On a trip to the Royal Albert Hall earlier this year, while enjoying the most spectacular musical performance, I couldn’t help but admire not only the orchestra as a whole, but all of the individual musicians and how each one was contributing to the show. This led me to think about how this is very much like business, yes sounds a little strange I know, how could an orchestra possibly relate to business? Bear with me and I will explain...
An orchestra is a collective of people, individuals who each play a musical instrument and who are experts with the instruments that they play. Each person is able to play to the highest of standards, a professional and an expert in their field, however, even with the ability to play at this level, when playing with other individuals as a collective something extraordinary happens. What can be achieved together is open and endless and takes the performance to a whole new level.
In business, you often start as an individual, over time and with experience, you learn more about your subject and can become an expert in your industry, as the musician does when learning an instrument.
Working on a self-employed basis you can run a very successful business, but there will always be limits to what can be achieved, as there are only a set number of hours in each day and you only have one pair of hands. So how can you further develop your business if you do not want to employ staff? How can you create the sound of an orchestra if there is only one instrument playing?
The solution that I found for this problem, having been in this very situation myself, was to establish a professional network of people working on a similar basis to me, individuals who are experts in their field but who are also finding they have a ceiling on the financial rewards they can obtain. Working as a collective we can further expand our knowledge, provide a seamless service for customers, add value and extend the limits of our achievement exponentially. Individual consultants, musicians, working as associates in our very own orchestra.
