Realize the Power of Diversity

While group success is dependent on cooperation and interdependence, this does not mean that diversity is not also a powerful tool.  Corporations are essentially business orchestras.  There is a large group of people working together to achieve a common rhythm.  Each individual in an orchestra plays a different instrument but the final product is equally dependent on all.  With many people come different ideas, thoughts and feelings as well as variations in culture, gender, race, age, geography, department, seniority, and so on.  Similarly, a musical orchestra has many instruments, sounds, tonal variations, and volumes.  The metaphor for music is one that relates directly to the business world because each individual contribution in the office or the orchestra is crucial to the final product.

Recognizing and appreciating the different voices of your company as they represent departments, divisions, or levels of management allows you to support your team as they strive for success.  The Drum Café provides a uniquely kinesthetic, interactive, and fun approach to connecting the diverse elements of your team.  Learning how much more influential your message becomes when each small voice comes together to create a symphony helps your organization realize the value of both the team and its diverse components.
Moreover, the Drum Cafe approach is totally inclusive.  Everybody is on a level playing field and as such the circle serves to uplift, inspire, and unite.  Breaking down organizational barriers is the first step to making beautiful music together.
 

The Drum Cafe Diversity and Inclusion Philosophy.

Music is a universal expression of emotion shared by all human beings.  It is also naturally illustrates the impact of collaboration and cooperation and therefore makes the perfect team building activity.  As humans we are diverse.  We all have distinct personality traits, skills, and abilities and it is important for us to discern between a team of individuals and a group of individuals.  In a team, we bring our unique skills, thoughts, and talents together to contribute to the success of our team.  Still, all these different ideas about how to best serve our team goal as well as our own personal motivations can interfere with communication.

This is where music becomes a particularly powerful metaphor.  Every musical ensemble is characterized by a diverse group of people with various talents.  Creating music requires that we overcome our personal motivations and we align to a common goal.  In order to create a harmony in rhythm, we must synthesize our own abilities and desires with the rest of our team.

Without a Shared Goal, there is No Music.
In music, the “beat” or “meter” serves as the tool through which we can evaluate each other.  If we all stay on beat, aligning to our shared goal, we are able to express ourselves individually while still creating music.  Imagine the sound produced by a single instrument in a room of hundreds of audience members.  Surely, the sound could be pleasant or even beautiful but when compared to the sound that can be created when everybody in that audience contributes their individual skills while respecting each others’ skills, by listening and playing and creating and receiving simultaneously, the single voice would be buried.  This is the message that we must convey: we all achieve individual successes but these cannot compare to the level of success reached by a team.

The Synergistic Result: Song.
In business, a group of individuals with similar skills and talents would become redundant.  We rely on the diversity of our team in order to reach our goals.  A team without diversity would be useless and we must appreciate the functional talents, specialties, and voices that comprise our team.  In a Drum Cafe program, diversity meets synergy and a song is created.  In a business, diversity meets synergy and market success is realized.