A few weeks ago, EADA sent us to their
residential centre in Collbató (near Montserrat) to take part in the second
module of the Master in Management. This time, the whole thing was about
presentation skills. We were told to prepare a five minutes presentation about
any topic we felt interested in and could be also professionally interesting
for our classmates. I thought that was a perfect occasion to put this blog into
practice. That’s why I tried to make the presentation between some connection between
the business world and another totally different world.
Since I remember, I’ve always wanted to play
the guitar. That’s why when I was 18 I decided to start learning on my own.
However, the responsible for this love for music is, actually, my father. Many
years ago, he founded a company that offers lights and sound for shows. In addition, as I mentioned in the last post, I
studied Industrial Engineering; therefore, I’m also in the world of infrastructures.
And nowadays, I’m studying Business in EADA. Probably you are wondering what the
link between these three things is.
Well, last summer I went to a concert where my
father’s company was putting the sound and the lights and I had the chance to
be in the backstage during part of the concert. He showed me everything and I
don’t know how, but we ended up talking about the similarities between what we
were seeing and the organization of a company. It was then when I realized that
you can learn how a company works just by looking at different things in life.
First of
all, when you have to produce a concert, you have to think about the power that
you’ll need, and you estimate this considering the expected people that will
come and the space you’ll have. As well as in this process, when you design a
company, you need to do it according to a specific production level, based on a
forecasted sales level.
Secondly, there’s the structure, where we stick
everything. In a concert, as well as in a company, the structure needs to be
modular. That means that your design has to be easy adaptable to any production
level without having to redesign the whole plant. This can also be applied to
the electric system, because each machine has to have its own electric system.
Imagine a company where a machine’s breakdown interrupts the entire production;
that would be unacceptable. And here is when the modularity comes in.
Once you have a well-designed structure, you
need to communicate within the concert (or within the company). In a concert,
each member of the band has a speaker through which he/she can hear the mixture
that he/she particularly needs. For example, the singer needs to hear his/her
voice really well, but also a little bit of the guitar and the drums. The
different components of the group represent the different departments of a
company, where the exchange of information is crucial. But this internal
communication has to be the exact amount of information needed. Why? Because
less drives to lack of coordination, but more complicates the processes.
Ultimately, each department needs to monitor its own information, but also some
from the interrelated departments. The point is that, as the players, each
department needs the perfect mixture of information.
Until here, we have designed the entire
infrastructure, but the work hasn’t finished yet. We are missing the best part:
the concert itself!
During the live concert, we need to consider
that people have paid for listening to music with a quality similar than the
one in the CD. That’s why the technicians have to assure that the mixture that
people receive (which is not the same that each player listens) is perfect.
This mixture is the interface between the band and the people, which in a
company could be the marketing or the sales guys.
However, thinking that the most important thing
is the sound could be a mistake. At the end of the day, people have paid for
more than listening to music; they have paid for the whole experience, which is
our value proposition. My advice is to stop thinking about products, and start
thinking about experiences.
And finally, once you have the whole
infrastructure and the value proposition that you want to offer to your customers,
you need to also consider how you are going to manage the relationships and
roles between your employees. A lot of companies often forget about these
things but, as time goes by, the most successful companies are the ones that
care about all their stakeholders. In a concert, you need to manage with very
different people, such as technicians, musicians, fitters, etc. The importance
of keeping the role of each one is critical.
Put yourself in the conductor’s position. You
don’t have to show how to play the guitar; your role is to take the best out of
everyone to achieve the greatness of the whole. And this is what the manager’s
job is about, not anything else.
As a summary, I want to point out what I
consider the three most important things of this article.
- To consider the importance of the foundations of the company, in order to be able to adapt to any change in the future environment (most competitive advantages come from change!!)
- To seek the perfect mixture of information for each department to achieve efficiency
- To look at experiences, as the value proposition of any product
I want to leave you with this quote by Braine Lee:
"The great leaders are like the best conductors - they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players."
PS. Here you have a link in case you want to take a look at my presentation.
Music and Business Presentation
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