How former Savuka drummer Barry van Zyl now helps businesses find their rhythm

What can music teach us about leadership?

This is a question Barry van Zyl is uniquely equipped to answer - the Global MBA Programme Lead at Henley Business School Africa moved into business after a high-profile career as a drummer, touring for 19 years with Johnny Clegg's band Savuka.

Highlights of his musical career include performing/recording with the likes of Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Carlos Santana.

Van Zyl signed on for an MBA at Henley Business School in 2014, sometimes studying for this tough programme while on the road.

He now designs and delivers programmes to executive leadership in areas like Creativity & Innovation, and Entrepreneurship and the Business of Rhythm.

Working for a business school, he wishes he could say the shift from music to corporate was a strategic move but it wasn't at all, quips van Zyl.

It came about as a natural progression, he says.

"I followed what felt right, pretty much in the same way as when I started playing drums when I was five or six years old. The core trigger always has been the same, and I've whittled that down to visibly changing lives."

The only real difference is that he's swapped the drums for the classroom, says van Zyl, saying that what he does now in business education is still performance.

"I have to say that classes of MBAs are a tough audience... and it's been interesting - I like to think of it as shifting from the business of rhythm to the rhythm of business."

Van Zyl talks about the driving force of rhythm, cycles and pulse guiding both music and business.

He highlights the notion of 'groove', which he describes as the musical term for a state of flow.

The business educator can see what he says is a clear transference of these principles to teams and leaders in business.

"It's about translating a drummer's groove into something that a CEO can actually understand. I'm trying to ground this in science, and also in experience. Groove is what happens between members of a band, it's a relational thing... so I'm now fascinated by the deep roots I'm seeing emerging in physics, in neuroscience, in embodied human behaviour."

Successful leaders in business get this, van Zyl says, because they understand flow states along with peak performance and team alignments.

"I've taken what I've lived in elite music performance and combined it with leadership theory, and found a common language really between the concert stage and a boardroom."

For an introduction to van Zyl's work, watch the video below:

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to this fascinating conversation