Venda Traditional Orchestra

Let me give you an example of something that inspired me when I experienced it.

In the tribal area of Venda in the Limpopo province of South Africa, a chief of a village traditionally has a village orchestra. This is made up of up to 80 members of this community, each of whom playing a simple pan pipe. These pan pipes are of different lengths and can be made from different materials, anything from reeds to plastic tubes to old chromed school chair legs, and each one had its own different note and different tone.

The drummers in the middle of this circle of players give the signal and everyone starts to play, dancing and moving slowly around in a circle with the drums playing in the centre.

And at first, to the untrained ear, this sounds like a cacophony, un-tuneful and un-rhythmic. But when you listen more carefully, you hear something deeper.

The drums are playing different rhythms but they play to the same pulse. And if you stand at the edge of the circle as the individual players move by, so you can pick out the notes of the three or four closest to you, you will notice that they each play their note with a different rhythm but within the pulse of the drumbeats. And as you pick out the individual notes that they play you can hear the ‘song’ that they make with the combination of their notes.

And as the players move on, you can no longer differentiate the notes of those in the front of this small group, but you start to pick out the notes of the players moving into your earshot, and the new notes and rhythms form a new ‘song’.

And as those players move on so the ‘song’ you hear keeps changing and you start to realize the coordinated complexity of the orchestration.

And the result is a huge buzzing energy that draws in the players and the listeners, and the objective in a tribal sense is to reach out to the ancestors, the spirit of the tribe.

And as a metaphor for an organization: If we each play our part within the pulse or heartbeat or vision, as different individuals with different skills, the song we play and the energy we create reaches out to that which we want to achieve, be it our market, our clientele or however we define our success.