On a recent trip to the library the writer picked up the book Everything I Know about Business I learned from the Grateful Dead by Barry Barnes PhD, published by Business Plus 2011. The Grateful Dead was a very successful musical band from 1965 to 1995. The Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream flavour Cherry Garcia was name for lead singer Jerry Garcia. singer. This column continues will 3 more lessons:

7. Innovate Constantly – stay on the cutting edge. Established firms can be held captive by their current customers and if they become comfortable serving them, the firms miss out on disruptive technologies that create new markets. In the example of the Dead, they wanted better sound systems for their concerts.  The existing companies did not want to go there, so the Dead and their team learnt to do it themselves. This lead to other avenues of earning money, selling the expertise.To innovate is to take risk, to win some, lose some and move to the next challenge.

8. Transform through Leadership  – every organization has a leader. The Dead’s leader was Jerry Garcia who denied he was the leader and encouraged others to take leadership decisions. The transformational leader inspires followers to produce far beyond what is expected of them. The leader will evolve if they know when to lead and when to follow as they leave space for others to perform at their best.

9. Share the Power – a flat organizational system, encourages everyone in the firm to participate and step up to the needed tasks. The key is to encourage debate from all perspectives or everyone, for everyone brings a slightly different view. If employees step up and back as needed, the end result is better decision making and more loyal employees. In terms of compensation it helps a lot to share the wealth, however to ensure direction in the firm choose employees who fit the values of the firm.

Many of the lessons are internal, but reading between the lines you can gain an insight into management. The lessons are if hippies can make money, perhaps the establishment folks still need to learn something.

The are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.