High Performing Teams - combining two of my interest areas...

Anyone who has spent time in my company knows that I love nothing more than making music based puns, and to this all I can say is sorry seems to be the hardest word. It doesn’t just come from my interest in 'dad' jokes, but stems from a passion for music, the stories behind the albums, the journeys of those involved in making the music, and the sheer thrill of the hunt for that song or album you've never heard before that just consumes you. I often get lost down rabbit holes where I need to know everything about one topic, recently the Abbey Road album was subjected to that intrigue, the latest episode in a lifelong fascination with The Beatles. As a result, while on ‘Creating High Performance Teams’ at the University of Cambridge I was inspired to use The Beatles as my reference case as we went through the lessons provided by the brilliant Dr Cath Bishop (https://cathbishop.com/) . I'd love to share with you my reflections on The Beatles and how they aligned to the indicators of a High Performing Team...

A shared objective

While it is purely conjecture, their behaviour and approach implies that when this group of people got together in Liverpool, they had the same passion and goal - to write and play music that other people would want to listen to. While watching the Get Back documentary it also became clear that they continued to realign their shared objective for each album - with the ‘payoff’ for this period being a final show, film and live album. By keeping a shared objective that evolved according to the times, the Beatles were able to continue to deliver amazing records and this only ended when it became clear that they could no longer align on a common purpose.?

The leap of faith

One thing that characterises their approach to their career was continuing to take leaps of faith - be that stepping on the plane to Germany to learn their trade on the stages of Hamburg, deciding to end touring to focus on albums, through to deciding to perform on the roof of their Apple building in London. As a collective they used these leaps of faith (an act of believing in or attempting something whose existence or outcome cannot be proved or known)? to give them a sense of purpose and to focus their individual skills towards a common purpose. Moreover it meant that they evolved musically in a way that most of their contemporaries in the early 60s failed to do, and why they continually forged new musical and cultural ground in such a short space of time.?

Focus on performance not just results

Playing to tens of thousands of fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco may in itself be considered an amazing result, however when you consider the impact on their ability to perform by playing in large venues with poor sound and screaming fans making it impossible to hear what they were playing, you can understand why this was their last major live performance. By focussing on what they needed to do to perform at their best, they made the radical decision to exist as a studio band, only recording albums, and not spend time on the road getting increasingly frustrated. Consequently, The Beatles ended up with even greater results - the albums that followed were Sgt Peppers, the White Album, Abbey Road, Let it Be.... It goes to show that reviewing your performance is more important than basking in an immediate result.?

Outside support

If a team is too insular it will struggle to develop because they need outside ideas and influence to really grow beyond their current mindset. The Beatles had two main sources of outside support - George Martin and Brian Epstein. The Beatles were not classically trained musicians, nor did they really know how to write music, so having access to a musical brain like George Martin’s, who didn’t even come from the pop/rock world, gave them an edge that many of their contemporaries lacked. Just imagine Eleanor Rigby without Martin’s string quartet arrangement. Similarly, The Beatles needed Mr Epstein, as they affectionately referred to him, to give them focus, business smarts and to keep them on track. It was Epstein’s idea to?smarten up their image in the early days and to put their now iconic matching suits on. By simply listening to outside advice it changed the course of their careers. These examples also prove the importance of strong leadership, which as we see here doesn’t necessarily need to be single threaded.?

Powerful relationships

Teams with powerful relationships also perform well. These don’t necessarily have to be purely personal relationships, however they have to reflect a clear respect between the parties. When you see The Beatles in interviews, and in the studio, you see a group that is very happy to fool around together, but equally support each other and listen to each other. If one had an idea, they would listen and give it a go even if it did involve an Octopus’s garden. While Lennon/McCartney were the central driving force, if they didn’t respect and listen to each of the members of the band, we wouldn’t have the amazing drum work we get from Ringo, nor the timeless songs like Something and Here Comes The Sun. Unfortunately, when these relationships start to deteriorate, that is when you start to lose the team, and without them being addressed you stop becoming 'high performing'. Which takes me onto my final point.?

Team evolution and dealing with disruptive star players

While we may never know the real reason for The Beatles breaking up (new information keeps coming up that changes the narrative we thought we knew), one thing is for sure that during the last few albums it became clear that the individuals started to become bigger than the collective. Once George Harrison had realised he was an extremely competent and prolific songwriter, he struggled to play second fiddle to Lennon and McCartney and started to push back on their advice. When new players and partners came in to distort the core relationships, this put a strain on the usual studio dynamic. Compounding this was the sudden and tragic loss of their leader, Brian Epstein. Without his ability to help pull them together and give them a plan and a next step, as well as to control the egos, the individuals started to become bigger than the whole which led to their unfortunate end. The silver lining being that at least it gave us the opportunity to hear their individual styles come to fruition in successful solo careers.?

Without a doubt, The Beatles are a great example of a High Performing team and the results are there to prove it - the fact that I am still writing about them over 50 years after they disbanded says so much. I've really enjoyed thinking about this training course through the lens of a personal interest area and I’d highly encourage you to think about high profile teams you have witnessed or been part of and think about the lessons you have taken from those and consider ways you can apply them to your current situations.?

Anyway, I better Get Back to Helping my own team Come Together as we hit The End of the fiscal year ;)