Every business has a rhythm. A flow. A heartbeat. From meeting cadences, release schedules, hiring cycles, to how people collaborate — every organisation moves to a pattern, whether we notice it or not.

Most of us pay little attention to this rhythm. We may not even be aware it exists. But it does. And understanding it can transform how you lead, manage, and work. After all, we're all gifted with different types of intelligence – and some people are simply more geared to see the rhythm in life and work.

Start with the Meetings

The easiest place to spot a company’s rhythm is often its recurring meetings and events. Stand-ups, town halls, governance sessions, retrospectives, planning sessions, quarterly reviews, release cycles — they are all markers of the business’s heartbeat.

This is why “agile” methodologies, with their regular ceremonies, work so well in organisations that lack a consistent cadence. Introducing standing meetings with clear purpose and outcome-oriented agendas can create harmony where previously there was chaos and confusion. Of course, the meetings need to be run well — but even imperfect routines can reveal a lot about the rhythm of work.

Study these events. Track their frequency. Notice how they connect to outputs and deliverables. They are just one part of the story—but they are a start.

The Rhythm of Work Itself

I had my hair cut today, and the barber’s work revealed a rhythm I hadn’t noticed before. Even when he wasn’t cutting my hair, his scissors moved in perfect timing— open, close, open, close — whether talking, combing, or using the hair dryer. The rhythm accompanied the work until it was no longer needed.

Business works in much the same way. Work has its own beat: periods of heads-down focus, moments of collaboration, breaks, events, and cycles of creativity. The open-and-closed creative process is one example — a natural rhythm of exploration and execution.

If a team or individual tries to operate at 100% output all the time, the rhythm collapses. Burnout and disengagement are predictable outcomes. Work flows best in cycles that respect focus, rest, and variety.

Beyond Meetings: The Full Business Rhythm

Managers who only look at meetings to gauge performance are seeing a fraction of the whole. The rhythm of business is bigger — it includes delivery, work cycles, and consistent creation of value. A company overloaded with meetings but light on actual output has lost its beat.

Think of it like music. A song with wildly inconsistent tempo and rhythm is jarring. A company functions best when its work, meetings, and deliverables follow a coherent cadence. Understanding and preserving this rhythm is crucial to organisational health.

👉 Check out this article on why flow is SO important in a business.

Remove Obstacles to Flow

Good leadership isn’t about micro-managing every beat, action and move — it’s about removing barriers. Deep work needs time and space. Flexibility allows individuals to align with the natural rhythm of their role. Clear priorities, alignment, and predictable processes prevent chaos from disrupting the flow.

Study the movement of work through your business. Note patterns, spot disruptions, and learn how different teams contribute to the overall rhythm. Most successful entrepreneurs “sense” their business — they feel it, intuitively understanding how it operates, far beyond what reports or dashboards can reveal.

Managers need to work in the business to grasp its rhythm, not just on it from a distance. The only way to truly feel the flow is to participate in it, to immerse yourself, to “dance” with it.

Start Small, Grow Your Awareness

Not everyone will naturally sense the rhythm. Begin with the recurring events — they are the easiest to observe. Then expand your awareness to include the work cycles, delivery cadence, and interpersonal rhythms that make up the whole.

A business with a healthy rhythm isn’t just efficient — it’s resilient, adaptive, and more human.

Bibliography

Hawken, P., 1987. Growing a Business. Simon & Schuster, New York.

Nepal, S.K., Hernandez, J., Amores Fernandez, J., Bin Morshed, M., Lewis, R., Prafullchandra, H., Czerwinski, M.P., 2023. Workplace Rhythm Variability and Emotional Distress in Information Workers, in: Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA ’23. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, pp. 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544549.3585626

Quast, L., n.d. New Managers: How To Establish Your “Rhythm of Business” (ROB) Model [WWW Document]. Forbes. URL https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2015/10/12/new-managers-how-to-establish-your-rhythm-of-business-rob-model/ (accessed 8.22.24).

Shuman, J.C., Rottenberg, D., 1998. The Rhythm of Business: The Key to Building and Running Successful Companies. Routledge.

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