How to Build a Successful Business – Make Music!

Businesses reflect their owners or founders. Sure, the business direction and decisions come straight from the person or people at the top. However, the feel, behavior, and operation of the business is also a reflection of the leaders, especially in the early and building days and years of the company.

For some reason, I have always drawn parallels between successes in the music industry and in the wide range of businesses in the marketplace overall.

Generally, I think there are two main types of bands:

1. Take the Eagles. Most of the members received some amount of formal musical instruction. In addition to their raw talent, they had blossomed with the hours and hours of practice and the perfect combination of band members. It is obvious many of the members have good voices. In addition, with the exception of Joe Walsh, they are all pretty good looking. I have always bought and enjoyed their music.
2. Now let’s consider the Rolling Stones. Most of the members received their musical training on the street. None of them has a particularly good voice. In fact, I don’t think any of them can carry a tune. And looking at them? Well there is a reason for all the jokes about Mick Jagger and Keith Richards being zombies or older than dirt. All that being said, I buy and love their music, too.

Both bands are highly successful. Each has their own culture and style of music.

Music and business

The same can be said about businesses. There are successful business founders that have had little education, and others that have the highest degrees – and several of them. Both kinds of founders build successful businesses. How can that be possible? When I speak to groups of young people, they are especially interested in this question.

The one commonality between all the bands and different successful business owners is that they all have everyone in their groups playing the same song and in tune. They have a clear and distinct culture.

In these organizations great pains are taken to choose the best people. You can note that the best person might be someone highly educated or trained, with years of experience, or not. What makes it work is that the person selected is the best candidate to meld into the group culture and their contributions complement the skills and contributions of the other members.

Together, they have a culture and make beautiful music within it.

What happens when they get out of tune

The disruption of a clear and distinct culture results in failures.

For instance, the leaders of Arthur Anderson, an American accounting and holding firm based in Chicago, changed the culture originally established in 1913 by Arthur E. Anderson. There were a few people working out of harmony with the established culture of the business. The result was disastrous.

The firm was found guilty of crimes in the auditing of Enron in 2002 and subsequently voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice. When the floor began falling out from under them in 2002, the company had about 85,000 employees. By the time the company was in its final death throes in 2007, they had 200 people who were just tying up loose ends.

It is especially sad because the firm was within a decade of its 100^th anniversary. Culture trumps longevity.

Success doesn’t have to be prescribed or elusive

There is no stated prescription or step-by-step set of instructions to build a successful business. It comes down to creating the culture, setting the values, and letting that drive decisions, the selection of people to join the business, and the direction of the operation. People have told me that in reading my book, Damn the Pressure, Full Speed Ahead, they see how with each start and fall of my businesses they could see how I was learning and developing my ideas about this. It might not have been comfortable, but my learning curve was important.

You see the concept play out in the tech industry. Look at the founders of Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, or Salesforce and the companies they have built. Their cultures are very different than other companies and they have all achieved tremendous success. Each one has its own unique culture and everyone who stays and makes significant contributions are aligned in goals and work in concert with each other. They make beautiful music – their own unique music.

Once the team is established, they just have to continue to play the music of their culture to find success. And yes, it starts and reflects directly from the founder(s). Driven by a dream.

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