All rights reserved – HR Today 2006
CLAUDIO CHIACCHIARI, ERWAN BELLARD
Article published by “HR TODAY”, page 27, “Stratégie et pratique”, December 6 / 2006
The analogies between the arrangement of some classical music scores and corporate strategies are edifying. “Low cost” airline companies for instance apply cost reduction strategies, which can be compared to symphony themes, whose simplicity makes them adaptable to all situations.
The jobs of manager and composer are alike. Surprising? Yet, both these professions have common features: they work with time, they produce intangible results and write a score which others will interpret. The composer, like the manager, can at the same time be considered as architects who produce organisation (musical structures) as well as strategists who manage human resources
(instruments). Understanding the composer’s work brings both a renewed perception of management and concrete tools to managers, notably in the HR field, for targeting issues and accepting challenges in their company. Some examples of this can be found below.
Complex plans or works are often created from a simple element. For instance, in Beethoven’s 5 th
Symphony, the dramatic “pom pom pom pooom” of the opening is an omnipresent motif in the entire symphony. It is transformed into a percussion roll in an important transition. Elsewhere, the same motif is adapted to form a cheerful and rapid theme, played by violins. Its simplicity makes it adaptable to all situations and protagonists. The masterly application of this motif has contributed to unify a piece of vast diversity.
Some firms became successful by applying and adapting a single motif in all their activities. Let’s consider that “reducing” is the motif of a famous low cost company (Easyjet). Indeed, expenses are systematically reduced: reduced teams aboard, shared administration facilities, no secretaries for managers. In HR management, “reducing” becomes “simplifying”: a less hierarchical structure and less formality contribute to building a younger company spirit.
The marketing of the firm is characterised by the absence of intermediaries, a single colour and incredibly low cost plane tickets as the unique message in its advertising campaign.
Strong principles of action. Putting this first strategy into practice is not sufficient to accomplish a masterpiece. The systematic use of a simple motif can rapidly become counter-productive if it is not accompanied by more general principles which encourage the composer to seek harmony. Let’s take four major principles: balance, coherence, emotion and clarity. Successful masterpieces, like efficient firms, are impregnated with these principles.
In music, clarity is reached by using a simple melody, or by clearly separating the different sections of a piece with silences. Emotions can be entailed through ruptures or strong contrasts. Coherence is gained by using a small number of musical ideas. Last but not least, balance is reached by finding the right balance between tension and resolution, stability and instability, the orchestra and the soloist.
In the same low cost airline, the HR process is based on subtle cross-cutting balances: the absence of hierarchical levels is compensated by the use of self-managing teams. The negative impact of a low salary is softened by a strong company culture, which favours participation and stock-options. The lack of social consideration is balanced by the feeling of working to achieve a noble task, that of making air travel accessible to everybody in a nonconformist firm which does not hesitate to challenge prevailing companies. This is surely a key element for generating emotion in the company.

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These principles also make sense in a department such as HR . Thus, seeking coherence between
HR practices, or between corporate strategies and HR strategies, is a key element for strategical HR management. Even a model as famous as Dave Ulrich’s is based on the idea of a balance between strategic and administrative roles, “champion employee”’ and agent of change 1 . Balance is also sought between the degree of differentiation and integration that every HR process involves 2 . Finally, how could one miss the permanent desire for clarity in developing HR indicators and HR marketing?
New prospects of promising strategies. To Gavetti & Rivkin, analogies can be catalysts for generating creative options. They are also powerful tools for communicating complex messages quickly 3 . These tools are all the more powerful in a “Learning by listening to music” approach, where the pleasure of listening to music maximises the impact of the analogies. Thus, the composer-manager analogy facilitates the acquisition of management skills. Music also helps to generate creative options and reach unexplored domains. For instance, it is a model for studying temporal relations between a phase of stability and a phase of change, for developing skills to cope with change, or for observing how a soloist performs live as a leader.
Finally, isn’t the composer supporting HR when he says, “The use of a different material
(percussions) forces us to consider musical forms differently. One does not use wood and stone the same way as steel, concrete and glass” 4 ? This metaphor highlights the fact that thinking of organization should not be done without deeply considering the nature of HR.
Claudio Chiacchiari, founder of Saisir le temps
®
Erwan Bellard, scientific collaborator, HR Group, University of Geneva
1
HR Champions , Harvard Business School Press, 1997.
2
La gestion des ressources humaines , Le Gall, PUF, 2002.
3
How strategists really think , Harvard Business Review, April 2005.
4
Pierre Boulez, Geneva, 2003.
© December 2006, Claudio Chiacchiari & Erwan Bellard / www.saisirletemps.ch