A stubby-fingered piano player with little formal training who couldn’t read music composed and recorded one of the recognizable melodies that the US has ever produced.

For many people of a certain age, hearing the first two seconds of the piece will bring back memories of childhood.

When you pay attention to what’s going on musically, you begin to hear that the distinctive chords, funky rhythms, and repetitive bass lines are all adaptations made by a guy whose fingers couldn’t span even one octave on the keyboard, and who had never learned the rules so he didn’t know what he wasn’t supposed to do.

Because his hands couldn’t span an octave, he invented a style built on (and here I have to use a wee bit of music jargon) ostinato bass lines, 3rds and 6ths, and hypnotic repetition to create a sound that was like no other.

The piano player is Vince Guaraldi, the piece is “Linus and Lucy,” and the reason it’s so famous is that it was used in scoring the first Peanuts TV show, A Peanuts Christmas Special.

Every team has at least one member whose constraint is visible and real. They’re too valuable or entrenched or loyal to get rid of, but that weakness or trait is just so predictably annoying and limiting.

Modern management theory treats every such constraint as a gap to close. So the annual review comes laden with performance improvement language and development goals, followed by coaching plans with progress metrics.

Sometimes that’s the way to go. If the gap is a learnable skill, like public speaking or pitch deck design, then improvement plans make sense.

But life is often messier than that. Sometimes what appears at first blush to be a behavior to correct is actually a structural reality to work with.

Some examples:

This can look like being unprepared for meetings or rambling during presentations.

But this person may create their perspective and approach by talking rather than sitting in front of a computer or whiteboard and writing. Their best thinking occurs in dialogue with others.

The fix here isn’t “prepare more thoroughly.”

Instead, make sure they have a thinking partner and an uninterrupted hour before the big meeting, and have an AI-powered voice recorder turn their stream of thought into coherent contribution.

That works with their processing style, not against it.

You know this person. They need to “build stronger cross-functional relationships” and are “not seen as collaborative.”

But they’re also the person who will stay until 10pm to help you solve a hard problem. They build relationships through shared work, not “rapport-building” chit-chat.

The fix here isn’t a networking goal on their development plan.

It’s translating their style into operating instructions for your team: “Sarah’s not going to be the one working the room at the offsite, but if you need someone to sit with a hard problem for two hours, she’s the first person I’d call.”

They’ve got nitpicky questions. They’ve got doubts. They’ve got objections. They view everything as a risk to be avoided, and just can’t seem to grasp the big-picture vision you’re so excited about.

But their value is their granularity and their attention to detail; their ability to see what everyone else glosses over. Pushing them to “think more strategically” often just makes them worse at the thing they’re great at without making them good at the thing they’re not. The move is to pair them with a strategic thinker and make the partnership the unit, not try to turn one person into both.

In all three cases, we’re not “giving in” to a lower standard of performance. We’re just changing the path to meeting that standard. They still need to contribute in meetings, or relate effectively to others, or connect to strategy.

But they don’t have to get there through the same door as everyone else.

Vince Guaraldi’s constraints didn’t produce his genius on their own. His environment — the San Francisco jazz scene of the 1950s and early 1960s — provided three elements crucial to his ultimate success:

Belonging: he was embedded in a music scene that accepted him and gave him steady work, allowing him to iterate and find his own unique style

Autonomy: nobody told him to fix his hands or switch instruments; he had control over his musical choices

Framing: his constraint wasn’t treated as a deficiency to be corrected; it was just a reality he could route around creatively

In a word, his environment gave him enough security to invent, rather than mask and compensate for his shortcomings. This was the difference between a demand that he “try harder to span the octave” and the invitation to play with 3rds and 6ths in ways that nobody else was doing.

The language of performance improvement is based on the notion of deficits and gaps. When you use this language in reviews, one-on-ones, and feedback conversations, you limit what’s possible.

Sometimes that is the right framing, when there exist genuine performance issues in need of remediation. I’m not saying that you should never give constructive feedback, or that all weaknesses are secretly strengths.

The key is to hold open the possibility that someone’s cognitive style, personality, and neurological wiring are fixed constraints that can be leveraged into greatness rather than merely “managed” or “overcome.”

Some questions to ask as you strive to bring out the best in the people around you:

What would it look like if this person’s “weakness” were actually a gift?

Where might this person already be routing around their constraint in ways I’m not noticing?

What would it look like to build on those strategies instead of fighting against them?

Vince Guaraldi could have ended up a mediocre imitator of technically superior pianists. Instead he became the only person who sounds like Vince Guaraldi.

And the same can be true of the people on your team, if you create an environment that supports and values their differences.

I’ll leave you with this gentle provocation:

Who on your team are you asking to span the octave?

For a deep dive, check out Derrick Bang’s book Vince Guaraldi at the Piano.

The Mindset Mastery Memo is for ambitious professionals who want to lead with clarity, calm, and confidence. Each edition offers practical tools, mindset shifts, and real-world examples to help you navigate pressure, build stronger teams, and break free from patterns that no longer serve you—so you can lead with intention, not reaction.