What The Beatles taught me about high performance teams

If you want to see the inside workings of a ‘high performance’ team then look no further than The Beatles’ latest film Get Back. We often talk on here about what we think successful teams look like, but this film provides a masterclass in the art of teamwork.?

I appreciate not everyone is a Beatles-nut like me, and dedicating eight hours of your life to watch a film about a band in a studio is a big ask - particularly if you’ve got kids. Fortunately (or unfortunately in this instance) I had a whole ten days to watch the film in isolation a few weeks back - there’s got to be some silver lining to getting the ‘rona right? Anyway, I thought I’d share a few observations / thoughts with you below*.

Cognitive diversity?

Ok, so I know the Beatles weren’t the most physically diverse bunch - four white, working class scouse lads who formed a band ‘that made it very very big’. However, they were cognitively diverse which is one of the key ingredients of successful teams.??

The Grafter?

For instance, the film made me realise what a grafter Paul was (is). Like a renaissance sculptor, he spends hours of the film chiselling away to refine songs and rough ideas. Even in periods of down time, he can be seen noodling on his bass or piano. The man never stops. As a result, not only does he come up with absolute ‘bangers’ like Get Back, he pretty much writes about half of Abbey Road which would sadly become the band’s final album.

As well as putting in a shift day in / day out, Paul’s also the one trying to bring some semblance of structure to proceedings - particularly when needing to come up with a full album’s worth of songs in two to three weeks for a docu-film. A creative pressure cooker or what?!

The Daydreamer

John, is by comparison, the polar opposite to Mr McCharmley. He turns up to the studio late, wears the same ‘continuity clothes’ (for the purposes of the final edit of the film of course!), and you often get the feeling that most of the songs he brings to the table were written hastily the night before. He’s certainly chilled, bordering on the cavalier.?

But, and there’s a BIG ‘but’ coming, he is a complete natural. Unlike McCartney, John’s approach is less structured, more stream of consciousness, but nonetheless equally as powerful. Across the Universe for a starter is lyrically one of the most beautiful songs on the Let It Be album - and probably one of the best ever written in the Western canon. Dig It and Dig a Pony, although slightly more whimsical, give the album a shot of raw energy which Lennon was so good at providing throughout the band’s career (Yer Blues another good example of the raw energy Lennon supplied from the White Album).

In conclusion, Lennon was spontaneous, haphazard, but the powerful mouth piece the band needed.

The Quality Control Guru

George, the so-called ‘quiet Beatle’, was the biggest surprise of the film for me. As well as contributing some of my faves on the album in the form of I, Me, Mine and For You Blue, the biggest contribution he makes can be seen in his unbridled confidence in questioning things and people.?

Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the film’s director, felt to me like a constant irritant throughout the entirety of the film. He presents a number of really naff ideas and tries to insert himself into the creative force that is the FABs. George, despite being betwixt one of the greatest power blocks the world has ever known (Lennon-McCartney), shows no remorse in questioning the lads as they start to get distracted by the pipe dreams of outside forces - one of these being to play in an ancient amphitheatre in Libya which was to be the film’s crowning finale. George, from my recollection, was simply having none of it.?

Imagine the now famous Savile Row rooftop gig being ditched for an ancient amphitheatre!? Luckily, as a result of George’s rejection of unnecessary glitz and an astute nouse for always ‘doing things for the right reason’, the band swerves a couple of potential howlers.??????

The Rock

Ringo. The most underrated member of any band in rock and roll history. Being ‘steady’ was his forte, but look closely and you’ll see the real magic that he brought to the band. It’s what he didn’t do that makes him, in my humble opinion, one of the best drummers in modern music. While Baker and Moon were spraying their kits with every fill they could conceivably fit into a bar of music, Ringo subscribed to the mantra ‘less is more’, and for The Beatles this was perfect.

He applies this logic in the film. Not only is his playing sparse and cut back to compliment the songs, his personality is anti-ego too. He’s the band’s talisman and the force that melds each and every member together. Underestimate the mystical powers of Sir Richard Starkey at your peril!???????

Let’s get Eric in…

The tension in the film comes as George announces to the other lads “See you ‘round the clubs” and subsequently quits the band.

The Beatles are often portrayed as cheeky, down-to-earth, pop confectionary - the standard myth peddled by the marketing machine of the time. However, the film demonstrates that even in the tightest of teams tension still exists.?

Luckily, the rest of the group didn’t listen to John’s now famous suggestion to “get Eric [Clapton] in”. In fact, they cleared the air with George and made amends after a couple of ‘band meetings’ and came back even stronger - something I thought was extremely palpable in the second of the three films with the band’s energy levels through the roof.?

As McCartney says himself “The best part of us has been and always will be when we're backs against the wall.” Just goes to show that even slight wrinkles in the team dynamic can actually produce better results and outputs. If channelled and dealt with in the right way tension can be a great creative tool. After all, the Lennon / McCartney partnership wouldn’t have been the force it was without the individual tensions that existed between John and Paul to outdo the other’s song.

The importance of pissing about…

One of the things that resonated with me the most about the film was how the encouragement of play and humour within a team can actually help in breaking real creative ground. A particular highlight and example was watching John sing the song Help! in the laboured voice of an elderly person - “When I was younger, so much younger than today…”. It cracks the other three guys up (along with the production team), and really injects a joie de vivre into proceedings. As a viewer, it gives you the romantic sense that "to be young [in the Sixties] was very heaven". ??

If I’m honest, I’d say 75% of the film shows the band pissing about in a studio. Given they had about two weeks to write an album, you’d think that there should have been zero time dedicated to horse play. However, it was striking to see the number of things that were achieved as a result. Get Back, Dig It and Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (this last song appearing on Abbey Road) are all excellent examples.

From my observation, humour was used by the group to help individuals inhabit another frame of reference from which to make their musical contribution. In particular, you can see how Paul and John feel their way through songs by putting on the different accents of the personas they are trying to inhabit. A lot of the time they are taking the piss, but every now and then I feel it actually helped the team move songs along - McCartney’s Get Back was certainly sped along by this unspoken encouragement among the four members to inhabit other personas in the writing process.

In addition, humour was used by the band to pierce the egos in the room. It was a basic tool via which each member of the group communicated with the other guys. At pretty much all junctures of the film you’ll hear McCartney putting on his mock blues singing voice as he pounds the piano keys recklessly like some honky-tonk grandee; or John doing his British stiff upper-lip routine, all in the name of provoking a good-humoured response from his fellow bandmates. Having played in a band myself for many years, humour among a group of people supports in forging solid bonds, breaks down barriers - and most importantly - makes light work for all involved, regardless of the objective or goal being worked towards. What's more it breaks up the waiting around and monotony that comes in a studio environment. ?

Laughter is always the best medicine in my opinion, and The Beatles certainly used it to great effect.

And in the end…

Not only were they a musical force, The Beatles were a brilliant example of a high performance team in action. We can sit on LinkedIn and philosophise and build theoretical models about what an effective team should be, but to me the latest filmic offering from Apple Corps provides some practical insight into what being in a team in the real world is actually all about. Not only are diverse personalities and ways of looking at the world essential; tensions and larking about also have their transformative roles to play too if monitored and channeled properly.?????

*Should just point out (...before some other smart-arse does) that as I write this, I’ve seen that the lovely people at The Economist have published something similar. I’m sure they make some truly excellent points. Luckily for you my content is free and doesn’t sit behind a paywall.?