Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Early last year, our company, Duarte Inc., was well into a great season of change. We had turned our org chart on its side, so that nearly every person in the company either had a new boss or was a new boss. We had moved to a different building. We had implemented new software tools. We were about to release a new book. And we did all this while trying to perform our jobs at the highest possible level. People were tired and stressed.

We knew deep down how much we really enjoyed and respected one another, but the pain of change made it difficult to for us to connect with that feeling. We had to do something special to rekindle it. So we set aside some time over the course of a week for employees to meet in small groups and talk about how we could best move forward, strong and united.

Then, that Friday afternoon, everyone gathered in a large, open area in the office. The seats were arranged in a semi-circle, and a large drum stood in front of each seat. Over the next two hours, all of us (100-plus employees) beat our drums — first chaotically like a first-grade music class, and then, with the help of a music coach, in unison....