5 Music Lessons for Creating a Cohesive Company Culture
Music has always been at the heart of any strong counterculture movement. Whole music genres have sprung up around counterculture, and are often key gathering points for bringing people together. If you’re trying to build a strong company culture, you need to know your music history. Here are five music lessons for creating a cohesive company culture.
Establish a common language
Every counterculture has signifiers – adopted symbols that demonstrate one’s alignment with that culture and value system. For example, hiphop signifiers include DJs, MCs, graffiti, breakdancing, and sportswear, and hiphop artists and fans adopt these signifiers as part of their identity. This has the dual purpose of demonstrating their values to others and easily identifying other hiphop fans. Signifiers are also the slang and behaviours people use within that culture. These are all part of a common language and value system that bind music genre fans together – it’s why fans of California punk band Black Flag could identify and associate with fans of New York-based Sonic Youth despite huge regional differences. It also explains why all punks in the late 1980s and early 1990s “moshed” in the same way.
Your company brings together people who have little in common with each other besides the fact that they work for you. It’s important to establish a common language within your company culture that defines how employees talk about their workplace and behave within it; doing so ensures that day-to-day decision-making is easy and always guided by the company values.
Be opinionated
Music is idealistic and all genres take a stand. Punk and grunge are anti-establishment. Reggae and hiphop dissect traditional ideologies about class and race. Electronic rock and dubstep challenge traditional music-making methods. What all these genres have in common is that it’s impossible to feel ambivalent about them. Audiences either love or hate a style of music, and most countercultural musicians are looking to get a strong reaction, not a lukewarm one.
Your company culture could do the same – make your employees feel strongly about your company. It’s better to have proud champions and vocal dissenters than a silent, unresponsive majority. Open dialogue will always take you someplace; a lack of feedback leads nowhere.
Push the boundaries
Music has never once stopped evolving and innovating. Every musical pioneer made their audience question everything they understood about music. Patti Smith – already breaking barriers simply by being a woman in the rock scene – fused art, poetry, and literature with punk, forcing audiences to realize that the emerging genre was probably much more intellectual than it seemed. Nirvana made people realize that raw vocals and loud, crunching guitar chords could be a pleasure to experience at a time when Eric Clapton and Boyz II Men topped the charts.
Creating a self-aware, boundary-pushing environment in your company culture is how your company will stay relevant. Resisting complacency is an uncomfortable exercise, but it will force your company to continue to evolve and engage employees and customers.
Stay true to your roots
Icelandic band Sigur Rós is one of the most famous bands on the international stage. Their concerts sell out worldwide and their songs have played in movies and TV shows like Vanilla Sky, The Life Aquatic, 24, and CSI, as well as almost every dramatic film trailer since 1999. In 2006, Sigur Rós decided to play a series of free concerts in small towns all over Iceland. Why? Because the band understood that their loyal fans back home couldn’t access the big, sold out venues in other countries. By contrast, Jennifer “Jenny from the Block” Lopez was recently criticized for green-screening herself into a commercial set in her home neighbourhood, the Bronx, instead of filming on location.
A company’s success is heavily dependent on the loyalty of its employees and customers. Once your company has achieved success and notoriety, make sure you continue to nurture the following that rooted for your success at the very beginning.
Be collaborative
Jay-Z and Kanye West have been collaborators for years. Their recent joint album, Watch the Throne, was an exercise in artistic partnership. But they’re also no strangers to collaborating with other artists – Jay-Z’s and Kanye West’s solo albums feature guest performers and producers. It’s no coincidence that both musicians’ albums are chart-toppers. The key is that each musician made a conscious decision to let other likeminded, talented people use their talents freely. For example, would we consider “Under Pressure” an iconic song today if David Bowie had made Freddie Mercury tone down his octave-spanning wail?
There’s no reason a company can’t behave similarly. You can hire all the best experts in their fields, but not allowing them any control over their work only squanders their talents and wastes your time and money. Let your experts do what they do best. Not only does this generate pride and investment in your company, it also ensures that you get the best of what you’ve paid for.
By Casey Leung
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