Career News 24/7: The Cynical Girl: Lessons from The Monkees on Team Building

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The Cynical Girl: Lessons from The Monkees on Team Building

Lessons from The Monkees on Team Building

Posted: 13 Mar 2012 03:45 AM PDT

I am Gen X and missed the whole Monkees phenomenon. I caught the re-runs when I was a kid.

I wasn’t a huge fan or anything but I liked them. I was sad to hear that Davy Jones passed away. FWIW, I am partial to songs by Mike Nesmith.

Anyway, I just caught Peter Tork on The Rachel Maddow Show and he talked about how the band came together and immediately disliked one another but still operated as professionals. The band members weren’t friends. They argued and disagreed over a million different issues. They broke up and reunited several times.

Kind of like Metallica.

Even though they fought like cats and dogs, The Monkees shipped great art to their fans on a regular basis. Davy Jones might not be your guy… and that’s okay… but there’s no doubt that he was successful in his field. His voice changed lives. He made young girls swoon and grown women cry.

With all that dysfunction, it’s funny to me how The Monkees are more successful that many modern day companies at #sxswi. Those companies have all kinds of core values & beliefs & mission statements but can’t make bank or scale their one successful product.

So I dunno. You can have your fancy open office environments with Foosball tables AND passion AND company values that set out to change the world. I’ll take Mike Nesmith, conflict and consistently great art.