Peter Cook's Diary

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Diary entry 26 April 2011

Can rappers save the economy?  

I was struck by a fascinating piece of video that digests 200 years of economic history through the power of rap music.  Now, words like John Maynard Keynes, Schumpeter, fiscal control and the economic theory of the firm are not part of the normal rapper’s lexicon, so I was intrigued.  Check the video out.

Lest we forget, here are the main arguments:  John Maynard Keynes is the economist responsible for the currently popular belief in the western world that we should intervene to find our way out of economic recessions and depressions.  His thinking has been at the centre of banking bail outs and the use of quantitative easing as a mechanism for recovery.

The Austrian, Friedrich August Hayek argued for classical liberalism and free market capitalism. In other words, markets should be freed to find their own level, using the price mechanism as a means of spontaneous organisation.  Keynes was not keen on Hayek’s idea that self organisation and a more organic approach could replace an interventionist outlook with strong planning.

Joseph Schumpeter argued that Keynes's ideas expressed "the attitude of a decaying civilisation".  He saw Keynes's approach as short-termist and unable to consider the economic problems of other nations.   In a global village, it is certainly true that we are at the mercy of other economies’ troubles.  Does that however mean we should lay down and pretend to be dead when boom turns to bust?

So, who can we trust to lead us into a new world economy?  If seems that, if you laid all the economists in the world end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.  More of the same is likely to lead us into a debt fuelled prison.  Is it time to mix macro-economics with a bit of sociology, courtesy of the rappers and systemic mappers?

Diary entry - 27 December 2010

Let it snow, let it snow...

In the midst of winter, I must confess to being delighted to be asked to provide the keynote input and a musical experience to a global engineering conference in Malaga coming up in January.  Apart from the thrill of being asked to develop the conference session, it will be considerably warmer in Malaga than it is in UK ! :-)  So, that has meant that Christmas day has been partly filled with the various design activities - nonetheless, since I find that work = play, it has been a pleasure to get thinking about how we will make every minute of the 45 count.

So, this has set me thinking firmly about 2011 and beyond.  I confess that the last year has been relatively quiet, although I have still been furiously busy developing new services.  Already in 2011, there has been takeup of these.  Some of the gig dates include:

• Leadership showcase at the University of Kent on 18th January - please contact me if you would like to attend.
• Career development session for entrepreneurs - University of Kent on 03 March - based on an article we had published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal
• Two open programmes at Ashridge Business School
• Lessons from 'The Office' keynote for BARQA in September 2011
• Two events for the Business Woman's Network 

And finally, looking towards 2011, we have an interactive brochure celebrating 17 years of consulting, training, coaching and keynote speaking.   A copy is available to download by clicking the link HUMAN DYNAMICS AND THE ACADEMY OF ROCK 2011.

Merry Christmas and hope 2011 is good to you!

Diary entry - 02 December 2010

Looking forward to 2011 - a year of gradual recovery 

I attended the annual Bill Nelson convention this weekend.  For those of you that don’t know Bill Nelson, he was the leader of 70′s pop art band Be-Bop Deluxe, is admired by David Bowie, Sir Paul Mc Cartney, Kate Bush, Brian Eno et al.  He did not enjoy the rock'n'roll lifestyle and left at the peak of his success to pursue his own musical directions.  A costly decision financially, but one that left him balanced in terms of career / life choices.  At the age of 62, he continues to break new ground in music, mixing nostalgia with ‘good old futurism’.   I consider myself fortunate to know this unique man. Check Bill’s work out at BILL NELSON

As well as that I spoke at a career development conference for PhD bioscientists recently – See BBSRC We also have Leadership conferences coming up shortly at KENT and ASTON  I recently attended an event at Magdalene College Cambridge with Sir Michael Grade, who outlined his vision for the future of terrestrial television.  We are hoping to offer some sessions for Cambridge in 2011, alongside some sessions we are doing for Ashridge Business School.

Finally, for 2011, building on the success of a global conference we delivered for Pfizer, my musical colleague John Howitt has joined the team for conference appearances and musical experiences. John has a track record of playing with professional rock and pop stars such as Anastasia, Celine Dion and Shirley Bassey. We are releasing an album of ambient instrumental music in support of Sara’s Hope Foundation, a charity providing a retreat for families with terminally ill children. You can listen to some of the songs at IGNORANCE IS BLISS or mail us for a copy of the CD by clicking the picture below:

Seasons greetings

Diary entry - 15 September 2010

Women, money, devil worship and bohemia 

Diary entry - 15 June 2010

From Radio Gaga to Lady Gaga and fame in Gaza

Diary entry - 24 September 2009  

Tom Peters v Bill Nelson - partners in excellence

Apart from a few journeys to the United Nations and back in Vienna to work with the IAEA, the most exciting times of my last month have been encounters with two truly great people from widely different backgrounds.  Firstly I met Tom Peters at his event on Leadership in London.  It was a fantastic day with many lessons and a great feeling of optimism that has lasted for weeks since the meeting.  I was so enthused by his talk and our meeting that I have prepared two downloadable resources:  The A-Z of Tom Peters, set in his own style of delivery and a media file of my question to him.  You can see and hear these items by following the links in this blog. 

The second was my annual trip to meet Bill Nelson at his convention.  See BILL NELSON  In leadership terms, Bill has authenticity written through his veins, having rejected the rock circus lifestyle to do what he believed in. To those that don’t know him, it is sufficient to know that Bill owned a mansion, a Rolls Royce and several other sports cars in the 1970’s, but left EMI to pursue his real purpose as an artist rather than a puppet of the music business. He has been a great influence on the great and good of rock’s hierarchy, including David Bowie, Brian May, Eno et al. When looking for examples of authenticity, I find it hard to better Bill Nelson as an example to us all. I use Bill’s principles for personal reinvention in my seminars and they are detailed as a cameo piece in ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll’ The Fender Stratocaster that IBM burned at a corporate event is now signed by the great man himself and a picture is shown here alongside a specially decorated and autographed guitar that Bill auctioned at the event.

As well as all this, I did a very interesting interview for ASK Europe. They are great people to know.  Also a charity benefit concert for Breast and Testicular cancer, aptly titled 'Boobs and Balls'.  Finally, we have events coming up in London, Cambridge, Kent and Vienna in the coming months.

Peter

Diary entry - 13 June 2009  

Endings (and beginnings)  

All through my life, I've learned the importance of the need to occasionally 'spring-clean my life' and it seems to be time to do this again.  I've found that, like in gardening, if you cut out dead wood, even in a drastic way, it often allows new growth to occur, even if it feels risky at times.  So, this week, I decided to end my long term relationship with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.  Now, I know that some might say that the CIPD is not very Rock'n'Roll, but those of you that know me will also know that I'm both an intellectual and a rocker, so my membership of professional institutes is part of what makes me who I am.  I have become increasingly disillusioned with an institute that serves its own interests above those of its members.  Having said that, the CIPD has some great people who I hold in high regard and I hope to maintain contact with those people who have become friends over the years.  The good news is that some new growth has already occurred in so far as I have had requests to get involved with Imperial College London, Cass (City) Business School and the University of Cambridge via a Professor at Washington State University who likes my work.  You can read his book 'Group Genius'.

We have some conferences coming up:  The Informatology Conference and a keynote entitled 'Sex, Leadership and HR'.  These follow a highly successful events in Belfast, Derry and an event entitled 'Top of the Flops' - which explored the marketing, HR, finance and project management lessons learned from the World Tour.  We have been considering making a film from this amazing experience and a colleague called Rainbow George, who invested £50 000 in the tour, has been beavering away to gather interest in a related venture involving Ronnie Wood and Russell Brand.  

Plus some work for the United Nations in Vienna (It means nothing to me! :-) and a conventional change management project for local government.

Alongside all of the above, I am currently writing a new book on innovation, which occupies some of my sleeping hours! :-((  It is a good time to be pressing the stop button on certain business activities and fast forwarding to some new beginnings.   Experience shows that these things generally work out well in the end, in spite of a rocky journey.  No pain, no gain!

Peter

Diary entry - 07 December 2008  

Sex and the City (Trader)  

I stumbled over some research that validates the title of my book in some way recently: A group of researchers took saliva samples from 17 male traders on the London stock exchange, twice daily for 8 days.  They monitored the trader's levels of testosterone and cortisol, which is associated with stress.  These levels were compared with how much money the individual traders made or lost against the background of the market as a whole.

When the traders made more money, they had higher testosterone levels.  When the markets were more variable, their cortisol levels went up.

Somewhat strangely, they also found that traders who started the day with elevated testosterone levels made more money than those who did not.

Whilst the popular view is that traders control their emotions, this research suggests that trading is controlled by the same basic instincts that cause men (and women) to have one night stands.

More importantly, does this mean that the old adage applied in sports, i.e. never have sex the night before a big match, should apply to senior decision makers in companies?  Does it also mean that 'sex after decision making' would become an important part of company culture?!* :-)

Just a thought!

Peter  

Diary entry - 02 November 2008

The Credit Crunch Blues

Just recently we organised and delivered a corporate conference for a housing association with a big difference…  As well as the usual fare of a keynote speaker, a range of workshops focused on different issues, both work and personal development, we formed a rock band from the staff, wrote some songs, recorded them in support of Macmillan Cancer Trust and arranged to perform them at the start and end of the conference.   Amongst the songs the band wrote was the ‘Credit Crunch Blues’ – a bittersweet rant about the current banking meltdown and a remake of ’16 Tons’, with lyrics including Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers!  You can hear the tracks here  and you can see some of the band’s performances at the conference.  There was also a feature on this in the Financial Times.

Serious Fun

On the serious work front, we have been delivering an MBA level programme on creativity and innovation for a pharmaceutical company to help them produce novel approaches to chemical processes that will keep the company ahead in the future.  As well as programme delivery we have provided 1:1 coaching and business consultancy to make sure that the company gets the most from its investment.

Conferences and Events

We've been quite busy with conference work – Leadership Conferences for the NHS, AVL Engineering in Austria and Aliaxis.   Alongside this we have delivered some events for young entrepreneurs in the ‘Dragon’s Den’ tradition.  The seminar, entitled ‘Top of the Flops’ explores lessons learned from our sponsorship of the rock World Tour.  You can read more about this at our World Tour page. 

Musical mastery

All work and no play makes life dull.  Peter recently attended ‘Nelsonica 2008’ – the Bill Nelson Convention.  Some pictures of the event are captured below.   We also wrote a special piece of music to mark Bill Nelson’s 60th birthday – you may listen to the piece here.  We've also recorded some traditional classical pieces with non traditional instruments.  Listen to Pachelbel's Canon and Air on a G String performed with an electric guitar made to sound like a violin here.

All the best

Peter

 

Diary entry - 07 December 2007

Manchester, Minsk, Moscow….

I've just had another 'Spinal Tap in Business' experience...  I was due to speak at an international conference in Minsk alongside people like Peter Senge, Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Alvin Toffler.  I agreed to do this because a publisher has just translated my 1st book ‘Best Practice Creativity’ into Russian.  I said I'd help with the launch in any way but stressed how important it was to start early as I was quite busy around the weekend of the event itself.   Here's the Russian cover.

I asked that my travel agent be paid up front for flights / visas – 8 weeks passed, many e-mails were exchanged, but no money arrived.  Finally it did about 5 days away from the conference, but we still had no visas or tickets, despite asking many times. A surprise was launched at this time – the ‘organisers’ asked if I could travel on to Moscow as they had already arranged and appearance on Moscow State TV, a Radio show and a book launch in Moscow’s most prestigious book store (none of this had been mentioned). I obliged, politely pointing out that we still did not have travel tickets or essential papers for visas etc.

The relevant papers did not arrive and I was told by the Diplomatic Service that it was unlikely I would be allowed to board the plane, yet still the ‘organisers’ said ‘it would be alright on the night’.  Finally, I discovered that they had put me on a sleeper train from Minsk to Moscow overnight.  Now, I'm a big fan of sleeper trains, having once travelled on the Trans-Siberian Express.  This was a special kind of sleeper though…. It had become common practice for passengers to be gassed on these trains and have their possessions stolen.

I faced an awkward dilemma:  I had no visas, I faced a possible gassing on the journey and might end up in a Gulag due to not having the correct papers. Should I stay or should I go?  Eventually it was decided for me, when Czech airlines refused to board me on their plane.   

I begun to wonder whether I would face a similar situation on arrival as the ‘album launch’ sequence from ‘This is Spinal Tap’ where the band turn up for an album signing to find no-one there?  Artie Fufkin eat your heart out!  So, I had a wet weekend in Manchester instead – and I have no story to tell about being gassed on a sleeper train from Minsk to Moscow! :-( A great disappointment all round.

Aside from that a number of new articles have appeared:

Got the Workplace Blooze - a lite article on motivational theory and practice

Lessons from the World Tour - Part 2 - The Evening Standard also published a piece on this

And we've been quite busy with conference work - One for the NHS Innovation Institute, another for Pfizer and a series of Leadership events for Marley Extrusions.  You can now also find us listed on the Gordon Poole Talent Agency - the UK's premier speaking agency.  We now have some raw video footage on You Tube.

On the music front, the most exciting event I attended recently was Bill Nelson's 'Nelsonica' Convention.  You can read all about Bill in 'Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll', but suffice to say, it was a breathtaking weekend where I could indulge my love of electrical music, eclectic language, beautiful guitar playing, art, romance and comedy, all set in the beautiful city of York!  Here's a picture of Bill Playing his Campbell American guitar at the convention from Martin Bostock.

Finally we have a new member of staff - Magdalena Rotsztejn from Poland.  Magda is assisting us with business development and is as keen as mustard!  She even has a Polish version of the book to promote!

Peter

Diary entry - 12 September 2007

Prince, BBC Breakfast News and Poland 

It's been seven hours and 15 days.... since I wrote the last blog.... well actually not ... Since I went to see Prince at the O2 arena.  Beginning with the familiar sounds of 1999 and Take Me With U – simply a wonderful start, we were then treated to some of Prince’s beautiful guitar playing on Guitar.  This was followed by a veritable cornucopia of Prince’s hits both old and new, proving the point that the man does in fact have ‘too many hits’, rather than the one or ‘two hit wonders’ more usual in the rock world. A friend sent me a nice picture.

The band were excellent as usual with some simply brilliant playing and interplay.   What’s really great about Prince is that you get a different show every night, due to his ability to switch things around with the ‘codes’ he gives to the band – ‘on the one bass’ etc.  I comment on this almost unique mastery of discipline and creativity in ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll’.

Would he show to the after party?  All bets were on that he would, having not shown the pervious night.  Sure enough, around 1 pm he arrived at the ‘small’ venue dressed in a striking red suit, letting the crowd get just a little closer to this incredible musician and performer.  The most amazing moment was when Prince did a jazzy piece and he hit a high note.  Just at the same time Maceo Parker walked on to the stage casually playing the same note on his sax.  Now this is the hallmark of true genius, requiring split second responses to the other members of the band.  It was a small but significant marker of a heavenly performance.  At the same time I placed a copy of ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll' with the master.  I was later told that he had enjoyed the book.

Aside from Prince, I organised and ran a ‘School of Rock’ event for a Primary School the other week, where we offered children a much more creative and engaging way to learn than the usual diet of lesson plans.  BBC One Breakfast News reported on the event and the TV package may be viewed again by clicking on BBC ONE NEWS  The event was hugely enjoyable and brought a healthy dose of creativity into the classroom.  The press release for the event is attached here School of Rock

Coming up, we are doing a speakeasy evening at the Harrogate HR conference, blending leading edge thinking on business with lighter satirical material and some musical interludes.  

Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll has been published in Polish.  The Polish cover looks a tad more sinister that the one for the rest of the World!  Compare them and decide for yourself.

 

Peter

Diary entry - 15 July 2007

The Eden Project, Leadership, Sex and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please….

Wednesday was a real red letter day as well as an exhausting one – a 20 hour round trip to interview Tim Smit, Chief Executive of the Eden Project, the eighth wonder of the world…. Tim had kindly agreed to appear in the TV film we are making based on ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll’ and it was a real pleasure to meet a man who had created something remarkable from virtually nothing.  You can find out more about Tim’s amazing transformation by reading his book on the Eden Project or by looking at The Eden Project website 

 

Aside from his more sensational side of his character, writing and producing songs for the likes of Barry Mannilow, Brotherhood of Man and Motorhead, Tim is a deep thinker who confesses to having learned a great deal from his time spent in the music business.  His insights on leadership are online at Blueberry Productions.

There have been a range of articles on ‘Sex,Leadership and Rock’n’Roll’ of late and a review of the book on Amazon.de in Germany.  The book is now in most Waterstones branches.  You can find the articles at:

Business Balls

The HR Zone

On Friday I performed at the ‘Summer of Punk’ Party I organised with Splodgenessabounds, the band who wrote the No 1 hit ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please’.  The evening was rather special and possibly the most unusual venue for a business book signing!  A picture of Max Splodge with my singer Anna Lisa enjoying said Two Pints of Lager but without the crisps is shown below.  Max conceived of the  song title due to a shortage of bar staff at the Woolwich Tramshed.  Most people consider a lack of bar staff to be a nuisance, but Max saw that he had just written a No 1 hit – Now that’s creativity – seeing something different in the ordinary! 

Coming up we have some keynote speeches for some corporates, some strategy consultancy (no guitars involved) and an article in People Management in August, plus the TV films.

Well, that’s all for now folks!

All the best / enjoy the summer

Peter

 

Diary entry - 22 June 2007

Meatloaf, Ice Cream, TV, Guitars and the Cheeky Girls

The last few weeks have been very eventful.  A TV programme has been commissioned on 'Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll' - it will include interviews with entrepreneurial leaders such as Tim Smit, CEO of the Eden Project - the eighth wonder of the World, the CEO of Kent County Council, one of the most successful public service organisations in the UK and a large plc.  There is also a new article up on The HR DIRECTOR 

Whilst this has been going on, last week was very eventful.  I went to a friend's birthday party and ended up performing a duet with Lorraine Crosby, who sang on Meatloaf's 'I would do anything for love (but I won't do that)' - Meatloaf gets a mention in Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll, but sadly Lorraine could not tell me what 'that' was in the context of the song!  I was overwhelmed to perform with such a great vocal talent and I keep pinching myself to see if really happened!

Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll is now being stocked by Waterstones stores and online, so do check it out when you visit the store.  We are considering some instore rock happenings for later on in the year.

This week I attended the CIPD's Recruitment Software conference at Olympia yesterday - a rather tame affair save for the arrival of some young cheeky girls who were 'promoting HR software through the medium of Ice Cream' - an obvious marketing link ! :-))  They were rather taken by the book and offered to promote it at future events.  A group of CIPD people from another stand pointed out that the girls had got 'cellulite issues' - I did not believe this and was not sure they were being totally objective - anyway, judge for yourselves:

I have put some of the inside story of the John Otway World Tour up on my My Space Blog - this comedy of errors compares well with cult movie classics such as This is Spinal Tap.  You can read the 1st installment at Peter Cook's MySpace Site

Coming up I will be attending the Ideal Business Exhibition at Olympia next week and presenting at the CIPD Professional Standards Conference at Keele University, where my title is 'Sex, Drugs and Professional Standards'.  A peer reviewed article on the John Otway World Tour - Lessons Learned is about to come out as well.  The first time that John Otway has appeared in an academic journal.  

And finally, purely for music appreciation, whilst licking my wounds over the financial losses from the John Otway World Tour, I have purchased a really special limited edition signature guitar designed by Bill Nelson and produced by Campbell American Guitars.  It is an absolutely beautiful piece of handcrafted work and it plays like a dream.  It is a travesty that its first outing is to perform some punk rock with Splodgenessabounds, who brought the world the Number one hit 'Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps', but there ya go!

Dean Campbell is a master of customer service and ought to be written up as such - perhaps next time around on the book update.  I cannot resist putting a picture of the beautiful Nelsonic Transitone Signature guitar - I think the colour would go very well with the Ice Cream girls costumes!  Only 100 Transitones have been made, although it is possible to buy a standard Campbell Transitone from them at www.campbellamerican.com   A review from Guitar Buyer is attached.

Guitar Buyer Article

Please post your comments on anything in this blog to me directly dean@academy-of-rock.co.uk  

Peter

  

Diary entry - 10 February 2007

Sex, lies and relationships

I noticed that the Financial Times appear to agree with my concerns over the quality of Dell’s relationship management.  They have printed several articles on this topic in the past few weeks, most recently one from Stefan Stern, who was invited to Dell’s facility following his column where he complained bitterly about their service.  Like myself, he pointed out that Dell have very good products, but these are let down by inadequate customer service when things go wrong.  So serious seems to be the situation that Michael Dell has reinstalled himself at the head of the company and their Chief Executive Kevin Rollins has stepped down. 

Dell’s difficulties rely in the ‘Sex’ department i.e. relationship management rather than the ‘Rock’n’Roll’ one i.e. performance and delivery.  It certainly has one of the most efficient supply chains in the world.  Unfortunately most things can be appropriated in today’s ‘karaoke society’ where copies spring up overnight.  Hewlett Packard and Lenovo of China have upped their game significantly to match Dell’s prowess in the logistics area.

What we are then left with is the power of the brand and how this is represented to customers.  Unfortunately I am not the only one to have spotted Dell’s weak spot in the customer service area.  A good reputation can take years to develop but minutes to destroy in an age where customer feedback can get round the world in seconds via the internet.  It may take longer for Dell to turn its performance round in the ‘sex department’.

Anyway, on to other matters.  Recently I delivered an event at the Hard Rock Café in Leeds which was an excellent venue to set the message of ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll’ in.  Hard Rock Café excel on service – perhaps Dell should pay a visit to learn something about sex and computers?

And finally, we had an article accepted by an academic journal on the ‘backstage story’ of the World Tour.  A copy is attached here.  The story has a number of very ‘Spinal Tap’ features and I will be giving some seminars on what you can learn about project management from this glorious failure in the Isle of Man shortly.

World Tour Article

Please post your comments on anything in this blog to me directly dean@academy-of-rock.co.uk  

Peter

 

Diary entry 27 September 2006

Marketing myopia - World Tour update

A lot of water has flowed under the metaphorical bridge since I last wrote about the World Tour and, as I write, it looks like this incredible venture may not come to pass.  Nonetheless, it offers us a great insight into project management with many transferable lessons for businesses and organisations.

What have we achieved?  Well, we managed to turn the sales around for the tour after a static position for more than 6 months.  Initially I made an assessment of the Travel Agent’s capability and motivation – I uncovered a leadership team that was uncommitted to the goal and a group of staff that had not been briefed on how to interact with the fanbase and who did not possess relationship marketing skills sufficient to sell this unique experience.  Were I Alan Sugar, I would have walked into the Travel Agent and told the boss ‘You’re fired’.  As a ‘servant leader’, my sponsor (John Otway) told me that we had come too far with the Travel Agent and we must work with the raw materials we had.  OK, life is full of constraints, so what could we do?  Develop the ground floor staff? – Perhaps, but time was extremely limited, the boss uncommitted and the capability hill we had to climb was very steep.  So, should we read the Travel Agent boss the riot act?  We did do this – and it did improve matters for a while, but deep down the Travel Agent boss had wished he had never got involved and was hoping the tour would fail.  Whilst this was an expedient temporary action, it did not lead to longer term results.  The most effective thing I decided to do was to bypass the problem with sales by installing an unemployed drummer in the travel agent.  ‘Al the Drummer’ had previously worked as a relationship salesperson in insurance and had the following key qualities we needed to make a difference:

• He phoned people up instead of waiting for the phone to ring or e-mailing them

• He understood Rock’n’Roll and the ethos of John Otway and his fanbase

• He understood that the World Tour is an experience from the passenger's viewpoint, rather than just a piece of hero worship  

This does not sound revolutionary, but it made a huge difference compared with what had been taking place previously.  For six months before Al arrived, the Travel Agent had not sold a single World Tour ticket.  They had actually lost 90 passengers from the plane by announcing a massive price rise using an impersonal e-mail approach rather than a warm relationship sales approach.  In just two months Al the Drummer added 50 ticket sales to the 65 that the Travel Agent had acquired in over a year and a half.  This was a fantastic performance and destroyed the myth that sales had stalled.  This had a major impact on the wider team who privately had been dismayed with the Travel Agent’s performance but who had not challenged anyone about it.

We also managed to get John Otway into the media – Jonathan Ross show, the Financial Times, a massive five page feature in the Independent on Sunday and a full page feature in Viz to name but a few.  This also helped to move things along.  Given the old adage that ‘Half of marketing is a waste of money, the question is, which half?’ we discovered that The Jonathan Ross show was hugely successful in selling the World Tour concept.  Somewhat surprisingly the Independent piece was completely ineffective.  On closer inspection, it became clear as to why.  John Otway, left to his own devices, tends to talk about his history as a ‘two hit wonder’ and all the remarkable things he has done.  When coupled with a journalist who is also a fan and wanted to dine out on this wonderful past, it seems that a collusion developed to do an excellent retrospective ‘narrowcast’ article on John’s life.  Less than one page out of the five was a ‘broadcast’ about the World Tour project, with very little mention of the ‘experience of a lifetime’ which it undoubtedly still is – it was left to a member of the film crew to position the tour and the film alongside cult classics such as ‘The Blues Brothers’, ‘This is Spinal Tap’ etc.  My great regret is that I did not spot John’s tendency to only speak about the John Otway brand rather than the overall World Tour experience.  As a result, a number of opportunities to ‘widen’ the brand appeal of the John Otway tour were missed.  This cost us valuable seat sales.  Some serious coaching was needed.  In the case of the Jonathan Ross show, we did some rehearsal with John to ensure he was more prepared to handle Mark Lamarr's quickfire style.  More importantly we talked to the other guests on the show (Mark Lamarr and Dale Winton), providing them with the key messages we wished to convey and hoping they would fill in the gaps that John left out.  Dale Winton in particular did a superb job of marketing the experience on John’s behalf, which led us to an instant sale of 20 tickets.

Are there any leadership lessons in this?  Plenty – here are some I have drawn:  

• Preparation is everything if you are going to improvise your way on a project of this magnitude.

• One of the most difficult things to do has been to shift the mindset of the star from selling themself to selling the ‘experience’ of the World Tour.  Sounds simple – ego when coupled with feelings of insecurity is an extremely powerful obstacle.  

• Under extreme time constraints, it was wise to bypass the Travel Agent’s capability and commitment problem.  It was absolutely spot on to install Al the Drummer and even the Travel Agent boss acknowledged his contribution a couple of months after he arrived.  Al eventually left the Travel Agent as the Otway fanbase sales potential was exhausted – we were then left to the mercy of the Travel Agent.  With no real agreement to market the experience and their existing track record, you can guess what happened when Al left.  That will be for another time.

In terms of the book, it is all too clear that this project has suffered from continuous divergence, when a little convergence was badly needed to turn good ideas into results.  I quote from Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll :

Too much creativity and nothing gets finished!

This is almost exactly the opposite of what many large companies require as they suffer from having too much structure which impedes innovation.  As a result I have temporarily become a fan of using excessive structure to get things done! :-))(

In this case I have acted as a servant to the project and was not as successful as I would have liked in getting John to swallow some fairly bitter pills that would have turned the project to advantage.  Would I have done anything different?  Yes.  Initially John offered to pay for my expertise – because I am his friend, I foolishly  said no – However, I think John’s listening skills would have improved dramatically if I had said yes.   – As Julian Richer, CEO of Richer Sounds said – 'The more I charge, the better people listen.'  My proximity to John in this case was a liability in getting things done.  But, hey ho, lots of things have been learned as a result.

It's a great shame that the World Tour looks like it will fail.  Doubtless John will eventually turn this to his advantage as one of his greatest failures.

On my mainline business, I presented at the NEC yesterday at a Fitness Management Conference - the conference paper is attached below.

NEC article

Please post your comments on anything in this blog to me directly dean@academy-of-rock.co.uk 

Peter

Diary entry 19 July 2006

The real Spinal Tap tour, Bob Harris and Tom Peters

I've been working furiously of late to project manage the World Tour for John Otway.  This is one of the best pieces of work experience I have ever had, but it is not without its frustrations and complications.  I share one of them here in case it resonates with your own experiences of doing difficult things at work.

We have been looking for a celebrity to add value and extend the John Otway brand for some time.  Various names have appeared in the frame, including Alexi Sayle and Captain Sensible, both of whom are long term admirers of John's work.  Recently one of the team suggested Steve Harley of 'Come up and see me, make me smile' fame.  This all sounded fine, except it seemed that the person concerned had done a 'Rock 'n' Roll deal', which meant that they had discussed Steve's payment and requirements for the tour, but no discussion had taken place about what we would get in return.  This had been clearly set out in advance and was a critical piece of our jigsaw to get the project to completion.

There can be no give without a gain in such a situation.  We need one final push to secure the rest of the seat sales and Steve's involvement would help us greatly.  I wondered why this point had not been discussed.  On digging deeper, it seemed that the person concerned was 'awe struck' by Steve Harley and that this had prevented him from getting our needs met.  In my world, 'everyone is the same in their underwear' clearly opinions vary.  It was time for some persuasive action and supportive coaching to get the necessary deal in place.  I felt the need for the famous cricket bat beloved by Ian Faith, hapless manager of the spoof rock band Spinal Tap.  I tried to get things sorted out without the use of a cricket bat, probably a better long term result!

What are the lessons?

• Don't forget to ask the Buzzcock's question 'What Do I Get?' when making a deal, even if it is the Queen (or members of the rock band Queen) you are dealing with!

• Dialogue is always better than a cricket bat if you want to have a long term relationship with your team members, but sometimes the threat of a cricket bat is needed to focus fuzzy friends!

• Celebs are also human and can respond in adult ways to adult questions if they are true professionals.  Do not be afraid to see them in this way.

On a lighter note, we interviewed Bob Harris of The Old Grey Whistle Test fame the other week, to get his views on the tour.  You can see some of the results at www.myspace.com/andysutton  Andy works for Athena Films who produce the cult TV programme 'Monkey Business'.  It's a short step from filming monkeys to 300 rock fans on an insanely great world tour....

On the day job, it was a great pleasure to meet up with Tom Peters the other week at the B2B conference in Earls Court.  He said that he had been wondering about Benjamin Zander's book on leadership for some time as something did not quite ring true with his analogy of the leader as an orchestra conductor.  After reading 'Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll' he said he understood the difficulty of the orchestra analogy.  Praise indeed!  You can read Tom's blog at www.tompeters.com  Powerful stuff!!

Finally I delivered a Leadership conference for Marley Plumbing and Drainage.  You can learn some surprising things on innovation from seemingly 'old industries'.  Of course, my conference title was 'Sex, Plumbing and Drainage!'

Please post your comments on anything in this blog to me directly dean@academy-of-rock.co.uk 

Peter

Diary entry 03 June 2006

Reflections on project managing the greatest Rock’n’Roll tour in the World

 

As well as a few corporate performances for Pfizer and GSK, much of my time has been taken up recently in project managing the John Otway 2006 World Tour.  This is an audacious goal, with a budget of £2.5 million, requiring project execution skills with the precision of a Swiss watch to make it work.

How do you describe such an undertaking to people who don’t understand the English Eccentric Cult Punk Rocker who has made an enduring success out of apparent failure?  This has been occupying my mind for a while as I try to capture people’s interest.  Here is one of the ‘elevator pitches’ I developed to explain the concept:

Have you ever watched the cult rockumentary film ‘This is Spinal Tap’… How about ‘The Young One’s… Whoops Apocalypse… The Rocky Horror Picture Show… ?  Have you ever wanted to fly round the World in a private jet on a Rock’n’Roll tour; Play air guitar in BB King’s exclusive club in New York ? Get on stage at Sydney Opera House? Meet rock stars and make new friends as you traverse six continents in two weeks?   Well, now we offer you the chance to live the dream life of a Rock’n’Roll star on the record breaking John Otway 2006 World Tour.

This trip really is unique – we have just booked Central Park in   New York for our reception from the Cavern in Liverpool .  The President of Tahiti is aware that we are calling in and has asked for a private performance.  Chinese National TV is interested in putting the concert on every TV set in the land and we are making a documentary film to accompany the tour.  Every day brings a fresh challenge and it truly is one of the best pieces of ‘work experience’ I have ever undertaken.

Yet, like most Rock’n’Roll adventures, it’s the hard work that counts.  At the moment my most pressing business problem is summed up by Abba in their hit ‘Money, Money, Money’.  Forget, sex and drugs.  Cash is king.  Hiring an Airbus requires that you pay in instalments.  This means that like most business projects, cashflow is more important than the balance sheet and profit line.  Fortunately the cashflow situation now looks fine with ticket sales coming in now that we have secured the venues and some other celebs.  We also have some investors and a number of corporate sponsors to help the tour go in style.  The World Tour sponsorship prospectus and the World Tour brochure may be found at Number 8 on the amp knob at the front page of this website (the numbers go up to 11) if you are interested to learn more.   

Far from improvisation and creativity, I have found myself reaching for some boring old structure to keep people focused on delivering promises etc.  The music business is perhaps the complete opposite of many of the companies I visit.  In the music biz, project plans are written on the back of fag (cigarette) packets, a critical path analysis is about finding the shortest route to the pub and promises are made to be broken.  We now have a project team that could probably give Microsoft a run for its money.  I shall report on progress as we move through the project towards take off.  

Alongside this, I did a session for ‘Teacher’s TV’ the other week, which was fairly riotous.  It will be broadcast in early autumn once it has been vetted by ‘Government experts’.  7 minutes may get cut to 7 seconds!!  

Please post your comments on anything in this blog to me directly dean@academy-of-rock.co.uk 

Peter

 

Diary entry 20 April 2006

Do lawyers rock?

Does Bob Geldof need to engage the HR community in his continuing cause to make poverty history?

How do HR professionals respond to fellow travellers when they are dressed in a punk rock straightjacket?

These are just some of the questions that were answered whilst exhibiting for the HRD exhibition at London Olympia recently. A bizarre combination of men and women in suits with a few punk rockers. We went there with Crown House Publishing www.crownhouse.co.uk to launch ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’ Roll, but we got much more than that…..

We created an interesting division of the masses via our ‘rock makeover’ stand, where we took exhibition attendees and dressed them up as rock stars. The surprising thing is that it is usually the people you least expect who want to be rockers, not the usual stereotypes as put forward by the so-called diversity industry – Shy introverts enjoyed the process as much as the out and out ‘experience generation’. Even the CIPD rocked and some photos of their ‘rock executives’ are caught here. Amongst others who went for a Rock’n’Roll makeover we met a bunch of solicitors who really rocked, having brought an electric piano to the exhibition to serenade their clients. Wearing wigs is, of course, no big deal to solicitors. The ‘Solicitors of Rock’ may be found at www.sherrards.co.uk If I had to hire a solicitor, once I was satisfied about their ability to do the job, I’d much rather choose a firm that rocked. Sherrards do – take a look at their website.

In another ‘social experiment’ I heard that Sir Bob Geldof was presenting at the conference. Why does Bob need to do this I wondered? Would he swear at the genteel HR profession? Well, the 1st question is simple: Even Sir Bob needs to keep Make Poverty History on the World agenda www.makepovertyhistory.org and this was a pretty large and theoretically receptive audience for such things. Many HR professionals work in companies who practice globalisation and therefore have considerable influence on the fair trade aspect of global business. Of course, Bob is no fool and decided not to swear during his interview with meek and mild BBC Radio 4 presenter Sue Lawley (at least not until he met me later on). Instead we were subjected to the shock horror of hearing Ms Lawley use the F word in her interview. How bizarre!

Sir Bob before and after Peter Cook

Anyway, I could not resist the opportunity to present Sir Bob with a copy of the book – dressed in a punk rock straightjacket (that’s me, not Bob), as soon as he caught me in the queue, he reverted to type, shouting ‘fu...ing hell’ to the assembled thong of HR folk, who had been surprised by his intellect and lack of swearing up to this point. He was astonished and amused to meet a punk rocker at the HRD conference. There must be a moral here if you want to make an impact at work when you only perhaps have 15 seconds to do this. We are caught discussing the book here with a few other people wondering whether I had been reincarnated from the Boomtown Rats!

In another strange encounter, I met Limahl of Kajagoogoo fame www.limahl.com the other week. You may remember ‘Too Shy’ from 1986. Like so many one hit wonders, the record put him on the celebrity map. It also acts as a bit of a millstone round his neck, as it is the only point of conversation for many people who meet Limahl. Same as a business with a single product or service. But hey, more of that later. Time to move on.

Peter

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