On June 1, I began a three-month journey of self-discovery. This morning I returned to Fleishman-Hillard eager and ready to share my learnings – both professional and personal – with you, my colleagues and my clients.
Among my many educational experiences this summer were piano lessons. I’ve never been particularly musical, but I wanted my daughters to develop an appreciation for music. And, since I never had the chance to play an instrument growing up, I decided to challenge my brain and see what piano would be like.
My kids had taken piano lessons before with little success due to lack of enthusiasm, but I thought that by modeling behavior, maybe we’d all get better results.
My experiment paid off. Both my kids were really into it. My 12-year-old, Monica, became especially competitive and obsessed with practicing more than me and improving more than me. It’s proof that our kids do what we model.
This lesson translates well to a business environment where managers are charged with motivating their employees’ actions. People don’t necessarily behave as directed, but they do model the good behavior of others.
Additionally, I found that the challenge to my brain was real. I felt an actual struggle between the technical left side of my brain and the passionate right side of my brain. It was hard to play the music correctly while also demonstrating the passion I felt for it. My brain was in conflict as I held two equally demanding thoughts at the same time.
It took time to become comfortable doing both simultaneously.
I think organizations often forget that building competencies takes time. We try to skip from coming up with new ideas, all the way to selling these ideas, without really exploring, building and perfecting them. The hours of practice I needed to get from simply playing notes to playing them with feeling and intensity reminded me that sometimes we need to slow down and really think our ideas through.
Furthermore, my struggle gave me a personal lesson in polarity management. Polarities are pairs of organizational challenges (like stability and change) that are both necessary but often at odds. The tension between these two essential aspects of an organization needs to be managed rather than solved. For me, I needed to find a balance between accuracy and passion. Otherwise, I couldn’t have advanced my skills. Similarly, organizations that manage polarities outperform those that don’t, according to PolarityManagement.com.
While I may not be able to continue with my piano lessons as frequently now that I’m back at work and my kids’ school activities have begun again, I greatly value the lessons I had this summer. My lessons are proof of the link between music and brain function.
Glad to be back and looking forward to connecting with you again!
– Kathie
Have you had similar experiences with music? What did you learn from them?


