The document discusses the role of a manager or Chief Technology Officer (CTO) as akin to a conductor of an orchestra. It discusses three main points: 1) For a manager, maintaining rhythm is essential for harmony and success, just as it is for a conductor. The manager must be sensitive to the internal and external rhythms impacting the team/organization. 2) When executing projects or strategies, the manager must understand the "score" or plan, ensure all stakeholders understand their roles, and communicate the intensity and dynamics of different phases, just as a conductor does. 3) Leading requires total commitment from the manager, using both managerial and artistic gestures to strengthen their position and motivate the

1. The CTO, Manager and Bandmaster (Parts 1 & 2)
Part 1 Importance of the rhythm
According to Hector Berlioz, the essential qualities of a conductor are "to hear and see, he
must be agile and strong, know the composition, nature and scope of the instruments, how to
read the score.” This ultimately also describes very well the qualities of a manager. Certainly
the metaphor of a conductor as manager is not new, but it has the merit of stimulating our
senses. I would like to take a look at a particular aspect of this comparison: the rhythm. For
the conductor as for the manager, the rhythm is at the heart of harmony and success.
I started playing trumpet at the age of 11 years and after a few years, I joined the jazz band,
"Big Band Jazz Factory," of Cahors (Lot). This is where I discovered that a good soloist is not
necessarily a good musician in a band. Indeed, his bearings change: listening is no longer the
same, the rate is no longer his own... To evolve, he adapts to his new environment and begins
serving the group whose members must combine their skills and knowledge for excellence, all
under the direction of conductor. For twenty years I led dozens of people on dozens of
projects. I was also led by a dozen managers in SMEs, a start-up and a large industrial group.

2. Looking back, I am convinced that the rhythm brought by the manager is an essential in proper
direction.
Above all, the conductor-manager must therefore be sensitive to rhythm. Somehow, he must
have the rhythm in his skin. Here, our pace is not instilled by a metronome. Yet it is noticeable.
It pulsates our working rhythm, our hours, our days and our weeks. But about which rhythm
are we talking about, that of the team, the manager, customers, purveyors, the society, or its
stockholders? Our orchestra is quickly expanding! We have a strong feeling that the rhythm
depends on its environment: start-ups, SMEs, big groups, etc. Is there an ideal rhythm? Slow,
fast... musical work remains sublime.
Miyamoto Musashi (a Samuraï of the 16th century) tells us in his "Book of 5 Rings" that in all
things there is a rhythm: "When the rhythm dominates, execution is good." He added: "We
must discern the rising pace and decadent rhythm... to know concordant rhythm and
understand discordant rhythm." Is that not the job of the conductor, who seeks to achieve
perfection in the interpretation?! With the score (eg transforming an organization, creating a
version n + 1 of a software) and musicians (project managers, developers, testers, etc.), the
conductor-manager will now find and beat the rhythm for the proper performance of his
score. He feels the natural pulse of the team, gets in tune with it and amplifies it, exaggerates
for all to feel, so that by speeding up or slowing down, everyone follows it. By resonance effect,
the audience will naturally take it on themselves. Who has not stomped or swayed his head
to music he likes! The wave is more powerful, its reach is far. The bad notes are spotted
immediately, but in a cacophony, the discordant is less audible.
With a very slow rhythm, it's more difficult to maintain a regular beat. In this case, the main
challenge of the manager is to manage this slow time to maintain focus so that all the actors
play their next notes simultaneously. The challenge for the manager is to introduce one or
more additional rhythms(s). How? For example, introducing joint projects or intermediate
individual targets. With a fast pace, it's the opposite. The tempo is maintained more easily,
the manager adds one or more sub-rhythms. How? Giving objectives over the medium term
(eg quarter). Our professional experiences awaken our sensitivity to rhythm. This education is

3. more formative in a fast-paced environment. The manager will hear and see the concordant
and discordant over the execution. If it's not sufficient, he must act vigorously to get everyone
in unison. Without his conductor's baton, he will act with behavior (gestures, words), finding
intermediaries, kinds of amplifiers, which are going to help him as he leans on the "first" of
every group of instruments.
In a start-up business or one with a few dozen employees, our conductor is alone; his role is
endorsed by the CEO or the CO. In a larger the company, more managers-conductors will "get
their act together." It is as if several bands play together in the same auditorium! Without
listening to each other, the result is inaudible.
In concluding this section, the Chief Technology Officer, the manager-conductor, must be
sensitive to the rhythm to beat the tempo of his team while listening to the other managers
with whom he plays a super score. Having deployed the Agile methods in my teams, I have
seen a radical change in their behavior. The daily meetings, the sprints from 2 to 4 weeks,
intermediate deliveries beating the tempo, enabling all players to work in unison around a
shared vision and known product, from the software production line to the customers.
Another finding, the implementation of Objectives and Key Results (OKR), translating the
vision of the business objectives & expected business results each quarter broken down by
department and individual, brings transparency, clear communication and especially, visibility
on the score to be played.
Part 2
In the skin of a conductor, the Chief Technology Officer beats the measure and sets the tempo.
We saw in the first part he must lead and act (H. Berlioz) by sending signals to the musicians
to react to. They (musicians) need to know how read the score to interpret his orchestration.
In this second part, I'd like to draw attention to the score and its execution as applied to
business.
Before a performance, the conductor analyses the score to be interpreted: its origin (epoch,
author), its direction, its purpose. His main mission is to ensure cohesion: moving the

4. orchestra along according to its shortcomings. So he works every desk, corrects wrong notes,
learns to listen to others. In business, the manager also makes repetition (team meetings),
communicates the rules (best practices) and creates common approaches that ensure
consistency. The CTO, manager, is there to serve others. He acts (negotiates, evaluates,
reassures, touches up, explains) with the intention of searching for ways to optimize or
increase the adequacy of the contribution of each one and also to motivate. He's not afraid to
repeat the "chorus" to persuade. He helps each one to accomplish their mission, to bring to
their intention the correct movement. In turn, the manager is trying to develop his capacity to
an intuitive and spontaneous interpretation of what to say, do or avoid in his human relations
every day without hurting anyone's feeling. In communicating his enthusiasm, he sends a
message, a call to action.
I don't believe that management has an exhibitionist and self-centered approach where the
manager takes the stage and "lays it out." The approach is much deeper than flattery or
manipulation. In an environment of constraints and contradictions, he communicates clearly
and in depth to bring out the meaning(s) and make(s) it/them available to others. The
manager is not distinguished by pompous speeches but by his actions. In particular, he listens
to others (employees, customers, shareholders, etc.) that have their own vision to understand
their intentions, and also knows how leave openings to that everyone can speak.
Then comes the moment of execution whose aim is for all the musicians to play the same work
(project, business strategy) together. His right hand beats the measure and marks the
dynamics with his wand. With his left hand, he conveys emotion and color, and also with his
face, his body... His commitment is total. The artistic gesture blended with the managerial
gesture strengthens the manager's position. In business as in an orchestra, everyone plays his
part.To execute the score, the CTO knows the project management methods (V cycle, Agile,
etc.), the role of each stakeholder (business, product owner, scrum master, project manager,
developer, tester, ops, etc. .), instruments (specifications, user stories, languages and
frameworks, IDE, map and test tools, etc.), and especially the critical points (risks) identified
in the course of planning, such as phase changes or coordination points in a schedule. He puts

5. forward all visible indicators. He communicates the intensity of the phases, crescendo,
or meno forte, for example, at the beginning of each.
We cannot talk about music without talking about emotion. Stirring the emotions is in the
nature of music. In the world of business, especially large ones, emotion is less present
because the employee is "framed and formatted" by processes, procedures, and dashboards
that inhibit emotional expression. On a personal note, I showed my teams paintings by french
artists. It was an opportunity to engage in more personal discussions about the tastes and
emotions of each. I was (pleasantly) surprised that the answers were increasingly rich
regarding the various exhibitions. It is as if the imagination, intuition, and boldness to share
their emotions rose to the surface of their personalities, enriched by the exchange.
Understand your environment, your actors, your constraints and purpose. Be neither too
optimistic nor too pessimistic; the score must be realistic and logical (explicable). It is the
experience of the CTO manager combined with his originality that allows him to define the
best score while remaining consistent with himself. The performance requires a proven
methodology and organization. Approximation has no place. The CTO, the central instrument
of the symphony, must play his part methodically and rhythmically in tune with the teams he
has... An art!
Jean-Christophe Huc