Type E Personality

Learn teamwork without missing a beat.

By Debra Phillips

Time to lower the boom on your employees. For entrepreneurs who fear their workplace isn't nearly as harmonious as it could be, Arthur Hull's percussion-based team-building exercises might be the key to drumming up a little esprit de corps.

Don't worry: You don't need to boast Ringo Starr-caliber chops to participate in the musical village that Hull, founder of Santa Cruz, California-based management consulting firm Village Music Circles, helps companies create. The key is simply for employers and employees to drum their way towards greater appreciation of one another.

"It's not about learning how to play the drums or any other instrument," says Hull, a former music instructor. "Mostly, it's about listening and interacting."

Entrepreneurial companies and big corporations the likes of Apple Computer, Levi Strauss and Sun Microsystems have all partaken of Hull's approximately two-hour program. "We use village music as a metaphor for team-building," explains Hull. "We bring drums, percussion [instruments] and fun into [the workplace]."

What starts with voices, hands and tubular instruments known as "boom whackers" concludes--quite literally--with a bang. At the end of the program, says Hull, "we're at what we call `celebration mode' with all the drums and stuff. It's a very powerful experience."

Powerful enough, in fact, to have taken Hull to places as exotic as Moscow and Bangkok, Thailand, to guide other companies through his musical exercises. We gotta say it: Business is booming.

This article was originally published in the January 1997 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Type E Personality.