The Grateful Dead may have become a business school case study, but what can MBA students really learn from bands?
THE GRATEFUL Dead have been rebranded. Formerly, they were five hippies who took a lot of drugs and made music. Now they are business school case studies, hailed as visionary geniuses for creating customer value, promoting social networking and engaging in strategic planning.
This new direction for the band is written up in the March issue of the Atlanticmagazine, which claims that business students have got tired of studying GE and Southwest Airlines and have turned to the Grateful Dead instead.
I’ve never been more than a dilettante Deadhead, but am disappointed that the article does not include this lyric from Truckin: “Together, more or less in line, just keep truckin’ o-on”.
This strikes me as an excellent, highly versatile mission statement for most companies. Otherwise, I have mixed feelings about the rebrand. To praise the Grateful Dead for “creating and delivering superior customer value” is almost blasphemous. Jerry Garcia must be turning in his grave.
But I also fail to see why the Grateful Dead should occupy this position. What about the Rolling Stones? I spent my teenage years lying on my bed listening to Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street until the grooves on the disc were all but worn out. Surely they deserve to be business school gods just as much?
Last week, I applied myself with considerable excitement to the job of rebranding the Rolling Stones for the MBA student.
First, I searched the back catalogue for management tips. This was enjoyable, though, in truth, a little disappointing.
“Brown sugar, how come you taste so good, aah” doesn’t have any obvious management parallels. “I can’t get no satisfaction” could be read as a study in the elusive nature of customer care – but I’m not sure what action points arise from it.
The true lesson from the Rolling Stones is about success. They have endured for 48 years in an industry known for a) loving youth, and b) being extremely fickle. Their most recent tour made more money than any other.
Growth has been organic; they have stuck to their core business and values. They have a strong partnership between two people who, despite tiffs, have stuck together. They have kept control of their own material.
The best lesson of all was in the early change of name from the Rollin’ Stones to the Rolling Stones. This was truly radical: the coolest band in the world opted for correctness over gimmick. If only Fortis, the insurance company, had paid attention, it would not last week have changed its name to the nonsensical, lower-case “ageas”.
It isn’t just successful pop stars that transpose well from C major to C suite. My husband’s first love was Syd Barrett, the creative, self-destructive force behind early Pink Floyd.
Given that Barrett wrote a song called Effervescing Elephant, fried his brain on LSD, went mad and retreated to live as a recluse with his mum in Cambridge, one might have thought there were few business lessons there – apart from keeping off psychedelic drugs.
Yet when I asked my husband whether Barrett had anything to teach business, I managed to extract two profound truths from his subsequent lecture.
Barrett understood that often change isn't possible. In Octopus, he sings: "So high you go, so low you creep . . . The squeaking door will always squeak."
He also showed authenticity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Barrett was far too authentic, meaning that no one else could do cover versions of his songs – which wasn’t good for royalties.
While it may be deeply satisfying to ageing fans to try to marry the early love of pop music with a more staid interest in business, not all the lessons are good ones.
In rock, dropping down dead can be a smart move, while in business dying mid-career is rarely a good idea. There are further important differences in clothing and lifestyle. Crushed velvet has never been a good look in the boardroom; in rock’n’roll you go to bed at about 4am, which is about the time successful executives are starting to get up.
The more you think about it, the clearer it becomes that one sphere is about sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, and the other is about spreadsheets, customer relationship management and supply chain management. So not much overlap at all.
But the biggest dissimilarity is that in rock music you need a rock star. With business it is the opposite: things go a lot smoother without one. In 2006, Guy Hands paid far too much for EMI. The reason, according to my colleague Luke Johnson, is that deep down, Hands wishes he was Mick Jagger. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)
