Guns N’ Roses

Great article by guest blogger Kristin M Woodman in today’s The thoughtLEADERS Blog about the business lessons taught by 80s hair bands.

What? Huh? Hair Bands?????

Yup. The music business is arguably one of the most lucrative businesses out there. It’s not all hairspray, groupies, drugs, alcohol, cool threads, tons of money, private jets and overarching fame. To keep all these things, you gotta stay in business.

These band members were partners in every sense of the word. And they had to be good partners to survive.

Look to the winners (KISS, Bon Jovi) and the crash-and-burners (Guns N’ Roses comes to mind) for examples of accountability vs. blame. While they all fought and even broke up from time to time, the best of them got over themselves, learned from their mistakes and probably grew up a bit too. Talk about navigating through Partnersh*t. There was too much at stake to be stupid. Look at Aerosmith.

It’s exactly the same in every other business. It doesn’t matter whether partners play golf or play guitar for 100,000 screaming fans. Business and partnership boil down to one simple thing: people.

If you can’t keep the people together, there is no business. And there sure as hell is no partnership.

Trust me—you will miss that private jet. 😎