathering that we attended was organized for 55 of Ericsson’s highest potential leaders for the future. In this age of mergers and acquisition, Ericsson – like so many other large companies – is forever expanding. If the leadership is not connected to the core values and culture of the company, then their 85,000 + employees can potentially devolve into thousands of silos, where people work without understanding and feeling their personal and interpersonal connection to Ericsson.

I’ve always said that drumming metaphorically and literally taps into the heartbeat of our humanity.  So it makes such perfect sense to expect transformation through drumming. Ericsson is also going through huge transformations. When organizing this program, I decided to take five of their business units – engineering and IT, field operations, deployment and integrations, service assurance, and project management – and distinguish them sonically using different instruments and rhythms. I’ve done this so many times before, and it always has a similar result. The individual units each stand out, but together as a group, the sound is so rich.  I connected this back to the collective culture they share. And how as leaders, they can and must ignite the presence of this culture everyday.  Sometimes, I wish I could run drumming programs on a weekly basis – for every alumna of the program! Maybe Ericsson can set Drum Café up with our own private drumming network...

This event was intimate and very powerful. Leaders gathering together to commit to deepening the culture of their organization is as important as any other business function that they do.  I think our program brought a delight to that process, and opened up the possibility that as leaders, these participants had the mojo and groove to make a real impact in the future.

In Rhythm and Joy,

Empowering Expression

With all the products that Hewlett-Packard is credited for, we all know they are in the business of empowering people through technology. So when Drum Café was asked to welcome and ignite the 500 attendees of their latest conference,  you know that I was bent on empowering them with some drumming....to sort of return the favor.  I found out that there new internal mission was Empower Expression.  It was a perfect match.  As I walked into the conference hall, I thought Show time! Let’s express!

Not so fast. Just because words are written on a page and missions are articulated, it doesn’t mean everything falls into place.

What I most want to share about this event was how it began and how it ended. We had a short window of opportunity because the schedule was tight. When our portion of the program began, people were still out of the room, coming in slowly. We were on stage....expressing ourselves...but quickly needed to transfer that over to the HP community.  This wasn’t a show to passively experience. This was to be fully interactive.  There is a profound difference between watching expression and expressing yourself.  This was the big take-away of the program that helped bring home their new mission to empower expression.

If we had asked the audience if they were drummers as they entered the room, most would have said no.  More significantly, they would have reserved that kind of musical and personal expression for someone else – someone NOT walking into a corporate conference.  I sensed that during the moments they trickled into the room, they didn’t feel like they were about express themselves meaningfully. How could they? 

The wisdom HP had in creating such a powerful mission statement lies in the knowledge through empowering expression comes the courage and innovation that makes HP stand tall in the marketplace.

By the time people were seated in their chairs,  we had begun the narrative that wove their corporate values into our program. When I hit the first base note, the communication began between all of us.  And yes...there was quite a lot of expression going on in the room. By the time our program ended, I knew we had all manifested the mission more deeply that words on a page ever could.

So here’s to empowering expression so that we all feel more seen and heard and alive.  And...so that we continue to legacy of empowering others to express themselves.

In Joy & Rhythm,

Natalie Spiro

Corporate Emotions

The corporate world is changing and Drum Café in the right place at the right time.

A bold statement, yes. But one informed by such a rush of affirmations we’ve received during these last few months.  Some days. I just have to shake my head in disbelief.  It hits me square in the face that the work I’m doing with Drum Café harnesses a collective source of power that is capable of creating huge transformations – impacting both how we conduct business and how we take care of our individual selves.

It’s becoming more clear to me that connecting emotionally within an organizational structure is key to its success. People tell me outright that they get so stuck in their heads during a work week, that they forget to breathe, or feed themselves, or even look out the window for a minute. So when they’re introduced to the concept of drumming for an hour – all sorts of things happen. Drumming is emotional. It calls forth the parts of us that so inform how we think and conduct business – but these parts fill a whole different landscape – not of the head but of the heart. So if we speak to these parts, we’re taking care of business. We’re tapping more fully into the resources of our human potential.

Angela, a recent participant in one of our programs, wrote an extraordinary testimonial that speaks to all this:

“....I really felt the drumming...it connected in me feelings that I had not owned for many years.  I would have been the timid one but the longer I drummed, the better I felt...it was a release.... somehow in that drumming I found my courage... I saw how starved I had been, as I kept my passion and my power so hidden on the inside...”

Angela also spoke about how she marveled at the communication we did using no words. It stuck with her, she said.  If drumming was its own language, where does that language go when the drum is no longer there? It dawned on me after reading Angela’s letter, that once we start a conversation while drumming, it can continue far beyond the program itself.  Once the emotions are sparked and spoken, what transpires next is a deepening in communication.

I’m curious to see how Angela moves through this next phase of her life, because if she holds onto what was ignited in her through drumming, it seems like nothing can stop her.  Courage and passion are powerful ingredients for anything, the least of which is doing your job well.

In Joy and Rhythm,

Natalie Spiro

PBWC Conference - Connect, Discover, Shine

I just returned from such an inspiring conference in San Francisco. You’d think that given the number of conferences I’ve facilitated over the years, I would have a been-there-done-that attitude. On the contrary, I’m always ready to be delighted if the opportunity is there. It’s how I try to live my life, and at this conference – sponsored by the Professional Business Women of California – it was confirmed that I’m not the only one. These women ignited me, each other, and it’s no wonder that so many of them are changing the heartbeat of business.

Speaking of heartbeats, I watched 3000 women walk into the start of the general session. For about 20 minutes, 6 of my team members performed as the crowd assembled. By the time I took the stage, the room was already charged. I led a simple body percussion session. No drums were ever used. It’s amazing to hear the sound of 3000 hands clapping, and fingers snapping. The theme of the day was Connect, Discover, Shine, which I thread lightly through the Drum Café program. By the end, the ice was broken, the room was connected, and we were all ready to seize the day.

The conference featured a stunning line-up of speakers including Geena Davis, Congresswoman Jackie Speier, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sheryl WuDunn, and Oracle Corporation President Safra Catz, to name a few. I spent the bulk of my day in the Drum Café booth that we set up in the exhibit hall.  I bumped into so many our clients from HP, Hitachi, Bank of America, Charles Schwab, etc. It dawned on me that over these last 10 years, I have really witnessed the transformation of business from such a specific place – a place where people recognize the power of building relationships and teams based on strong and clear communication. From there – anything is possible

The young women who attended this conference were another highlight for me. They came to plan their futures by listening to the stories and testimonials of women who have really cut through thick tape to get to where they are.  One speaker in particular really pushed on this message of showing up for yourself. Jennifer Siebel Newsom, First Lady of San Francisco, spoke about her film project, Miss Representation.  She challenged us all to look at how media covers women in power and business. Her project presentation was so provocative and particularly called upon the young women in business to not allow bad patterns in history to undermine the great potential of the future – their future.

The PBWC conference so cemented my convictions about the power of connecting people together for exponential results. There were so many exchanges during this day, all around me.  It makes me realize that I’m in the right business, living the right kind of life.

In Joy and Rhythm,

Natalie Spiro