The Negotiation of Time and Space

I think about ‘keeping the beat’ a lot these days.  It’s at the top of the Founder’s job description when the enterprise gets to the point where there is so much activity that someone needs to keep it pointed toward the far off Vision.  It’s like trying to sing three parts at the same time – theoretically impossible, but when it somehow works, quite magnificent.

So it was a special treat last night to hear Steve Goodman (by day, Morgan Lewis’s guru to emerging growth companies and, earlier that evening, speaker on board governance at Entrepreneurs Forum of Greater Philadelphia) play the kind of jazz piano that I can only hear in my head but not reproduce with my hands.  Even more interesting was his ‘conversation’ with other players, chiefly the string bass.

In a solo, the music is in the spaces between the notes.  But in a combo, it is in the energy – the negotiation – of the time and space between the players.  Not unlike the difference between working yourself and working on a team.

I have no doubt that the timing in his legal negotiations is likewise impeccable.