The Punk Rock of Business: Applying a Punk Rock Attitude in the Modern Business Era

book.

INTRODUCTION

In 2006 Motorola joined the Product (RED) campaign. Bono and Bobby Shriver (the nephew of John F. Kennedy) had founded (RED) with a simple mission—to make it easy for people and businesses to join the fight against the deadly AIDS virus. Companies would make (RED) versions of their products, and consumers would choose to buy them because a portion of the profits would go to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. As Motorola’s Retail Global Marketing leader, I was leading the (RED) initiative for Motorola.

The (RED) campaign was to be launched in Chicago on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Bono was to explain the concept to Oprah on air, and then the two of them would go shopping down the Magnificent Mile of North Michigan Avenue. They would buy a (RED) watch in the Armani store, (RED) clothes in the Gap store, and then they’d close their trip by buying a (RED) RAZR phone from Motorola.

Twelve days before the show my phone rang. It was Motorola’s Chairman and CEO, Ed Zander. I’ve just had Bono on the phone, Jeremy. He told me all about the PR launch plans and the Oprah show.

Yes, it’s really cool, Ed. It’ll be great, I assured him.

But Jeremy, where are they going to buy our phone from? Because we don’t have our own stores, he pressed.

Don’t worry, Ed, I said reassuringly, The Gap has given us some space in their store, and we’re building a shop-in-shop. It will look just like we’re in our own store on television.

That’s not good enough! We need our own store! he barked.

I know, Ed. It would be great if we had a store, but we don’t have one yet.

Well, we need to get one, Ed demanded.

I know, Ed. But the show is in twelve days’ time, and it takes twelve months to build a store, so this is all I can give you.

At that time, we were actively working on a plan to build a Motorola retail store in Chicago. We had been on it for about three months trying to find a suitable location, with the prospect of us opening one in about nine months. I am sure Ed knew of this concept and the sort of timescale we were talking about, so I was stunned by the absurdity of his demand.

Well that’s not good enough! You’re going to build me a store. . Ed hung up on me.

I rushed around to Ron Garriques’ office (Ron was President of the Mobile Phone business and worked directly for Ed) to try to get him to talk some sense into Ed. Ron headed up the mobile devices business. He was on the phone and shooed me out of his office doorway. A couple of minutes later he called me in.

I’ve just had Ed on the phone, Ron, I started.

I know, that was him.

Good, did you tell him? I asked hopefully, meaning Ron did you tell him he is insane and there is no way on this planet he can have a store in twelve days?

Yes, I told him.

Good, I said, relieved.

I told him you would build him a store, Ron clarified the matter.

Ron, I can’t build a store in twelve days, I pleaded.

No response.

Ron, I can’t build a store in twelve days. Ron, it’s impossible! Ron?

No answer. Ron was back typing away on his PC. He looked up and said in a very perplexed tone, Are you still here? Haven’t you got a store to build?

So, I found Guto Andrade (my head designer) and quickly explained to him my sudden predicament. Minutes later, we were driving down North Michigan Avenue looking for an empty storefront. On the best and busiest shopping street in America’s Midwest, they just don’t exist. I would rather have been looking for a unicorn or the abominable snowman.

As expected, there were no empty stores—nor unicorns nor abominable snowmen, for that matter. We did, however, find a museum, opposite the Nike and Apple stores and just down the road from the Gap store, that was closed for refurbishment. After a few hasty phone calls, we found out that the refurbishment work was limited to the second and third floors, and the street level floor was not affected. We managed to secure a temporary lease of the ground floor for the next four months so that we could build a pop-up store for the duration of the key holiday selling season.

Somehow, miracle of miracles, we now had a location. But how were we going to turn a museum lobby into a retail store in twelve days?

This is where Guto’s genius came in. The (RED) logo is a pair of parentheses. Guto’s idea was to build false walls by stretching printed cloth over a curved wooden frame, so the walls would literally mirror the shape of the logo. With these curved walls, the concept was that people entering the store would literally be walking into the brand.

Suddenly there was an air of excitement, a glimpse that the impossible could actually be possible. But the question now was: How do we make this space great? How could we use it to inspire Chicagoans to act in the fight against AIDS? In the following few hours, my team came up with great idea after great idea.

Most tellingly, the entrance needed to explain the extent of the grim reality of the AIDS crisis, the magnitude of which I had been blissfully unaware of until two months earlier. The entrance would be a plain red background displaying nothing more than the statistics telling the horrific story of the pandemic unfolding in Africa. One read, Every day in Africa 5,500 people die from a preventable treatable disease. That was the equivalent of two 9/11s every single day. We all know how traumatizing that day was for us, witnessing that loss of life. Well, the equivalent of two of those tragedies was happening every single day in Africa, and we were oblivious to it. Another read, Today in Africa 1,200 babies will be born with HIV. Every single day over one thousand babies’ lives were destined to be cut short before they were even born. The entranceway stated the problem in cold hard facts.

Once inside the store we would unveil how we all could be part of the solution.

We created a glass underfloor space where we would display all (RED) products from all (RED) partners. Beautiful images of Africa were hung on the canvas walls together with an explanation of the (RED) concept. We created a hall-of-fame wall where we would celebrate those who joined our cause, and people who bought a (RED) product would be asked to sign their name.

Workers started appearing, and building work was soon under way. Eleven days later, on the evening before the show, I walked into the store and was blown away by the transformation and the beauty of the space. In the store was Kanye West. He was going to be the store sales representative who would sell the RAZR phones to Bono and Oprah the next day, and my team was busy briefing him on the product. But I hardly noticed Kanye (I know that sounds insane, but it is true). I was mesmerized by the transformation of this museum lobby into not just a retail store but a work of art that told a story that needed telling. Where had all these pieces of furniture been manufactured? How did they get produced? Who did all this? It was incomprehensible how this had been achieved in such a short span of time. I was feeling a mixture of pride in my team, confusion at how it could be so, and a sense that a little bit of magic dust must have been sprinkled by someone. As I have often found in my career, there is that special power in the universe that makes all things work together for good. Crazy ideas do cause crazy coincidences.

I couldn’t wait to see people’s reaction the following day. It was going to blow their minds. I hadn’t shown anyone the store, I hadn’t even shown anyone the designs (I think they were nothing more than hand-drawn scribbles anyway), and I don’t think anyone had even told Bobby or Bono of our change of plan, mostly because we hadn’t been sure we could pull it off.

Filming started around eight a.m. the next day in Oprah’s studio. About an hour and a half later, Oprah, Bono, and their entourage arrived at Motorola’s brand new store—their very last stop having already purchased a (RED) Armani watch and a collection of (RED) t-shirts—and they bought ten phones from Kanye to give to their friends. Filming stopped, and everyone buzzed around excitedly on the shop floor—a space that hadn’t even been an idea two weeks earlier. When Bono saw me from across the store, he hurried over, hugged me, and whispered in my ear, twelve ******* days, twelve ******* days. That was all he said—and it was all I needed to hear.

Over the next four months, the store attracted tens of thousands of visitors, and we sold thousands of phones. Remarkably (and a great testimony to Guto and his team), it was nominated for and won several North American Retail Store of the Year awards. Unbelievable.

At the end of a very long day and an even longer week, I arrived home, and my wife Gerry, who had been at the filming of the Oprah show and seen it all unfold, was buzzing. It had been a very special day for everyone. She said, "I assume you heard what Bono said about you on Oprah?"

What are you on about? What did he say?

She was surprised I hadn’t heard, but all our people had been in the store, so we had no idea what had gone on in the studio.

She said, Oprah asked him why they were launching in Chicago and he said something like, ‘Because it’s the home of Motorola. We love all our partners, but Motorola are special; they put on concerts in Trafalgar Square in weeks and they’ve built a (RED) store in just twelve days. They are the punk rock of business: no long introductions, three beats and you’re in. They say they are going to do something, and then it just gets done.’¹

I liked that, The Punk Rock of Business. Hence the title for this book.

Intimately Know Who You Are

If the Product (RED) story created the concept of Punk Rock Business, this next story is essential for understanding how it guided my career.

As I just wrote at the end of the previous story, I decided to forever believe in the impossible, go for it, and trust in the power of human ingenuity to overcome the challenges that inevitably arise. I committed to embracing this punk attitude, and it became a core part of who I was and how I operated. This was crystallized for me in 2015.

Pete Carroll joined the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks as Head Coach in 2010, and he began to ingrain his philosophy into the players from day one. Shortly afterward, he was introduced to Dr. Michael Gervais,² a leading sports psychologist who is fascinated by the psychology of high performance. Mike was working with a bunch of amazing people (including Olympians, NBA players, pro-golfers, and world record holders from the world of extreme sports) helping them to uncover the many paths towards what Mike calls Finding Mastery. As the story goes, Pete and Mike clicked, and Mike joined the Seahawks soon after. In subsequent years, it was clear that the culture Pete and Mike were building with the Seahawks and the team’s mental strength were having a huge impact on team performance. In 2013, the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl with a group of players who had a unique and powerful team spirit. They reached the Super Bowl the following year as well.

One day in 2014 Pete said to Mike, I think we are onto something here, do you think anyone outside of sports would be interested? So they went and met with some of the local companies, including Boeing and Microsoft. Satya Nadella, our CEO at Microsoft, was very interested in developing a growth mindset culture and began to involve Mike with our company at the most senior level. Indeed, in Satya’s book Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone (New York: HarperBusiness, 2017), he mentions Mike’s engagement with his senior leadership team in the first few pages. It wasn’t long before word of the impact of the training sessions with Mike reached me; everyone was speaking about them with such glowing praise, so I arranged for Mike to spend the first of many days working with my team at my house in late 2015.

Mike fundamentally believes in the power of a personal philosophy, and our pre-work was to build out our own. We were told to write our personal philosophies in twenty-five words or less.

Mike told us that a personal philosophy is a statement of our most basic beliefs, values, and guiding principles that impacts our thoughts and actions. In essence, our philosophy governs the daily choices that we make and how we come to those decisions.

He told us that it takes time to craft and clearly articulate a personal philosophy and that our philosophy will grow and evolve as we grow and evolve.

To stimulate our thinking, he suggested we look at other personal philosophies from people we admired, but remain true to who we were. Once we had a draft of our philosophy, we were to share it with others who were close to us: our family, friends, and trusted work colleagues. We were to refine it by listening to how it sounded as we articulated it out loud and by taking feedback from those we shared it with and who knew us well. This undoubtedly produced greater clarity, and I was amazed at the insights brought by my colleagues. I understood what they valued in me.

The evening before our training session, I met Mike for dinner. I wanted to brief him on our group and explain some of the things I wanted to achieve the following day. Mike asked me to recite my personal philosophy. I knew it by heart, so I rolled it off . . . Be authentic, act justly, care deeply—believe in the impossible by embracing punk rock attitudes—make the most of every day, surrounded by great people, loving life’s game.

Mike asked about the punk rock phrase, and I told him the story that I recounted a few pages ago. Mike loved the story and asked more about that mindset, so I gave him some other examples from my career. As I was leaving, Mike told me he would analyze my philosophy tomorrow during the training, but he needed me to make it shorter, crisper—it was too long.

So the next day when I was asked to recite my philosophy, I recited it as follows . . . Be authentic, act justly, care deeply—believe in the impossible, loving life’s game.

Mike verbally came at me . . . What happened to punk rock?

You told me to shorten it, I replied.

I didn’t tell you to take out the good bit, Mike fired back at me. Why did you do that?

Well, I took it out because that bit . . . er . . . takes a bit of explaining.

Bullshit. Everyone’s philosophy has an understory that needs explaining. Why did you take it out?

Well, probably because it sounds a little weird.

I don’t buy it.

Why? I asked.

He explained, Look—I listen for the passion in people’s voice when they tell me their philosophy. That’s how I know what really matters to them. Last night, punk was where your passion was, and now it’s gone. Really?

Mike was definitely not letting this go. This had been going on for about ten minutes now and was taking place in front of my team, which was fine, because we were close.

I then made an admission that was in my unconscious. Well, I suppose I cut it because I am not sure that I am living up to it like I used to.

One of my team spoke up and said, No, Jeremy is punk.

I had to admit, . . . but not like I used to be.

Mike’s face lit up; he had got to the heart of the issue. So how do you feel about that?

Well, I feel that I am not being true to myself, and I need to be more punk. And I want these guys to hold me accountable to that.

Good, Mike said. Anything else?

Yes, I wonder whether I can be true to who I am at Microsoft. It was so much easier to be punk at Motorola—we didn’t have the complexity of Microsoft’s organizational matrix. At Microsoft, you need about four people to agree to any decision. It’s much more collaborative, and you progress by getting consensus, which is fine, but I had toned down the punk in me as a result.

I continued, I need to see if I can be more punk, and I’m going to give it a go, but I’ll soon know if I can be true to who I am at Microsoft.

That was a deep and intense discussion. It wasn’t one where I felt entirely comfortable throughout, but it was a vitally important one for me. I felt like my inner mind was being picked apart and analyzed by a psychologist. And then I realized that was exactly what had happened. I came away with a great sense of calm. I knew myself better, and I definitely knew what I had to do. In the months that followed, I did regain more of my punk, but I also knew my time at Microsoft needed to come to an end.

The beauty of the personal philosophy process is that you go on a journey of self-discovery. You start off alone and then bring in some close friends, family, and colleagues. If you are lucky, you get to share the philosophy with someone who can listen to the passion in your voice as much as your words and identify what you are really trying to say. They can help you refine your philosophy and crisp it up, but it is you who needs to feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end as you say it. If it doesn’t resonate emotionally, then you haven’t nailed it yet.

I would argue vehemently now that you must have a personal philosophy. Others call it their personal brand, but whatever you call it, self-awareness is vital, and you have to know who you are and what you stand for and be able to articulate it crisply. It is for you, first and foremost, but if you share it, people understand you more and gain great benefit from their extra insight into you.

Now let me state clearly that the purpose of a philosophy is to help guide you through every day. I believe you can only be truly happy if you are being yourself and are true to who you are. So your personal philosophy should be in front of you every day reminding you exactly that—who you are and what you want to be.

KEY LESSONS

A personal philosophy brings clarity; it helps you understand who you are. When our actions in any and every environment are aligned with our principles and beliefs, we can be authentic to our true self. A personal philosophy that is in tune with your true self enables you to live a life of conviction. It encourages you to be the real you.

Everyone needs a personal philosophy. Have you got one? Can you recite it now? Many people have a bunch of principles they tend to follow, but for most people they’re not written down. And if they’re not written down, they don’t direct your daily decisionmaking process as strongly as they should.

As Dr. Michael Gervais would say to us, there are only three things you can train: your body, your craft, and your mind. No one had ever tried to train my mind before. I am not sure I even knew you could. It was a revelation. Mike taught me more about myself and how to achieve mastery and high performance in my field than any other trainer, and he did that by focusing on the training of the mind. Invest time in this area—once you’ve finished this book!

SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Read this book, and then return here to write your personal philosophy. You need one. You really need to know who you are, and if you cannot recite one immediately, then you don’t have one.

Once you have it, pin it on your wall, and use it to guide your life. That is who you say you truly are, and if you don’t live up to it, then you aren’t being who you want to be—so then you have to change what you are doing and stop being a fraud.

Ask your team to create their personal philosophies. Then share them with each other, and you will get a much deeper appreciation for who everyone is.

Use them to understand how to get the most out of your team members. Personal philosophies hold the most powerful insights for how to inspire your team to greatness.

So, What Is Punk Rock Business All About?

You’ve read how Bono coined the phrase Punk Rock of Business, and you’ve seen how Mike helped me understand its importance to me. Now let me explain how it can be of value to you too.

Many businesses these days are clogged up by bureaucracy that thwarts innovation, slows down creativity, and encourages mediocrity. I hate mediocrity. I’d much rather have spectacular success or fantastic failure. I believe mediocrity occurs far too often because too many people in business, particularly those in middle-management roles, are far too cautious, pessimistic, and more concerned about protecting their jobs rather than striving for greatness and being everything they could be. They are fearful of putting their heads above the parapet, so they take a play-it-safe attitude and come up with the conservative, tame, and expected proposals. Too many businesses create an environment and a culture that encourages averageness and behavior that is destined to deliver results that, at best, can only ever be lukewarm. This is a huge problem as lukewarm is no good to anyone

I originally took The Punk Rock of Business to be only about the speed and bias to action that Bono had referenced . . . three beats and you’re in, no long introductions. But as I thought about the influences of punk, I realized how much more inspiration modern businesses and businesspeople could and should take from punk rock culture and a punk rock attitude. Let me explain.

The Ramones were key influencers in the American punk movement . . . Joey Ramone, the band’s front man, once stated, We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard. In 1974 everything was tenth-generation Led Zeppelin, tenth-generation Elton John, or overproduced, or just junk. Everything was long jams, long guitar solos . . . We missed music like it used to be.³ Drummer Tommy Ramone slated rock music at that time; he said it was dominated by endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock ’n’ roll.⁴

This is the perfect expression for what many businesses need today. In today’s market, everything is tenth-generation product versions, overprocessed, and just plain boring. For far too long, companies have been hamstrung by endless meetings that go nowhere. Like the music scene in 1973, what we need today is some pure, stripped down, no bullshit business leadership.

Pure, stripped down, no bullshit—beautiful! You will come to see that Punk Rock Business is all about adopting an attitude that echoes the attributes of punk. The punk rock businessperson says, I am not okay with the current status quo, and vows to do something about it. I detest mediocrity, as I want to do amazing things. I see no sense in playing things safe, because there is no such thing as job security anymore. I am not going to stick to some conservative, cautious game plan, because life is precious, and life is about creating something amazing with the people you choose to share your life with.

In an article entitled Don’t look over your shoulder but the Sex Pistols are coming, Steve Jones (the Sex Pistols’ guitarist) famously said, We’re not into music, we’re into chaos.⁵ I’d love to be able to say that Punk Rock Business is into chaos, but people would take that word out of context. So instead let me say, We’re into disruption. Disruption that is positive. Disruption that eradicates the futile and pointless activities, the destruction of processes that curtail speed with minimal benefit, and the removal of those people who block progress in the name of caution.

Do you endure inefficient, ineffective, cumbersome processes at your workplace? Are you frustrated beyond belief at the conservatism and cautiousness that prevail in too many business leaders? Does it make you angry? It should. As Tim McIlrath said, If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. So, open your eyes and see the reality.

Punk has an anger associated with it. Punks were angry; they were pissed at something, pissed at the dull music and the hopelessness they saw for their futures. I’m pissed too. I’m mad at the corporate bullshit, the play-it-safe middle managers who don’t want to rock the boat, but all the time they moan and whine in the corridors. All they want to do is plod along, work acceptable hours, take a decent paycheck home, and enjoy corporate job security while they live in suburbia with 2.4 children, a Volvo, and a hypoallergenic dog that was chosen because it would not get hairs on their new Pottery Barn sofa.⁶

John Lydon defined these people perfectly in his book Anger Is an Energy: My Life Uncensored, All those kinds of people, the complacent ones that don’t contribute, that just sit by and moan and don’t actually do anything to better themselves or the situation for others. The nonparticipating moral majority.⁷ This nonparticipating moral majority is the cause of so many of the problems I mention. They are the conservative, cautious, ineffective, bureaucratic safe managers that I loathe.

We don’t need safe managers; we need entrepreneurs, or at least business leaders with entrepreneurship flowing through their veins. Moreover, the people who work with and alongside us are crying out for a leader who can inspire and chart a journey that brings vibrancy to the lives of those who share the journey.

Punk Rock Business is a call to arms for businesspeople who can relate to this desire to dare greatly and strive for excellence and who loathe the constraining sludge that prevents progress in so many businesses these days.

Punk threatens the norm and changes the status quo. It is nonconformist, it is rebellious, and it pushes the boundaries in every way possible. It’s about one person saying, It doesn’t have to be this way, and finding a group of like-minded people who agree it’s time to rebel and change things . . . for the better.

The rebellious part of it is very important because people get too complacent. The fight against that complacency is punk rock . . . At this point and on the planet it seems like eighty percent of the people are ******** asleep you know . . . You know you only need five percent or less to embrace ideas and change it, change the way people think all over again, said Jim Jarmusch (Film Director, Actor, Writer) in an interview from the film Punk: Attitude.

I agree, eighty percent of people are asleep in this world, not literally but metaphorically. They walk around in a daze, they accept the norm, and they don’t even realize how bad things are. And even if they did, they don’t have the desire or the fight to make things better . . . whereas punks do, and so should you! This is where you come in.

A key part of punk rock is about getting straight to the point, so let’s not waste any time and let me state why I am writing this book:

1.I want to see bureaucracy stripped away. I am mad (mad as hell, to be truthful) at the bureaucracy that clogs up businesses—and there is, sadly, far more of it around today than when I started out. All too often I have seen companies who worship at the shrine of process and pay scant regard to creativity and the power of ideas. If this book can help shift that balance, then it will have served its purpose.

2.I want to see talented businesspeople realize their full potential. I