What if I told you that the secret of understanding how high-performing teams work is not found in leadership frameworks or best-selling books but inside a piano? A piano is an intricate instrument that has evolved since its first inception in the 18th century and sits somewhere between a string and a percussion instrument. A single piano key is designed to strike three strings at once. These strings, when perfectly tuned, vibrate together at the same frequency, creating a single, rich, unison, resonant note. Harmony, the concept of multiple notes played at the same time that complement each other, cannot happen unless the strings of a given note are perfectly in tune. The fact is that when two keys are pressed at the same time, six strings are activated to play together. If just one string is slightly out of tune, the sound becomes distorted, the harmony is broken, and the performance suffers.
When describing a high-performing team, we often remark that the team “plays well together” or that there is “great harmony.” The truth is that, just like pianos, teams rely on harmony and being well-tuned to perform at the level needed to reproduce a masterpiece. Just like pianos, when out of tune, instead of members vibrating in unison, there is conflict, and instead of synergy, there is misalignment. The team is no longer playing as one single note, team members don’t resonate with one another, and much like with an out-of-tune piano, the entire performance suffers.
These principles of a well-tuned piano—the need for notes of a single key to be in perfect unison, the need for keys to be tuned to the same standard to create harmony, and all keys playing at the right tempo to create a heartwarming performance—can be applied to the teams we lead as we build and drive them into higher levels of performance. Every great performance, whether on stage or in the workplace, comes down to the same thing: individuals in perfect harmony, playing their part toward a greater sound.
Tuning Your Team
A piano doesn’t stay in tune indefinitely. Over time, changes in temperature, humidity, and repeated use cause strings to go out of tune. That’s why musicians regularly tune their instruments, especially before practice and performance, to ensure every note is in perfect alignment.
The same applies to teams. When a team starts out, there’s excitement, energy, and alignment. Every person added to a growing team, however, is a risk of tampering with that unison note you had once achieved. This is why it is so important when building a team to ensure proper alignment, always comparing the potential new addition to the “frequency” of the existing team. Over time, things shift. Priorities change. People leave. New people join. Suddenly, if you have not been paying attention, the harmony that once existed starts to suffer. In a typical orchestra, you will find 32 violins, 10 violas, 8 cellos, 6 double basses, and one grand piano—adding up to 454 strings, all played in perfect harmony. A great performance does not happen by chance; harmony is the result of meticulous tuning by each musician tuning his instrument. Your team, regardless of size, needs to be tuned.
What Great Leaders Know
Great leaders understand this. They do not assume a team will stay in tune forever. Instead, they make tuning a habit—holding regular check-ins, realigning goals, and making adjustments as needed. They do not wait until harmony begins to suffer, but rather, they fine-tune before the discord becomes a hindrance to good performance. A piano going out of tune gets exponentially worse with every passing week that it is left alone. The same goes with teams; ignoring the problem makes it worse. Not investing the time to tune the team, first individually (remember the three strings of a single note?) and then collectively, to ensure inter-team harmony, will only have one outcome: an ever-degrading performance.
This is why people don’t leave companies; they leave leaders. People look for leaders who pour into those they lead, not those who are disengaged and distant. Leaders neglect this crucial aspect of leadership at their peril. In the book Love ’em or Lose ’em Beverly Kaye rightly says “Employees stay when they are engaged, challenged, and appreciated.” So the question is, when was the last time you tuned your team? If you cannot recall a meeting you scheduled to be intentional about listening in, learning what’s important to them, what makes them tick, and where they are headed, then your team is already trending to being out of tune.
Employees stay when they are engaged, challenged, and appreciated.
Listening Before Playing
In any orchestra, musicians do not just play the moment they arrive. Before a performance, you’ll see them tuning their instruments, adjusting to one another, and ensuring they blend seamlessly. At a given moment, usually the first chair violinist begins to play A, a common note for all string instruments to match, thus ensuring we all are in unison. But in many teams, oftentimes we do the opposite. We rush to speak, to act, to contribute—without truly listening. We focus on being heard rather than hearing others.
Great teams, like great music, require listening.
Great teams, like great music, require listening. Not just to words but to tone, to body language, and to underlying tensions that might be affecting performance. This is why in a world of remote work it is so important to turn cameras on and let the real you come out. This, by the way, begins by example. There is not a time during my day that my camera is not on. It does not matter what the state of my office is. Body language is crucial to seeing perhaps the most important way with which people communicate: their bodies.
When Your Team Is Out of Tune
A piano that has been neglected and goes out of tune takes an exponentially longer time to tune, often taking more than one session to ensure all notes stay with the new tuning. Minor and frequent tuning touches work best and save the extra effort required to get them back to sounding their best. The same happens in teams. One person out of sync can create friction. One misaligned goal can derail an entire strategy. One unresolved conflict can fester and spread. When a team is out of harmony, it doesn’t just affect performance—it affects morale, engagement, and ultimately, results.
From Harmony To A Masterpiece
When individual teams play in unison and vibrate at the same frequency, this is when they are able to achieve high levels of performance, collaboration, and trust. This team will be unstoppable at delivering value. Multiple teams that play in unison, when interacting with each other, create perfect harmony because each member is aligned with other team members. There is no dissonance within; therefore, they harmonize well with other teams. An organization that has well-tuned teams that harmonize well with others is an organization whose culture is a masterpiece. This is the result of leaders understanding the importance of fine-tuning each member for optimal performance and orchestrating harmonies between teams to produce a masterpiece. These are companies everyone wants to work for, and other companies want to partner with.
Striking The Right Chord
So what does this mean for us? It means that high-performing teams do not happen by chance. They happen by design. They happen when we as leaders take time to tune our teams, to check for misalignment, and to make adjustments before problems escalate. They happen when we listen before playing, ensuring that everyone is in sync before moving forward. They happen when we pour into them and partner with them to remain at their best. When we do that, when we create harmony within our teams, we do not just produce good work; we create something that resonates. Because the best teams, like the best music, are not just heard; they are felt.