3M : Meatloaf, Macroeconomics and (Iron) Maiden – Rock’n'Roll Business hits the FT and The BBC

This week, I’ve prepared a round up of press articles on business, management, economics and music.   Starting with Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden, who has just opened an enterprise business in Wales, to service aircraft and provide jobs for 800 people in tough times.  The Financial Times covered the story:

Can I play with madness? Iron Maiden enter the fray to help fix the economy

Dickinson sounds a Mc Kinsey consultant who attended a ‘mass customisation masterclass’ and a ‘lean 5S programme’ when he says of the new aviation centre “We will tailor our services completely to the needs of our customers and we won’t employ more people than we need”.  To be fair, he makes his point much more clearly than a management consultant who swallowed an MBA for breakfast!  That said, I don’t see Dickinson’s business acumen embedded in the lyrics of Iron Maiden’s songs, such as “The number of the beast” or “Two minutes to midnight”, even after I played them backwards …  Why did I not learn more about entrepreneurship, business continuity and economic development when I attended Iron Maiden’s comeback tour at Twickenham with my testosterone-filled 13 year old son?  We must be told …

Moving on to Andrew Sentance, Senior Economics Adviser to Price Waterhouse Coopers.  I will be featuring a full interview with Andrew shortly, but could not resist a trailer in the form of this witty piece on Meatloaf and the economy from The Evening Standard.  Andrew stands head and shoulders above the consultancy profession with his approach, which is thoughtful but also incisive.  A rare breed.

“3M” : Meatloaf, Macro-economics and Management

Without realising it, Andrew had followed an earlier piece I wrote for The Financial Times, and another I wrote which got picked up by BBC Radio 4′s flagship “Today” programme.  Here’s the article and the Radio clip:

I’m delighted to say that the FT letter prompted a US University Academic to get in touch with me.  It turned out that he had spent three years sharing a college room with Jim Steinman.  I have performed a couple of times with Meatloaf’s female singing partner – she sang on “I’d do anything for love (but I won’t do that)”.

For more posts on the economy, see Vince Cable, Can rappers fix the economy? and Evan Davis, who I bumped into the other week whilst jogging round London.  Perhaps Evan is entering the Olympics?

To finish, let’s hear that classic Iron Maiden song again to see if there is any subliminal advice about the 3A’s of regeneration:  Aerospace, Aeroflot or Aerosmith contained within, 666, the number of the beast:

Postscript – The FT published a letter I sent in re this on Tuesday 8 May:

Can I play with madness (and the economy) ?

Like a Rolling Stone – The art of empathy

I am privileged to belong to The Stone Club.  Led by Carole Stone, former producer of BBC’s flagship Question Time.  The Stone Club is a meeting place for minds, connecting businesses, social enterprises, entrepreneurs, media and politics.  During my time attending The Stone Club, I have met Professor Charles Handy, Michael Buerk, the entrepreneur Lara Morgan, senior executives for Fortune 500 companies and quite a few less famous but equally phenomenal people.

I first met Carole many years ago where we shared a stage at Pfizer alongside John Otway.  Carole’s last networking event had an extremely engaging presentation and dialogue on the art of empathic conversation in a complex and changing world.  This session was jointly presented by Oman Krznaric, writer, cultural thinker & Co-Founder of The School of Life, and Karl James, Director of The Dialogue Project.

One of the phenomenal people I connected with at this event was Andrea Ehrenberg who offers live graphic facilitation.  Here is the rich picture / word collage that she produced live during the conversation in front of about 70 people.  An amazing feat.  Although I am an expert mind mapper, Andrea combines systemic and creative thinking with a more artistic approach than my own fair hands are capable of.  Check her work out for your next live graphic facilitation event.

The art of empathy

For me, the hallmark of a great networking event is great company, the kind of learning that leaves you with as many new questions as answers, plus a superb social element to the event.   Carole Stone does it all with swan like grace.  Here are some of the questions we explored.  Feel free to post your thoughts here.

1. To what extent does an oversupply of Emotional Intelligence and empathy drive out the ability for business leaders to make tough decisions and lead change?
2. Can empathy be taught?  If so, are children naturally inclined to be empathetic but it is drilled out of them as they get older?  If that is true, do we need more empathy lessons for adults rather than thinking it needs to be taught to kids?
3. Is empathy a critical skill and more important than negotiation when dealing with critical conflict situations, such as the ones described in war zones?
4. When is empathy a more powerful ‘soft’ skill than ‘hard’ skills such as direction, selling, negotiation and so on?

Let us finish with a different kind of provocation about the past and future of pop, politics, people and life.  Not Carole Stone, but a Rolling Stone:

Hopes and Fears 2012

Firstly, may I thank all of you that have been reading the Rock’n'Roll Business Blog through 2011.  We have had a whopping 14 000 views since it started in earnest in June last year.

In terms of 2012, if we are to turn the UK plc round, its going to take every bit of adaptation, learning and innovation.  You may care to reflect on some of the more popular posts of 2011 - Lady Gaga and adaptive strategy, Deep Purple, improvisation and innovation, The Beatles on creativity, Prince on excellence, Britney Spears on becoming a learning society, Hendrix v Clapton on innovation and Personal mastery in business and music – lessons from Jeff Beck, Les Paul and Bill Nelson.

So, what does 2012 hold in store for us?   Well, here’s some views taken in the course of my travels recently, with the themes linked to pop and rock songs of course!

There is power in a union?

2011 was marked by a resurgence of industrial relations unrest in the UK.  However, the recent public sector strikes was marked not by braziers, banners and protest songs, but by the best shopping day in 2011, as retail sales soared.  I saw people leaving local government picket lines to go to Costa Coffee at 10 am.  Is shopping for Ugg boots and flat screen TV’s the hallmark of the new rebellion?

Can we look forward to more industrial unrest?   From talking with people in local government, it seems that there is still plenty of scope for downsizing and it also appears that quite a few people are basically happy with their pension, so it appears that the current industrial unrest may not develop.  When I talk to my self-employed friends, there appears to be little sympathy with the strikes – as one remarked “Pension, what pension?”  One thing is for sure, in an age of unrest we can expect more performances by proto punk protest singer Billy Bragg:

What’s new pussycat?

During 2011 I met Evan Davis of BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme and Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills.  During our conversations we touched on the vexed question of what we should do to rebuild Britain.  There are no easy answers here and a debate has since been raging on Linkedin over this issue.  There seems to be broad agreement that the UK plc desperately needs more innovation, especially the type that can be exported and that which builds out of our strengths in ways that are hard to copy or appropriate.  At the same time the service sector needs to shrink, whether this is through a smaller public service component to the economy or in service industries that merely consume wealth at a local level – for example tanning rooms and burger bars.  The change is going to be hard to swallow for some.  Doing more of the same will not do, we need to do things differently.  Musically, it’s more a case of ‘What’s new pussycat’ rather than ‘Do the standing still’.

We’ve got a meeting with the Department of Business Innovation and Skills to explore some of the ramifications of the UK’s innovation needs coming up.   More on innovation coming up in future posts.

What are your hopes and fears for 2012?  Post a comment on this blog.

Breadline Britain: Vince Cable, Economics and Rock’n’Roll

I had the good fortune to meet The Rt. Hon. Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills the other week, where we discussed economics (but no sex or Rock’n’Roll )  The recent public sector strikes and the general mood of the nation reminded me of Jimmy Sommerville’s 1980’s classic “Breadline Britain”, hence the title of this blog:

During the meeting I discussed the thoughts of Evan Davis on the economy with Mr Cable.  I had met Evan a few weeks before, where he pointed out that the UK needs to create some new engines of growth in areas that other countries would (a) find hard to copy and (b) would give the UK export potential.  Vince broadly agreed with my suggestion that we don’t need a ‘nation of more tanning rooms and burger bars’, which largely consume wealth and have no export potential.  Of course, a shrinkage in the low value service sector and / or the public sector is deeply unpopular, but it does rather seem an inevitable consequence of some sound economic analysis.  We’ll see what happens now that we live in a rock’n’roll economy …

Cable but no Wireless - Vince Cable Rocks the Institute of Directors

We also discussed the slimming down of red tape in business.  I was delighted to present Vince with a copy of ‘Punk Rock People Management’, which I described as “perhaps the shortest white paper on simplifying business ever written”.  Being known for his unusually straightforward views, Vince was amused by the idea of being able to read a chapter in less time that it would take to pogo to a Sex Pistols song on Strictly Come Dancing.

So, it was a great meeting in the wonderful setting of Leeds Castle.  What an absolute coup for the Institute of Directors, who hosted the event.  All kudos to them for doing this.

What to finish this post with?  Well since a friend mixed Vince Cable up with Vince Clarke of Erasure, I guess we should go with one of their fine Essex based economical synth pop pieces – perhaps a call to some politicians who have lost Mr  Cable’s connection with ordinary people – “A Little Respect”:

To get your FREE copy of Punk Rock People Management or book a masterclass – either give Vince Cable a call or get in touch via the Punk Rock People Management webpage

Networking in the Dragons Den

I’d previously commented on the role of planned luck in making business networking work, following my recent visit to Greece.  Yet another few pieces of planned spontaneity came together the other day.

I’d been asked to make a film for the Open University Business School as an advocate of their MBA programme.   To make the most of their time and film crew, I devised a “3 for 1 offer”, by bringing along some great fellow MBA colleagues: Phil Hawthorn and Kim Tasso, a strategy/business development consultant and writer on management/marketing in the professions.  Here’s the film The Open University made, shot outside Dingwalls, the famous London Rock venue:

p.s. Video made by Louise Hill-Hottinger of Chalk Square Media– superb work with no fuss.

This led to an invite to the inaugural professorial lecture by Evan Davis, Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today, The Bottom Line and BBC One’s Dragons Den.  I had been keen to give Evan copies of ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll’ and ‘Punk Rock People Management’ and had wondered how to do that in an evening where there were more than 200 people present and there would be no time for detailed conversation.

The answer arrived quite by chance.  I got off the train at Milton Keynes to find Mr Davis on the platform, looking for the stairs.  “Are you going to the Open University Evan?” I asked.  His 1^st impression was that he was being approached by a busker (I had a Sex Pistols T-Shirt and a guitar about my person, so it was not an unreasonable assumption! Once he realised I was an MBA tutor and not a stalker, he invited me to share a taxi to the University, giving me a unique opportunity to help him prepare for the audience he faced that evening and also to share the books.  He kindly agreed to have a read in between everything else he does and I was delighted to have met him on a 1:1 basis rather than in the hustle and bustle of a busy event.  To hear Evan Davis’ inaugural lecture click on the links – LECTURE and Q&A.  Here’s a picture of us at the lecture later on.

Rock'n'Roll Economics - at the Professorial Lecture

If you would also like to read Punk Rock People Management please contact me via the link for a FREE copy.   The book recently overtook Dave Ulrich, Gary Hamel and the usual HR Gurus, having hit No 1 on Amazon Kindle in management and HR books.

Speaking of Dragons Den – I leave you with this mashup by the BBC on Steve Jobs:

10 Rock’n’Roll Business Tips

Here’s a short post in the form of 10 pieces of business wisdom, summarised through the words and music of rock music, presented in a PowerPoint show.  To get the show go to ROCK WISDOM  and click on the icon ‘Download Rock Wisdom’.

To whet your appetite, here are some of the 10 tips, without their business lessons to ensure you go look at the show – it’s worth it.

The great pretender – Queen

Puppet on a string – Sandie Shaw

The great escape – Blur

Video killed the radio star – Buggles

This town ain’t big enough for the both of us – Sparks

Purely for pleasure, let’s see one of the points on marketing made musically by the genius that is Prince, in the form of ‘U Got The Look’ from his seminal album ‘Sign O’ The Times’:

If you like the slideshow, you will love Punk Rock People Management.  This new book recently overtook Dave Ulrich, Gary Hamel and the usual HR Gurus, having hit No 1 on Amazon Kindle in management and HR books.   There are a number of options available to get your copy:

Beautiful full colour print version

Kindle version – UK

Kindle Version – Worldwide

FREE pdf version of the book by e-mail

The print version of the book makes an excellent and unique Christmas present.  Check this review out by the Open University Businsss School.  I recently presented a copy of the book to Evan Davies, BBC presenter of The Today programme and Dragons Den.

I’ll leave you with another musical version of one of the 10 Rock / Business lessons from the slide deck, from Blur, in the form of ‘The Universal’ from their ‘Great Escape’ album:

Oops I did it again – Britney Spears and learning companies

I commented on the concept of a learning company in my posts on Lady Gaga and David Bowie recently.  The idea of a learning company is a company which learns faster than its competitors and speed of new product / service delivery is vital in today’s business world.  Many academics, such as Peter Senge, Chris Argyris and Peter Senge have commented on this idea, which Britney Spears unwittingly stumbled upon in her classic hit “Oops, I did it again”.  Let’s see Ms Spears in action:

In the context of business, “oops I did it again” refers to the tendency of businesses to repeat themselves, sometimes in the face of compelling evidence telling them to change course.  Organisational learning can mean several things:

Single loop learning – Where we keep existing values and introduce new behaviours – this is often dubbed ‘continuous improvement’, where we look for better ways to do existing things.

Double loop learning – A fundamental reassessment of the way we operate – often more radical and therefore even more difficult.

Companies find it intensely difficult to institute learning at an organisation wide level, be it single or double loop learning.  Marks and Spencer nearly went out of business through having such a strong culture that it did not learn from its customers.  Manifestations of this included a refusal to accept credit card payments for many years and their disastrous initial expansion into Europe.  On the other hand, Toyota have based much of their growth in recent years on behaving as an organisation that learns, alongside other approaches such as lean thinking.  This has given them an incredible edge compared with their competitors.  I have just come back from giving a keynote on this very topic at the 7th International HR Leadership Conference in Athens on this topic, which is central to a turnaround in the way in which businesses operate in the new world order.  I also met Evan Davis from the BBC programme Dragons’ Den last week, where we discussed the need for some new thinking if we are to create a sustainable turnaround in the economy and I shall post separately on this topic soon.

Lessons from Britney:  Don’t repeat yourself.  Learn and adapt.

I have scoured Britney Spears back catalogue for other songs that have a business leadership lesson in them and, frankly, I have failed.  “My perogative”, “Everytime”, “Toxic” – not one transferable business lesson, unless someone can spot something I have missed.  So, I have no particular reason for including the video of “Baby one more time”, except for its own value!

p.s. My new book ‘Punk Rock People Management – A no-nonsense guide to hiring, inspiring and firing staff’ is available FREE via the Punk Rock People Management webpage.   A print and e-book version are also available at PUNK PM.  Britney Spears gets a mention as an honorary punk rocker in the book, even though she is not one.

HR without all the boll...cks - Photo courtesy of Lindsay Wakelin Photography

Finally, let’s hear a Louis Armstrong mashup of Britney’s masterpiece:

Spirit in the sky – The circuitry of networking

It’s been a manic few weeks so I thought I’d write a blog about the gentle art of networking (and a little bit of luck!).  Check out the previous post in this area at A day in the life.  Our networking journey begins at an annual conference we delivered for the Institute of Circuit Technology, sponsored by Spirit Circuits.  That gives us our title.  Let’s travel back in time to the swinging 60′s, purely for some gratuitous psychedelic pop by Norman Greenbaum:

Spirit Circuits are an amazing printed circuit board manufacturing business.  The things that separate them from the crowd include a recognition of the word customer in everything they do and their ability as a smaller business to work globally.  An example of their exceptional customer service is their “Go Naked” offering.  This is a bespoke circuit board design service for small business entrepreneurs who cannot afford to manufacture circuit boards for new products.  Steve Driver, Spirit Circuits’ CEO offers this service on the basis that “small acorns sometimes grow into mighty oaks”.  In terms of their global footprint, Spirit Circuits have pioneered a number of innovative partnerships with China, rather than attempting to compete with this growing economy.  It’s perhaps a case of ‘being inside the tent p…..ing out, rather than outside the tent p…..ing in’.

Spirit Circuits asked me to deliver a keynote event for the Institute entitled ‘Myths and Riffs of Leadership’.  After the event, I found myself jamming into the night with Printed Circuit Board business owners as if I had known them for years.  Playing music really does beat social networking etc. as a means of establishing business bonds that last!  Here’s a clip of ‘Steve Driver and The Circuit Breakers’ performing “The PCB blues”:

Additionally, I was able to put Spirit Circuits in touch with a BBC journalist for the World Service who specialises in Chinese affairs.  Watch this space for developments in what Level 42 would call “The Chinese Way”.

It also occurred to me that there must have been a spirit in the sky the other day.  I had gone to Rochester Castle to meet a client for a coffee, when I bumped into David Sillito, the BBC’s arts correspondent, who was making a news item on a new BBC costume drama.  David had previously made a feature on a ‘School of Rock’ event for a Primary School, which the Headmistress said was pivotal in improving exam performance for the children.  Check out the feature from BBC Breakfast News:

David remembered the School of Rock event with some fondness.  As a result of our brief encounter, I gave him a copy of Punk Rock People Management with a view to developing a feature on simple, jargon free and authentic Human Relations.   Goodness knows, there’s a need for that in most companies I get invited into these days!

What do I get - Punk Rock HR - the contents page

Get your full colour print copy or Amazon Kindle version of Punk Rock People Management, which hit number 1 in the Amazon chart for management / HR books the other week, above books by Dave Ulrich and Sir John Whitmore.  Mail me for a free electronic version of the book.  Or come over to the 7^th international HR conference in Athens on 19^th October, where Demis Roussos with meet Gary Hamel and Johnny Rotten, metaphorically speaking…

I kissed an HR girl and I liked it - photo courtesy of www.lindsaywakelinphotography.com

Got the business blues (again) – Motivation, HR, job design unplugged

A while back, I explored the business blues in a light-hearted fashion.  I was surprised and delighted at the reaction to this in my personal e-mails.  It seems that somehow, I struck a chord (or perhaps three - musical in-joke for the blues players out there !   ).  I was told that a number of major companies have used music in a cathartic way to ‘purge their business demons’, by ‘getting it all out in their blues’.  Take a listen to this clip from BBC Radio 4’s Flagship ‘Today’ Programme.  Even John Humphries succumbed to my post in The Financial Times on the credit crunch blues:

To be more serious for a moment, here are some causes of ‘The Business Blues’ with antidotes.  For more like this, sign up to the blog or contact me via the website and I will send you a FREE copy of the forthcoming book ‘Punk Rock People Management – A no-nonsense guide to hiring, inspiring and firing staff’

1. Badly designed work and jobs – The antidote is simple to say but a little harder to apply.  Basically, design jobs using the wisdom of Herzberg’s work on satisfiers and dissatisfiers.  Take a look at the work of Hackman and Oldham.  This is explored in more depth in Punk Rock People Management.

2. An over-focus on measurement and objectives – What get measured gets done.  The corollary of this is that what is hard to measure may get ignored.  Everyone needs objectives to keep focus, but I would rather have open heart surgery without an anaesthetic than have 7 pages of specific objectives, critical success factors and key deliverables as I have seen on some occasions.  Appraisals and objectives are all about focus, not shopping lists that rival the length of ‘War and Peace’.

3. Poor leadership and management – It’s all too easy to then suggest that the antidote is to plug in some good leadership and management, almost like an I Phone app, yet this is a subject that requires more than a couple of lines to explore.  Plug and play may work with memory sticks but it does not in the world of business leadership and management.  For more on the thorny subject of leadership check my current book Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll out:

Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll - acclaimed by Tom Peters

I’ll leave you with Jimi Hendrix and Prince playing the blues.  These versions of Red House see Hendrix and Prince in rare moments of reflectivity.  The playing is thoughtful and poignant. In my humble opinion, Prince is Hendrix plus much better lighting ! – there is an obvious musical influence but Prince has vastly improved the presentational aspects of his work across 30 or so years.  What do you think these two pieces?  Post your thoughts on the blog comments page.  To read previous posts on the genius of Prince see At The Hop (Farm) and Prince on Improvisation and Ingenuity.  Coming up soon, a post on Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck with respect to innovation style.

Contact me via the ACADEMY OF ROCK WEBSITE to reserve your FREE copy of “Punk Rock People Management – A no-nonsense guide to hiring, inspiring and firing staff”.

That’s entertainment? – The Apprentice, Real Business and Real Leadership

Although it may seem churlish to say this, I must admit that I despair at the BBC TV series ‘The Apprentice’.  This is not because of its entertainment value, but because it seems that many people believe that the programme is both educational and a reality show, in that it offers us a window into real business practice.  In particular it sends out a message to young people that, to succeed in business, you need to swear a lot, be untrustworthy, wear a designer suit and fake deference to authority by mouthing the words ‘Lord Sugar’ at every possible opportunity etc.   It is not a world of business which I recognise through over 30 years of experience on a worldwide basis.  In particular the often quoted qualities of entrepreneurs, such as spirit, desire and drive are artificially exaggerated by the TV setting and the use of extrovert personalities in the main.  Not all entrepreneurs choose such corrosive tactics to sell their ideas and on this occasion, the winner was perhaps the person who did not demonstrate narcissism etc.  But why all the macho aggression from the men and women on the show generally? Are we supposed to be impressed?  Check out the number of times that Alan Sugar swears in this mashup by the infamous Cassette Boy:

Of course, we must not forget that The Apprentice is just entertainment, but it provides a message that leaders need to be arrogant, self obsessed, rude, negative and emotionally bankrupt to succeed in business.  It’s a pity that the BBC don’t choose to put reality on reality TV.  I guess it would not be half as enjoyable to see people trying to collaborate, listening intently, giving people a chance to explain themselves and so on.  As a replacement for wrestling on Saturday afternoons, The Apprentice is a good slapstick verbal equivalent, but frankly, and to quote Shania Twain ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’.

I hope my kids don’t grow up thinking that this is the best that UK Business has to offer the world.  I’m going to kick my Amstrad now!

You're fired !

p.s. in a footnote, I must express my surprise that, on this occasion, Tom, the least pushy person appears to have won.  There is hope!

What are your views about the Apprentice and the leadership qualities demonstrated by Lord Sugar?  Post your thoughts on this blog.