Entrepreneurship and Musicianship: Innovation Lessons for Business Leaders
What can we learn from musical performance to enhance the entrepreneurial process?
Great music, like great business ideas, connects emotionally with the audience. Entrepreneurs, like musicians, are adept at creating products or services that don’t just function, but that resonate on a deeper level with their customers. Indulge me in exploring some parallels between entrepreneurial work environments and musicianship. I’m an amateur musician (emphasize amateur!). My whole life I have found great joy in both consuming music of all genres and in occasionally participating in musical performances. I have found strength and inspiration from music. The discipline that is required to perform well is invigorating. I have applied lessons from my musical experiences to my approach to innovation at work. So, I’d like to share some of those insights: where do musicianship and entrepreneurship intersect?
Making something from nothing
I love filling a room with music. You can’t touch it, but everyone feels it, and with the right tune, you’ll have everyone humming for the rest of the day. The process of musical creation is not easy, far from it, just like ideation in business requires creativity and skill, and a lot of practice. To create a unique piece of music or deliver a compelling performance, you take an idea, find the right performers and instruments, put it all together with vision, passion, and precision, and bring it to an audience. This is similar to the way that an entrepreneurial startup might go from ideation to the marketplace, recruiting the right experts and identifying the right tools. This is not a simple or quick process, but when done right there really is something magical about it, just like there’s magic in music.
Improvisation
There are two ways musicians improvise. The first is the intentional deviation from the theme. Listen to Mongo Santamaría’s Mayeya: there’s a clear theme, but even the very first few chords are a variation from that theme, variations that continue throughout the piece. Improvisation is at the heart of the jazz genre, but here is an example from Mozart, variations on a tune you probably recognize.
A different kind of musical improvisation happens when something goes wrong during a performance. A piano teacher taught me long ago that if your finger slips, you keep going: breathe, smile, and find a way to get back on track, maybe even give a little wink to the audience. Here’s an amazing example, from the elite improviser Ella Fitzgerald. Singing Mack the Knife in Berlin in 1960, Fitzgerald forgets the lyrics about a minute and a half into the song, but her improvisational genius makes this one of her most memorable performances (and rightly earned Fitzgerald two Grammy awards).
In entrepreneurship, improvisation and agility are key to success. Here, there are also two ways to improvise. The first is intentional deviation from the standard: a new product that “riffs off” an existing tool to make it more functional or more visually appealing, a new way to deliver a service to make it more desirable. The second is in response to changes in the market, or when facing adversity. In the widespread emergency move from in-person to online delivery of services at the beginning of the pandemic, for example, all kinds of businesses had to improvise, and some of those improvisations are here to stay, telemedicine being one salient example.
Collaboration
In music, great performances emerge from musicians working in sync, complementing each other’s strengths, and listening to each other—even asynchronously, like in this virtual performance of a Philip Glass composition by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Such complex collaboration directly parallels successful business ecosystems where founders, team members, investors, and partners create something greater than any individual could alone. Collaboration doesn’t just happen, and it’s not just about a strong leader: every contributor plays an essential role. Discipline and effort, and a sense of when to push forward and when to hold back lead to something bigger than the sum of the parts.
Emotional resonance
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that “without music, life would be a mistake”, an invitation to notice that music is not shallow entertainment, but rather a source for meaning in our existence, a fundamental human need. Music provides a compelling metaphor for the complexity of the entrepreneurial mindset and its rich emotional resonance.
The parallels between musicianship and entrepreneurship run deep, and I think they provide insights for business leaders. Both domains require creativity, discipline, and the ability to connect with others on an emotional level. Whether you’re on stage or in the boardroom, you’ll find success balancing technical expertise with creative expression, structure with improvisation, and collaboration with a unified vision.
Image caption: The storefront gate of the club Jersey Amarillo in Madrid quotes Nietzsche.
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