In today’s business world, with artificial intelligence (AI) driving improvisation and change at unimaginable speeds, the role of the human resources department—and, specifically, the chief human resource officer (CHRO)—has never been more important.

My colleague Rishi Varma likens the CHRO’s expanding role to that of an orchestra concertmaster.

If you know something about orchestras, you know that the concertmaster—the lead violinist—is the most essential musician in the ensemble, responsible for “understanding the conductor’s ideas and communicating them in technical terms to the rest of the orchestra.”

Frequently involved in key personnel, technical and artistic decisions, in addition to performing, the concertmaster is the conductor’s right hand. “While conductors may come and go—with different styles and approaches,” the Berklee College of Music points out on its web site, the concertmaster “provides the orchestra with consistent and technically oriented leadership.”

Today’s CHROs, Varma says, need to act like the concertmaster.