In recent weeks, I’ve been doing a number of live book launch events, some shorter, others longer. I’ve attached the slide deck from one of these and have expanded on some of the points in the slides below
AC / DC and Strategy
1. AC / DC have surpassed their peers by ‘sticking to the knitting’ – developing a strong brand and reinforcing it through everything they do. They have not ‘crossed genres’, wandering into hip hop or jazz fusion. It’s rare for businesses and individuals to be able to keep doing the same thing and keep their customers in the current age.
2. When they have changed, they have built a strong bridge between the future and the past, which has allowed them to keep their audience and gain new followers. This is a very transferable lesson for businesses and individuals.
Deep Purple, Creativity and Innovation
3. Innovation needs discipline and structure. People think that creativity is enough for innovation to take place, but it takes discipline and structure to execute an idea. We see this on stage when Deep Purple were jamming.
4. Innovative teams require strong leadership. Deep Purple nearly imploded on many occasions due to creative tensions between the band members.
The Beatles and Creativity
5. Find ways to listen to ideas that seem ‘dissonant’ to currently accepted views. The Beatles were masters of bringing outside influences into the world of pop music.
6. Delay evaluation of ideas for as long as reasonable, so that you can put distance between the novelty and a sober evaluation of the potential feasibility and impact of an idea.
7. Requisite diversity is essential if you are to have an innovative business. Find ways to resolve tensions that build up by putting different people together, but resist attempts to sidestep conflict. The creative leader utilises the tension between opposites whilst maintaining a focus on the goal. The Beatles are an excellent example of this.
Lady Gaga and Innovation
8. Innovate within the familiar range of the customer’s expectation for maximum early impact. Build on that for long-term sustainability. Gaga has cleverly built her music on the firm foundations of Madonna and her peers.
9. Stand on the shoulders of giants if you want to innovate. Be a genuine learning organisation if you want to stay in business for the long term. What will be interesting is to see what Gaga does next, having established world domination.
10. Use innovative partnerships and joint ventures to enlarge your market share in ways that benefit all. Choose your partners wisely and in ways that provide genuine win-win benefits.
For more detail on these points, mail me for your copy of The Music of Business. Tomorrow, I give the final keynote at a large Pharmaceutical Conference – my title is “Innovation Lessons from the Past, Present and Future“. If you want to perk up your next meeting, conference or keynote with a healthy blend of business thinking plus live demonstrations and the engagement that comes from live participation, give us a call on 07725 927585 or via e-mail peter@humdyn.co.uk
It may be a tad self-indulgent, but I’m extremely excited as today is the launch day for “The Music of Business”. This has spawned a special post to celebrate the day. I’ve gathered together some music videos from some of the artists who feature in the book. The Music of Business is on special offer TODAY. Please can you buy copies and ask your contacts or colleagues to do the same. I am keen to find out just how far we can take this independent production into the Amazon charts against the mammoth resources of the big brands:
To reward you for this, you will be able to pick up a free copy of our iPhone app in the coming weeks – daily tips on business and personal development fused with music, developed in partnership with Jason Bell of Datasentiment.
Footnote : The book reached number 10 in books on Amazon thanks to your efforts!
OUT Today – Click on the picture to order copies
So, here we go with some great music from the featured artists:
I spent many an hour on top of the stairs at the age of 15, trying to play Ritchie Blackmore’s licks
The Kaiser Chiefs are pioneering new business models
A surprisingly sublime piece from Britney Spears
The genius of Bill Nelson, performing one of his instrumental pieces at his Legends concert for ITV
David Bowie’s magnificent reflective piece “where are we now”
Gaga’s anthem about her identity shows her to be more than a passing fad
One of our corporate events at Pfizer on career management with two hit wonder and micro star John Otway
Madonna, causing a commotion as usual, this time with religion
Art, Empire and Industry – Rowena Sian Morgan of BASCA on the photoshoot for the cover of The Music of Business – just before we were asked to leave the scene by security guards …
We stand just 72 hours away from the launch of my new book “The Music of Business”. The book is already available to buy at AMAZON.CO.UK, AMAZON.COM, and KINDLE. Signed copies directly from the book WEBPAGE. On 31 1 13, the book will be on special offer for the day. If you are planning to buy copies, it would help enormously if you did so on 31 1 13 to help secure a place in the Amazon charts in an interesting experiment to see if it’s possible to beat the major publishers at their own game.
To preview the book, this week I’m taking a break from my regular blogging content. Instead I’ve just selected some cool videos from some of the artists who feature in the book. Normal service will be resumed soon and I will stop being over excited!
Gaga controls the music business and is Queen of Social Media marketing.
I grew up on the Beatles, having blown my ear drums out screaming to Twist and Shout when I was 5 years old with an orange plastic Beatles guitar. This was the beginning of my 1st love and perhaps was the 1st inspiration for the book, swiftly followed by Jimi Hendrix.
AC / DC are a miracle in making a ‘formula’ work over nearly 40 years. Most of us have to flex and bend in order to stay alive.
Madonna is a reinvention guru. What made her that way? Read all about it in The Music of Business.
The best day of 2012 was the moment when I performed on stage with Bernie Tormé. Can business be this fun? Yes it can! We offer 24 hour strategy retreats that synthesise business excellence with the power of music.
Prince teaches us about the art and discipline of improvisation in the context of peak performance.
Scott McGill – a virtuoso jazz fusion musician and teacher gives valuable lessons in ‘musical escapology’ with important parallels for business creativity.
Richard Strange – Quoted as “The Godfather of Punk” by Johnny Rotten explores the dark side of creativity and innovation. If you are in London and wish to meet up, I often attend Richard’s alternative mixed media event Cabaret Futura.
Bill Nelson offers us lessons in principled leadership and reinvention in The Music of Business. Check this music master’s work out at Bill Nelson.
Ch, ch, ch, changes from the Thin White Duke, who has shape shifted many times over 40 years, keeping his audience. His latest work sees him turn full circle back to a reflective style that won him fans 40 years ago, but with a post-modern edge to it.
My life was never the same at the age of 13 when I discovered Marc Bolan. Bolan was a great innovator. Check out Lesley Ann-Jones’ book on Marc on Amazon.
And of course, the title of this blog from the Bard of Barking – what a great wordsmith:
Hoping your week rocks! Please spread the word about the book launch on 31 1 13 on social media, e-mail, carrier pigeon and any other mode of communication. Thank you for all your encouragement and supports, which have been pivotal in completing this project.
Four Symbols – Heavy metal explained by school kids
Heavy Metal. You either love it or hate it. Nonetheless it has an awesome power from the sheer volume and deathly riffs that lurk within the genre. Perhaps one of the most doom laden riffs of all time comes from Black Sabbath via the title song of their album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, particularly the riff towards the end of the song (3 minutes 17 seconds on), which competes with Uranium, weighing in at 238 units on the ‘heavy metal’ scale in the Periodic Table.
Heavy metal sounds different to pop music and a quick musical note explains why. Heavy Metal tends to employ modal scales, in particular the Aeolian and Phrygian modes rather than the upbeat scales favoured in pop songs (Doh-Ray-Me-Far-So-La-Te-Doh, with third part harmonies such as those used in songs by The Beatles, Abba etc.). Although heavy metal has its critics, it has been argued that heavy metal has the most in common with classical music, especially Bach, Wagner and Vivaldi through the influence of Ritchie Blackmore, Randy Rhoads, Yngwie Malmsteen etc.
As if to illustrate the point, take a listen to Love Sculpture, featuring Dave Edmunds, doing Khachaturian’s ’Sabre Dance’ in 1968, containing many of the modal scales I mentioned above:
Music theory aside, what can we learn about business from Heavy Metal bands?
From Deep Purple, we get the insight that innovation in business requires discipline as much as it does creativity.
From Led Zeppelin and Peter Grant, we get the insight that, if the industry norms are killing your business opportunity, change the industry norms.
From Black Sabbath, we get the insight that limitations can assist creativity.
From Spinal Tap, we learn that plans are nothing if execution is poor.
About the Blogger: Peter Cook leads The Academy of Rock - Keynote events with a difference and Human Dynamics - Business and organisation development, training and coaching. Contact via peter@humdyn.co.uk
OUT 31.1.13 Click the cover to pre-order signed copies
Music is my first love, And it will be my last, Music of the future, Music of the past John Miles
Thursday 31 January 2013 marks the launch date of my new book “The Music of Business” and I thought I’d give a heads up on the date in the hope that you will buy copies of the book and tell others about it, to give it an initial boost on Amazon. The book represents the culmination of many years work, looking at the parallels between business excellence and ideas from the field of music. There’s a healthy dose of totally new material plus major developments and expansions of ideas I have written about here and in other places. Pre-order copies of the book here. The book is also available to buy at AMAZON.CO.UK, AMAZON.COM, and KINDLE although it will be available at a discount on 31 1 13. Take a quick look at the Slideshare presentation.
Alongside Harvey Goldsmith’s quote, I was delighted to receive some spiffing reviews of the book:
“Original, perceptive, effective and amusing… Peter Cook’s unique take on the parallel universes of business and music never fails to stimulate, inspire and entertain” Richard Strange, Founder, The Doctors of Madness, Actor, Writer
“An engaging and accessible look at business issues through a musical lens – no MBA required!” – Dominic Brown – Finance Director, The Halcyon Gallery
“If you are in business and like music then The Music of Business is simply a ‘must have’. It puts across sound theories in a logical, digestible and illustrative manner, in ways that actually make sense compared with other business books” - Marc Don Francesco, Head of Group Marketing, Towergate Insurance
Organised into four sections : Strategy; Creativity; Innovation and; Change, the book is available as a hard copy with additional material and pictures. It will also be available as a Kindle download. I wonder if I dare ask some favours of you on this:
Please mention the book to contacts and colleagues, perhaps by sharing this blog on social media or posting a Tweet, LinkedIn, Google+1, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon or facebook mention.
Share the Slideshare presentation widely via the link SHARE
If anyone fancies doing a guest blog, interview or book review, that would be great. E-mail me at peter@humdyn.co.uk
Anything else you can think of Just do it
Pre-order signed copies at the book webpage: The Music of Business. To thank you for your help, I am also launching a free iPhone app – daily business tips mixed with music, which I will be happy to send you. This has been devised in partnership with data genius and bass player supremo Jason Bell of Datasentiment.
A date to remember – Just click to order
We leave with two songs that capture the essence of why music reaches the parts that spreadsheets do not, from John Miles and Madonna:
I attended a great event with John Lloyd, Producer of Blackadder, Not the Nine o’Clock News, Spitting Image and co-author of 1227 QI facts at the RSA a few weeks back. John’s talk was entitled “General Ignorance – It’s all about what you don’t know”. John and I had a pleasant conversation afterwards as it turned out that I was the 3rd Peter Cook he has met, having of course been good friends with the comic genius during his Perrin Walk years in Hampstead. Click on the image to listen to the full RSA event.
Ignorance is NOT Bliss
Uncertainty bedevils business decisions and all innovation projects, since they are all about the future. We all know that “the past ain’t what it used to be” and our algorithms for making decisions based on the past are pretty near redundant. We need better routines to handle decisions about the future these days. However, I’m pretty certain (sic) that uncertainty in business breaks down into two dimensions – uncertainty over the destination and uncertainty over the journey:
Smart leaders know that different strategies are required to deal with the different ‘zones’ of uncertainly. For more on this topic read ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n'Roll‘. These include:
Zone 3 – Finding a genuinely shared, potent and viable VISION
Zone 1 – Asking an expert or someone who knows (often overlooked in favour of a strategy summit! )
Zone 4 – Unpicking complex and conflicting issues where uncertainty is a constant – or SWAMP DRAINING
If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for re great decisions or innovation, get in touch. If you have, feel free to enjoy Bono’s anthem on uncertainty:
Coming on 31 1 13 the new book “The Music of Business” with whole sections on strategy and change. I can hardly believe my luck in getting the quote below from Harvey Goldsmith. “The Music of Business” is available to order at AMAZON.CO.UK, AMAZON.COM, and KINDLE with special discounts on 31 1 13. To sample the book have a look at a sneak preview via a SLIDESHARE presentation or visit the book WEBSITE.
In this new year post, I’m counting down 10 business tips as seen through the eyes and ears of punk rock. A kind of “Business Top of the Pops” but without the DJ. No need to pogo whilst reading these unless you must. Punk refers to brevity, simplicity and purity of thought in business. For more on all this, ping me a note with PUNK in the title to claim your new year’s gift – a copy of my micro book - Punk Rock People Management.
# 10 – What do you want from life? – The Tubes
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT - The Tubes’ revolting anthem on happiness in life and work, coming out of observations on their fans opulent lifestyle in San Francisco, points out that consumption per se does not lead to happiness. So, rewards given without there being some basic desire for the reward are worthless. We did not need The Tubes or the happiness movement to tell us this. All we had to do was to look carefully at Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory of Satisfiers and Dissatisfiers. Somehow The Tubes’ message is more potent. If you are not familiar with the song, listen to the rant at the end of this piece. In more recent times, Radiohead did something similar with “Fitter Happier”.
# 9 – Blank Generation – Richard Hell and the Voidoids
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT- This is perhaps the first and only time that Punk Rock and HR Guru Gary Hamel will find unity … Hamel recently said that “HR must help kill bureaucracy and encourage greater innovation within organistions“. Why? That comes down to the ‘blank generation’, aka people who are actively disengaged from work. We don’t need engagement taskforces to know this – it’s punk rock common sense. Less obvious is how to achieve that innnovation in HR, which, after all, is usually part of the risk reduction part of the enterprise. I spent a third of my life working on scientific innovation and quite a bit of time watching people wringing their hands about innovation on the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Council and frankly, I don’t see innovation as a core HR competence.
# 8 – Oh bondage, up yours – X-Ray Spex
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT - Poly Styrene’s point was really all about female empowerment or girl power. This applies just as much to the guys. As Poly says “Bind me tie me, Chain me to the wall, I wanna be a slave to you all, Oh bondage up yours“. Simply put, if you want to get extra performance out of people, stop controlling every last detail of people’s performance through lengthy job descriptions, KPI’s, SMART goals for everything, yada, yada …
# 7 – Public Image – Public Image Ltd
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT- “You never listen to a word that I said, you only see me for the clothes that I wear” Do we look past people’s appearance towards their knowledge, skills and attitudes in interviews, appraisals etc? After all, it’s those things we desperately want rather than an illusion. In an age where virtually everything is choreographed at work, remember that Steve Jobs would probably have failed an interview at Apple.
# 6 – What do I get? – The Buzzcocks
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT – We know well enough from Frederick Herzberg and The Buzzcocks that pay is a ‘dissatisifier’. In other words, if you double people’s pay, they won’t work twice as hard for twice as long. Take away their pay and you know all about it if it is perceived as being out of balance with the effort as Starbucks are just about to discover. Pay people well enough, but don’t just focus on pay as the reward for work. This reinforces the conversation about ‘What do I get?’ After all RNR stands for Reward AND Recognition, not just Rock’n’Roll.
# 5 – Two Tribes – Frankie Goes to Hollywood
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT– The Bard of Barking, Billy Bragg, may not have been an employment lawyer, but he may have contributed more to our understanding of collective bargaining than all the employment law authors in the world if they were laid end to end, via his song ‘There is power in a union’. Frankie goes to Hollywood also reminded us of the classic pluralist assumption within classical thinking on unions in their 80’s anthem “Two Tribes”. OK, Frankie are not punks I know, but they conveyed the spirit of punk rock through their music.
Punk Rock HR offers us three chords on unions:
See unions as an advantage in a pluralist workplace due to the money and time they can save you if you get the relationship right.
Focus on interests rather than positions if you are to do collective bargaining well.
See negotiations from all viewpoints so that you can be most effective in reaching a solution. It is what pre-punk Scandinavians Abba would have called “Knowing me, knowing you”.
# 4 – Happy House – Siouxsie and the Banshees
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT – Siouxsie Sioux’s deeply ironic lyric flags up the problem with the ‘happiness movement’. She commented that “Happy House” contrasts the illusion of family bliss, where everyone smiles, has blond hair, has all-day sunshine, eats butter without fat, with the realities of life – depression, wife beating and so on. Grim stuff for a pop song! The happiness movement also seems to operate under the illusion that we are all becoming more self-actualised and self-driven, when the data seems to suggest that people are less happy than they were 50 years ago, even though we are considerably richer. Since work is a huge part of life, the implication is that we should design jobs and work which are fulfilling.
# 3 – Smash it up – The Damned
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT – Disruptive innovation inside companies takes considerable effort. Sometimes it’s necessary to destroy the status quo to make way for new practices. Smashing up existing organisational structures and cultures may look like vandalism, but given the permanence of cultures, sometimes it is the only way to make space for the new.
# 2 – What a Waste – Ian Dury
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT– “What a waste”, like “Sex and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll”, was a song about being in a job that makes you happy. Perhaps all that is needed to create a high performance workplace is to develop the HR habit of finding out what turns people on and ensuring that the work gives them these outcomes.
In some cases, as Dury points out, this does not have to be Chief Executive or Vice President of HR, it could simply involve becoming “the ticket man at Fulham Broadway Station”.
# 1 – Teenage Kicks – The Undertones
THE PUNKBUSINESS POINT – When I asked Professor Adrian Furnham earlier this year to identify out some factors that make for an agile innovative company, his first point was to ensure that youth has a voice in the affairs of the company. Youth brings ideas that are untrammelled by experience, as long as people feel able to voice those ideas. The smart HR person gives a voice to youthful and other naïve inputs to company strategy.
Send your suggestions for other punk rock songs with a business message by commenting on this blog. Order your copy of Punk Rock People Management by mailing me with PUNK in the title. Also available on Amazon Kindle and as a hard copy full colour book. Coming very soon now, the new book – The Music of Business – Here’s a quote: This book is a great tool for people in business. Harvey Goldsmith CBE
– Punk Rock People Management – Disruptive Innovation in Business
About the Blogger: Peter Cook leads The Academy of Rock - Keynote events with a difference and Human Dynamics - Business and organisation development, training and coaching. Contact via peter@humdyn.co.uk
Computers are wonderful things and I personally could not live without my Mac. However, the old phrase GIGO (Garbage in Garbage out) still applies. It’s amazing what people seem to believe if it is on a flat screen. Here’s an example of what happens when people disengage their own intelligence in favour of a database:
I was phoned a few months ago by a company wanting to ‘conduct research’ on my washing machine. They refused to get off the line despite several polite attempts to persuade them to do so, so I told them I had a “Toyota” washing machine….
Two months later I had a call from another company offering me insurance, who proudly started the call with:
“We’re calling you today to offer you exclusive insurance cover for your Toyota USB2000 washing machine ….”
Sometime later: Me : “You do know that Toyota don’t make washing machines?”
Them : “Have you sold it?”
Me : “I have a Prius. As I said, Toyota make cars”
Toyota make great cars … but no washing machines
Them : “We know that sir. The washing machine you have is spelt differently. Have you sold it?”
Me (broken record) : “Toyota make cars, not washing machines”.
Them (still keen to insure my washing machine): “We bought the data from another company. Do you have a washing machine” ….
A hybrid washing machine?
I had a similar experience when I bought an advert from Yell.com (now Hibu.com) recently. The promise was articulated thus: ”We cannot get you business, but we can make the phone ring”. This seemed like an entirely reasonable premise. A couple of weeks later, the phone did ring:
“I’d like to buy some turf”
Me : “Aah, sorry, this is a business consultancy – you have the wrong number”
The following week, I got a call for Calor Gas. I was suspicious so asked where he got the number from – it was the Yellow Pages!
The following week, I got a call for plate glass. Yell insist on giving you a different phone number so they can track calls. Clearly this one had been round the block many times.
No problem, you would think – just call them and it would get sorted out. Well, no. Yell started off by trying to rewrite history, suggesting that it had not happened the way I described. They then tried to shift blame by telling me that Yellow Pages did not belong to them any more. It was only when I pointed out that their phone number was the root cause of the Yellow Pages calls and asked to speak to their CEO that they finally capitulated, after which time most people have given up.
What would have been better? Well, simply offering to investigate and fix the problem without fuss would have been a much better turnaround. Unfortunately they trusted the computer more than they did me to start with, wasting time and damaging their reputation, making me want to “Yell about it”.
Incidentally, saying you want to “Hibu about it” just does not work as well … Perhaps that’s why they renamed the company recently?
Life’s a Gas, Heart of Grass, The Green Green Glass of Home
On the upside, I have discovered a great business opportunity for a one stop shop that sells Grass, Glass and Gas … Hurry, hurry … Happy Christmas!
3G business for sale on Yell.com
Coming soon, my recent dealings with HR outsourcing company RSM Tenon and boutique solicitors Twenty Twenty Law make for an interesting story of disappointment and dishonour in dealing with others, Bah Humbug! To finish here is Pink Floyd’s prophetic tale of corporate cyber control where common sense is replaced by algorithms and bulls…t. Welcome to the Machine:
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About the Blogger: Peter Cook leads The Academy of Rock - Keynote events with a difference and Human Dynamics - Business and organisation development, training and coaching. Contact via peter@humdyn.co.uk
The Venus Fly Trap differentiates itself by turning itself into a meat eating plant. What is your difference?
In this interview, I’m talking with Mark Lambert. With a background in HSBC global markets, Mark is a Deep Purple fanatic and a jazz drummer to boot, having performed with Bernie Tormé at our Monsters of Rock event. I must say he put out a mean challenge to Purple’s Ian Gillan and Bernie said he was a pleasure to work with.
Mark’s controversial thesis is that innovation eats itself. I asked him to explain more:
“The business writer Michael Porter tells us that organisations seek competitive advantage by offering consumers new products and services. Merely cost-cutting and re-engineering are insufficient for a company to survive. Instead, constant innovation is required to stay ahead in the battle for consumers.”
Is there a limit to how far this idea applies?
“Although the number of potential consumers is large and growing, an optimistic view (putting aside famines, droughts, diseases and wars for a moment) is that there will eventually, one would hope, come a time when, to borrow the ideas of Maslow, all of their needs at all levels will be met. Moreover, given the relative pace of technological change compared to the rate of human evolution, that time may be soon approaching. Once consumers have all their perceived needs met, where is the pressure to innovate?
Conventional wisdom would have us believe that innovation is everywhere: mobile phones, e-mail and the Internet have all transformed business and social life in the last 30 years. The world of today is very different from the world of only a few decades ago. People in the developed world, especially young people, are switched-on, on-line and linked-in, with supercomputer-like processing power at their finger-tips, unprecedented access to information and extensive social networks.
Yet in one area, there is less change.
Popular music in the 1970’s was awash with a rich variety of styles. Alongside well-established genres that included ‘easy listening’ and jazz, new genres emerged such as jazz-funk, disco and several variations of rock that included ‘heavy’, ‘progressive’ and ‘punk’. In Darwinian terms, some of these more-or-less random musical mutations can be, with hindsight, considered failures while others succeeded and spawned other new styles such as ‘new age’ and ‘electronica’. The target consumer group was generally people under the age of about 30 and music was one of the major entertainment/leisure time activities available, the main competitor being television (which had the disadvantages of limited choice, lack of record/replay facilities and relatively poor sound quality). A trip to the local record shop and a new LP purchase would typically be followed by an evening of contemplative listening, maybe a with couple of friends and a mug of instant coffee.
Would Deep Purple’s album Machine Head have now been reduced to a 3 track single in an age of grazing?
Now press the fast-forward button on your portable cassette player. In 2012, the typical western teenager’s entertainment needs are met by a greater number of product offerings that are facilitated by more sophisticated technologies, especially the Internet. Music now struggles to compete with high-quality (in the technological if not the creative sense) audio-visual content from the likes of YouTube. Social networking sites are popular and smart phones have a vast range of appealing apps. Young consumers tend to have less spare time, lower boredom thresholds, and are more adept than their parents at multi-tasking – listening to background television while twittering friends and doing their homework. They generally prefer to download individual tracks from a favourite artist rather than listening to a whole album and buy fewer CD’s than their parents. Editor’s note – there is more on this point in the interviews with Richard Strange and Bernie Tormé.
Without the perceived need, Joseph Engelberger, the father of robotics, tells us, the reason to innovate diminishes.”
So what would we expect to hear under such conditions?
“Songs which are musically predictable with lyrics that don’t demand attention from the listener and that are performed by artists who all conform to a generic appearance. The music industry becomes a cash-cow where commercial returns diminish and companies are unlikely to invest in new, riskier projects. Eventually, it no longer becomes financially viable to release genuinely new music with old songs being repeatedly re-hashed by an ever-rotating roster of new faces that look and sound just like the previous generation.”
Does it matter?
“Maybe it doesn’t really matter. Music is not the most important thing for a large proportion of the world’s population who have greater concerns (at Maslow’s lower levels). But a world bereft of innovative music is, ultimately, a less creative and emotionally uplifting place for us all.”
I could not agree more. Let’s take a piece of Mark’s favourite music to prove the point. Deep Purple in full flow jamming with their song Lazy from their album Machine Head, featuring the stunning keyboard work of John Lord:
Amanda Carter from Seattle sums up on disruptive innovation:
1) Rules are meant to be broken
2) Reality is consciously changeable
3) Expect the unexpected
About Mark Lambert:
Mark Lambert is a Business Manager who has worked for several leading financial institutions in London and the Netherlands. He has a couple of physics degrees and an MBA and his areas of specialism include:
Analysing and solving business and IT problems
Creating and managing global teams
Writing : reports, magazine articles
Playing and recording music
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About the Blogger: Peter Cook leads The Academy of Rock – Keynote events with a difference and Human Dynamics – Business and organisation development, training and coaching. Contact via peter@humdyn.co.uk For a copy of our book on disruptive innovation in HR, mail us with PUNK in the title:
Punk Rock People Management – Disruptive Innovation in HR
The other week I was invited to a private viewing of classic photographs of The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan at The British Music Experience by the great people at MusicConnex with my friend Guy Cresswell. This afforded me the rare privilege of meeting Harvey Goldsmith and presenting him with a copy of “Sex, Leadership and Rock’n'Roll“. I pointed out that I’d been to a lot of Harvey’s gigs but he never seemed to show up at them! I am now waiting to find out if he enjoyed the book and whether he has time to give me a quote on the new book “The Music of Business” out in January 2013. That would be just awesome as young people say. Apart from all that, it was fascinating to learn about the transition of Dylan and the Stones life through the pictures and archive videos of their performances. What would you say we learned from them? How has this has a permanent impact on our culture? Post your thoughts on the blog.
Due for launch on 31 1 13
The new book “The Music of Business” has four themes: Strategy; Creativity; Innovation and; Change, with a wide selection of articles. I’m currently looking for endorsements from business people, senior academics and music luminaries so please get in touch if you fit the bill.
An unexpected surprise was to bump into the lead singer of The Blockheads, who seems to share a number of network contacts including John Otway. Here’s a picture of Derek the Blockhead with me and the Jester himself:
Blockheads
The British Music Experience exhibition on the Stones and Dylan runs until February 3rd at the O2. It’s well worth a visit, if you have a few hours to spend in London. Let’s remind ourselves of Dylan, Jagger et al’s work in their heyday:
Footnote: I did indeed get a reference – The hallmark of a great person is someone who makes you feel like you are the only person in the room even when they are themselves furiously busy. Harvey Goldsmith is such a person:
This book is a great tool for people in business. At the end it answers a lot of questions and then asks a lot more.
