I recently watched the Cirque de Soleil interpretation of the Beatles music called Love. I have always enjoyed the Beatles’ music but I am by no means an aficionado. I was struck by a quote from The Rolling Stone magazine by Paul McCartney, that was tucked in some the hotel promo literature, about the circumstance in which the album, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, was developed.
“The ideas were coming fast and thick. All sorts of new ideas-artistic, political and musical … We had a lot of friends in the music world and in the art world, and there was a big cross-fertilization … It was a great time for experimentation, and it all found its way into our music …” [1]
I did a little digging to find out what was going on in that moment. The album cover includes face shots of people who had influenced the Beatles … an amazing diversity of people … from Charlie Chaplin to Albert Einstein … from May West to Carl Jung.
The album is considered to be their greatest achievement, breaking new ground in rock music. Notice what “came together” for the Beatles in that moment: diversity of thought combined with an environment in which that diversity could fuse into a new form. Think about social networks in this larger context … as the combined sources of influence that can be brought to bear on the characteristics of a desired outcome.
The Beatles intuitively extracted from each influence those qualities that could contribute to their work. This lends another dimension to the concept of appreciation … the ability to see what contributes without becoming distracted by what does not. Social networks are not just about who can contribute but also about the qualities, attributes and ideas that they bring to the development of a new form.
I have been following CEO firings lately. One common thread that is clear from reading news accounts (and in the case of Chrysler, conversations with people who watched the workings of the inner circle) … in all cases, the CEOs who failed actually worked hard to diminish the diversity of thought that was offered to them. In some cases they made outright strategic errors, undermined the company and lost their jobs as a result. In others, they simply ended up with bland conservative decisions that slowly eroded the company’s cutting edge … and lost their jobs.
Inspired thinkers always have social networks with great variety, including Thomas Edison whom we often refer to as a great example of a lone inventor. They don’t try to make them into melting pots. In fact they appreciate and invite the diversity of thinking that exists within them.
I would be interested in hearing examples of both the consequences of limiting social networks, and those moments when, because of the presence of a diverse network, old thinking got broken apart to make way for new understanding.
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[1] Paul McCartney, in an interview with The Rolling Stone, on the development of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. From the Inroom Magazine of the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.