Harmonizers: Your Business' Missing Link For Growth

Note: We’re continuing Part 3 of Growth Isn’t One Sided: New Tools, New Roles. Last week we explored how to distinguish scalable problems from non-scalable ones—and why treating them the same destroys both efficiency and innovation. This week: why “balancing” efficiency and innovation doesn’t work—and how Harmonizers blend these approaches dynamically based on what your business actually needs

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One Takeaway: Long-term growth requires both analysis and judgment. Every organization will do this differently, but harmonizing them is key.

Effective and Efficient

To be both efficient and effective, your company needs both managers and entrepreneurs. This may sound great on paper, but how does it translate into action? The answer lies in creating Harmonizers. These are people who bridge the gap between structured thinking and creative problem-solving.

Why Harmonize, Not Balance?

Balance means a static equilibrium. It tries for equal weights on both sides of a scale that doesn’t move. But business is dynamic. Market conditions shift, customer needs change, and competitive landscapes evolve. What worked last quarter may not work this quarter.

Harmonizing is like conducting an orchestra. Sometimes the strings need to be louder, sometimes the brass. A good conductor doesn’t balance all instruments equally. They blend them dynamically based on what the music, and environment, requires at that moment.

In business terms: Sometimes you need more operational focus, sometimes more innovation. Harmonizers help you adjust the mix based on real-world conditions rather than predetermined formulas.

What Harmonizers Actually Do

Harmonizers represent cross-dimensional thinking. They serve as bridges between managerial consistency and entrepreneurial creativity. At Lyft and Uber, local teams often acted as Harmonizers, but your company might define this role differently.

Here’s what makes Harmonizers effective:

• Opportunity Creation: They don’t just solve assigned problems. They find hidden, untapped opportunities that fall between departmental responsibilities.

• Market Adaptation: They recognize that no two markets are identical. They ensure companies don’t sacrifice local effectiveness for broad efficiency.

• Fluid Roles: Instead of rigid job descriptions, they work on “journeys” aligned with strategic objectives. They adapt their focus as conditions change.

• Autonomy with Accountability: They have freedom to make decisions and work across teams, but they’re rewarded based on business outcomes, not just activity.

• Judgment in Complexity: They thrive in messy situations, interpreting unclear data and making decisions where traditional frameworks fall short.

Harmonizers in Action: Real Examples

At Uber and Lyft, Harmonizers routinely handled messy, unpredictable challenges that led to innovations:

Uber Eats started as a small experiment in Santa Monica (uberFRESH). Local employees thought having quicker and easier access to food for lunch would be beneficial.

The Lyft Art Park was located in Downtown Las Vegas. It changed a parking lot into an interactive art installation where riders could gather while waiting for their ride. It reduced traffic congestion at one of the busiest intersections in America.

Lyft Green Mode was created by the Pacific Northwest local team who wanted to connect eco-conscious riders with low emission or electric vehicles.

Uber’s long pickup bonus was based on local insights about driver behavior and built to help smaller markets with less concentration of drivers.

The Coalition for Zero Fatalities brought public and private organizations together to invest in encouraging safe rides in Las Vegas during peak holidays where drunk driving could pose a risk. This launched in 2018 and has continued into 2025.

These projects succeeded and have continued to thrive not because they fit pre-existing formulas, but because they responded to specific market needs not obvious in centralized data models.

Your company has likely acted this way before without knowing it. You may have people on your team who already work like this, or projects that succeeded through similar thinking. If so, you already know how valuable these approaches can be.

The question isn’t whether Harmonizer thinking works. It’s whether you want to cultivate it intentionally rather than stumble into it by accident.

Implementation Approaches

Every company is different. Here are three practical ways to implement Harmonizers:

Approach 1: Dedicated Harmonizer Roles Create specific positions focused on cross-functional challenges. These people report to leadership but work across departments on problems that don’t fit neat organizational boundaries. Best for: Companies with clear departmental silos and recurring cross-functional issues.

Approach 2: Rotating Problem Ownership Assign temporary ownership of cross-functional problems to different departments on rotation. Marketing owns an operational efficiency challenge this quarter; operations owns a customer experience initiative next quarter. Best for: Organizations wanting to build cross-functional thinking across all teams.

Approach 3: Harmonizer Mindset Integration Build Harmonizer responsibilities into existing roles. Reserve 10-15% of team capacity for cross-functional projects outside their core function. Best for: Smaller organizations or those with naturally collaborative cultures.

Not sure which one works best for you? Please reach out to me. I’d be happy to help you identify and navigate these opportunities in your specific situation.

How to Measure Harmonizer Success

Traditional numbers don’t capture Harmonizer value. Here’s what to track instead:

Process Numbers:

• Cross-functional projects started: Are they finding opportunities others miss and can they make a clear case to get other teams on board?

• Problem resolution time: How quickly do cross-team issues get solved?

• Relationship quality: Survey scores from other departments they work with

Outcome Numbers:

• Revenue from hybrid initiatives: Track revenue increases that come from these projects and initiatives

• Customer satisfaction in complex scenarios: Situations requiring both process adherence and adaptive problem-solving

• Employee engagement across functions: Are silos breaking down?

Learning Numbers:

• Experiments launched: Are they testing new approaches?

• Insights documented: Are they capturing learnings for others and effectively documenting and sharing?

• Failed projects lessons: What did unsuccessful attempts teach the organization? Were the losses from unsuccessful projects handled as well as possible?

What Skills Do Harmonizers Need?

Translation abilities: They can speak both analytical and creative languages fluently

Systems thinking: They see connections across dimensions and functions others miss

Relationship building: They build trust across different functional areas

Comfort with uncertainty: They make decisions with incomplete information

Signs Your Company Needs a Harmonizer:

There are a few, easy to overlook signs your company needs someone who thinks like a harmonizer. Some quick examples are:

• Cross-functional projects consistently get pushed aside

• Teams say “That’s not our department” to important problems

• Customer issues requiring multiple teams to solve persist unsolved

These problems tend to “fall through the cracks” and tend to be focused on growth rather than only optimization.

The Bottom Line

Your company’s success depends on more than statistically significant results. While numbers are important, they need judgment to be useful. Long-term growth isn’t about choosing between managers and entrepreneurs. It’s about harmonizing their strengths.

Harmonizers ensure that efficiency serves effectiveness, not the other way around. They bridge the gap between what you can measure and what actually matters, helping your organization stay both operationally excellent and strategically adaptive while recognizing that every market has unique characteristics requiring local adaptation.

There’s one last burning question that needs to be addressed. As markets and technology continue to evolve, how will AI change the balance between standardized approaches and local adaptation? Where will human judgment remain essential?