Simpler than You Think, Part 2

Posted on August 24th, 2011 by Eric Dodds and currently 6 commenting.

This is Part 2 of a few articles about the ingredients of ‘success.’ If you missed the first go-around (1), we talked about how the most common characteristics of successful musicians didn’t include any sort of ‘secret sauce’ or social media tips. Here’s an excerpt:

Now, I think there are plenty of people out there seeking honest solutions, and plenty of companies selling them. But as I read books, articles, blogs and tweets about success – in whatever context the authors discuss it – I find that all too often the commentary bends towards silver bullets and under-emphasizes the good old-fashioned ingredients that have served people since the beginning of time: hard work and skill developed over time.

Our second example comes from an interview with the band Dawes (2). To make a long story short, Dawes was recently chosen to be the quartet behind rock-n-roll hall-of-famer and renowned guitarist Robbie Robertson (guitarist and songwriter for “The Band”). To put it in perspective, Dawes is an up-and-coming group, and it is a gigantic honor for them to be specifically chosen by someone with such an amazing pedigree.

What’s really interesting, though, is what the front man of Dawes told the interviewer about why he thinks they were chosen. Hint: it’s not because of talent, and it’s not because they used Twitter to begin a conversation with some top-dog in the industry:

…Robbie Robertson’s principles seemed to be about respecting what it meant to be in a band with a capital B. Like, here are four guys that know how to play together.

I’m aware of the fact-and I’m sure Robbie’s aware of the fact-that he could have gotten 200 guitar players better than me, but he didn’t. He got the guy who knows how to play with [his band mates] because they spent so much time together, and I think he realizes the significance of four guys learning how to follow each other’s dynamics.

From his perspective, Robbie Robertson chose Dawes not because they were the most talented, not because they were the best at networking, and not because they promoted themselves better than any other band. Robbie chose them because he saw teamwork, and that was non-negotiable for whomever would back him.

I respect Dawes’ perspective a whole lot, mostly because I’ve seen it to be true at work. (Here’s the part where I’m going to brag on my awesome team mates at Brains on Fire for a sentence or two.)

Whenever students tour our company, they seem to be enamored by our office space, our quirky titles, and the off-beat screen print tees that some of us wear. Inevitably, someone says something like, “creative work must just flow out of this place effortlessly.”

My response generally goes something like this: “Well, you might be tempted to think that, but you want to know the real secret behind the work we do? Blood, sweat, and tears. It’s everyone on a project pouring their heart and soul into it. It’s us disagreeing, fighting, and figuring out what our best role on the team is in order to get remarkable work to clients. It’s us learning how to kill ideas really quickly. Honestly, it’s not pretty from the inside sometimes. But I think that’s what makes it so good.”

In the first post I said I’d provide a few concluding thoughts, so here they are:

We believe that the fundamentals of hard work, persistence, team work, and passion for your craft will win out over the latest tools, the trend-du-jour, or sudden advances in technology every time – even if it takes more time. We believe – and our experience has shown it to be true – that companies who pour their whole heart into things like amazing customer service (especially offline) will generate a larger quantity of sustainable word of mouth than companies who choose to pour that same effort into monitoring social media around the clock.

Most times, it seems, the best strategy is much simpler than you’d think.

• (1) – You can read the first post, Simpler than You Think, Part 1, here.
• (2) – You can read the interview with Dawes here.

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