As a consultant, I am in many ways often a sort of ‘troubleshooter’. It is interesting – we often go into businesses that are having particular problems, and can sometimes almost sense the stage of the business in the growth cycle. An owner of a business can often be singularly frustrated and downtrodden by the grey nothingness and lack of effectiveness of the business, and thinking that the business is not going anywhere. However, it is usually the case that things are never as bleak, nor as rosy, as they at first appear.
I sometimes liken a business to that most adolescent of youthful enterprises, the rock band. The life of the band and the life of the business eerily parallel each other. For instance, let me consider a little-known rock band who we will call The Beatles, since that is their name.
Like most rock bands, The Beatles started in 1962 when John and Paul were sitting in a Liverpudlian garage (my rock history is a little rusty but they may have met at reform school) dreaming about creating their own rock band. The dream that many thousands since have aimed for, and the dream that many a guitar sold at a music shop was destined to founder upon. For most of us, this rock-star dream never ventures past the striden fondling of a guitar string, but for The Beatles… they made it past the dreaming stage. They showed initiative and actually formed the band!
Having initiated the band, The Beatles started to practice a bit, heard some crazy sounds coming out from a continent far away, and had a little bit of success playing the odd Liverpudlian wedding or German beer-hall. Many bands fail at this juncture – at least one of the band members (usually the tall gangly one) gets a girlfriend and everything falls apart in a mixture of acrimony and accusations of a lack of commitment amongst band members.
The Beatles survived this stage to really attack the world. They attacked every pub they could find, managed to get paid occasionally (sometimes in beer, but beer is a form of currency I’m sure), and generally were successful. Then, right when they were about to break loose onto the world in a really mature fashion, they lost the drummer. For some bands, this is a devastating blow. For others it’s a good thing – the drummer is sometimes derided as the person who hangs around with musicians. But – it can be a crisis point. Again, the Beatles managed to survive and really mature as a band. Their records at the time were fresh and enthusiastic, energetic, and a whole new sound. They had – or so they thought – mastered the genre. But there was a new crisis facing these rock stars.
The Beatles needed to keep rejuvenating and overhauling their sound so that they stayed relevant to their fan base. They overhauled their approach to music, experimented, and occasionally allowed George Harrison to select their wardrobes and – gasp – write his own songs rather than the tried and true combination of Lennon-McCartney. They moved to the next level of musicdom, an overhauled sound that was truly awe-inspiring and lived on as a legend. They were flexible and did some amazing things just to keep the band together. Those first heady days of true success were overcome, the excitement was kept through overhauling their sound, and they generally kept the ship on track. The release of the White Album is vindication of that period.
The Beatles started to broaden their interests. They networked with other musicians, they even made their own record company – Apple. This collaborative power boosted and kept the Beatles together for some time even when internal band relationships – as they always do – started to collapse.
By 1970, though, the crises had started to really build. Many blamed Yoko Ono and atrocious art. Others blamed substance abuse. In the end though, the band members diversified their interests, and the band no longer seemed as important as once it did. The band had grown, survived many crises, and finally broke up amidst acrimony and accusations of bad facial hair. The rock star dream had lived and died the path that many rock stars have taken, and many adolescent rock-star wanna-be’s have tried. At each stage The Beatles met a crisis whilst they were growing, and ended up meeting the music challenges that were presented. Statistically, many rock bands have been faced with exactly the same challenges, but most quickly collapse against those same challenges.
Now – you may be asking how all this is analogous to business. Well, most business owners are the rock stars. They create the business, take the risks, and want to achieve the tangible outcomes that rock stars get (and only rarely receive – inane reality TV shows like Big Brother aside). The challenges that the businesses face are quite relevant to businesses – although an exact parallel to Yoko Ono is hard to identify it is difficult to imagine any business relationship surviving well if the new girlfriend wanted to repaint thereception in hot pink and strew her naked photographs around the workshop.
The growing business – and if your business is not growing, it is shrinking – needs to meet the challenges of growth – at BDO Kendalls this is referred to as the DIAMOND model (Dream, Initiate, Mature, Overhaul, Network, and Diversify). The corporate strategy determines your market position, and having selected that you can build your channels to market thrugh the marketing plan, build people capability through a human resources plan, and build systems through an information systems plan.
The fast growing business needs to stay focussed on its goals through these plans, and any strategic approach that uses a measurable and defined approach is good advice for the business. The one I favour is the Verne Harnish ‘Mastering the Rockefeller Habits’ approach, which builds a long-term strategy but identifies 90-day ‘rocks’ that must be delivered quarterly. This approach advocates a 15-minute ‘huddle’ every day, a weekly team meeting, a monthly meeting that focusses on strategy, and a quarterly meeting to set the new rocks for the next 90 days. It sounds like a lot of meetings, but it does work and it truly helps for communicating strategic intent.
Finally, it’s time to consider what this all means. Although the parallels are not exact, business is like that high-school rock band. The challenges of growth are similar, and instead of focussing on the unique nature of the business it is useful to consider how businesses are very similar to each other. Once that is recognised, the strains, stresses and challenges of growth can be more easily diagnosed, planned for, and resolved. The challenge for the business owner is often to know how businesses work, and to apply these lessons in practice.
The business owner is the one person in the band who can really set the scene, experiment with the band’s sound, and deliver their own new crazy sound in business. They innovate and set the tone for the business’ approach to solving problems. The business owner is the one who must rise to the challenge of the business, and this is not resolved by hard work alone. The business owner needs to assemble his own excellent team (sometimes, you will need to get a new drummer, but the band needs to go on). By working on the business, developing the strategy and building the business’ capability, the business owner can becomea true business Rock Star.
This blog post is broadly a representation of a ‘prepared speech’ Micheal provided to Rostrum Club 17 on 19th July 2006 on the subject ‘Troubleshooters’.