November | 2014 | Business lessons from rock

Even more random thoughts

November 26, 2014 / 10 Comments

bills w: elastic Catching up on a few items...

Seeing the bonuses and salaries that some CEOs are making these days—regardless of their performance—gets people pretty riled up where I come from. Many Wall Street executives, for example, are earning as much as pop singers and professional basketball players. Time for a reassessment of our values.

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As I’ve said before on this blog, in my rock & roll days I never had to deal with a “bad boss”—or any boss for that matter—given the disregard that bands have for authoritarian leaders. But since that time I’ve had to coach more than a few managers whose abrasiveness has estranged direct reports and put a dent in their productivity. So I was delighted to hear of an organization called The Boss-Whispering Institute which is dedicated to taming the unruliest of managers. But I know what you’re thinking: where were these boss-busters when you could have used them to handle your last clueless rage-aholic manager? Well, at least now you know where you can go for help. Actually I’ve been doing boss-whispering for decades—but I wasn’t clever enough to call it that.

Rock & Roll, show us your birth certificate!

November 19, 2014 / 11 Comments

rock music98 I've been enjoying my deep dive into rock history of late, especially the golden-oldie glory days. Last week I wrote about the mid-50s tech innovations that helped rock & roll achieve lift-off. This week: the political and religious opposition that nearly grounded it.

Unless you lived through—or heavily researched—those early days of rock, you may be unaware of the distraught reactions that entertainers like Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry drew from morality's gatekeepers. As mentioned in an earlier post, rock & roll was a “communicable disease” (according to at least one respected American psychiatrist) and a tool of Satan (according to hundreds of religious authorities, including Cardinal Ratzinger, who went on to become Pope Benedict XV). Another critic railed against rock's “deafening, dope-ridden, degenerate mob scenes.” More alarming to me, a research study purported to show that overexposure to rock beats "causes homosexuality in mice and deafness in pigs." (As if we don’t have enough problems.)

Symbiotic synchronicity

November 12, 2014 / 8 Comments

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Major innovations often occur in the same time frame as related innovations (as is happening now in computer software and home electronics) which enable them to rapidly build on each other’s success.

In the mid-50s, there was a batch of breakthrough technologies of mutual benefit to each other—a veritable hi-tech hit parade—that brought to life a brand new musical form: rock & roll. The rapid rise of rock is a dazzling illustration of the power of symbiotic innovation.

Here are four of the most important inventions that helped rock & roll in its early days—and which were helped by rock & roll.

• The transistor radio. Developed in late 1954 (just in time!) and made possible by the invention of transistor-based circuitry, this pocket-sized, battery-powered “mobile device” enabled teens to listen to the music of their choice by themselves. (No more crowding around the big RCA Victor console in the living room!) Young folks could listen to that crazy jungle music in their bedrooms, unsupervised. A “teen empowerment” tool if there ever was one.

Time for women to rock the house—part one

November 5, 2014 / 4 Comments

Whenever I look at the history of rock—as I frequently do to harvest lessons for mainstream business (and especially for business teams)—I’m always struck by one disconcerting detail: the early years of rock & roll featured few women.

Yes, there were some successful female pop singers—and soulful “Girl Groups”—in the 50s and early 60s, but rock & roll was primarily a men’s club for a full decade after Little Richard and Chuck Berry first lit up the charts in 1955. (Just as true on the business side, where female record producers, business managers, and music promoters were virtually non-existent.)

Starting around 1967, rock bands with female vocalists began to emerge on the national stage—e.g., The Jefferson Airplane (with Grace Slick) and Big Brother & the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin). By the mid-70s there was no shortage of top women rock singers, appearing solo or in bands—from Tina Turner to Linda Ronstadt to Stevie Nicks to Deborah Harry to Patti Smith and many more. Today there are dozens of female rockers—like Hayley Williams in Paramore—fronting top-selling bands, and living their "daydreams."