The new Peter Jackson documentary, ‘Get Back‘, takes a fresh look at the Beatles as they work on a project. As someone who works on communicating change and organisational cultures, I noticed seven key management lessons to learn from the Fab Four. How could I resist writing them up? I couldn’t, so here we go…
The story so far…
The Beatles operated as a senior leadership team (SLT) with teams of specialists supporting them. The four of them vote on key decisions and have a policy of needing a majority. Throughout that January, one or more of them will say “we need a band meeting about this” and the cameras are excluded. Why were cameras even there? The Beatles new project was to be a live show, getting them back to where they once belonged (playing gigs). The outputs were to be the gig, broadcast live on TV and a new album. The outcome was supposed to be rebuilding their bond as a band through playing together.
The actual outputs were: a mess of an album and a murky film that elided the truth – both called ‘Let It Be‘. The outcome was the band breaking up within the year.
‘Lord of the Rings‘ director Peter Jackson got hold of all 60 hours of footage, plus audio recordings, made by original director, Michael Lindsey-Hogg. From that he built a new three part series that tells a different story of those few weeks with the benefit of 50 years’ hindsight. As someone who has worked with SLTs on change projects and how to communicate them – and a Beatles fan stuck in self-isolation when ‘Get Back‘ dropped – I noticed some of their problems – and the solutions they deploy – still apply to projects now.
1. You need a trusted and respected leader
“Ever since Mr Epstein passed away, it’s never been the same,” says George. “We’ve been very negative since Mr Epstein passed away,” Paul agrees. “And that’s why all of us, in turn, have been sick of the group.” There is so much love and loss as the band talk about their late manager, Brian Epstein. Epstein died in 1967, after taking four leather-clad sweaty lads from Liverpool and making them the biggest band in the world. They talk about how they needed the structure and restrictions he gave them.
“We’ve never had discipline. We’ve had slight, symbolic discipline, like Mr Epstein. You know, and he sort of said “Get suits on”, and we did.”
Paul McCartney, ‘Get Back’ episode one
Without Epstein, John Lennon is the de facto leader. He started a band called The Quarrymen in 1956 and invited Paul McCartney to join in 1957. Paul convinced John to add George Harrison to the band in 1958. Just after they started recording in 1962, they dropped their existing drummer in favour of Ringo Starr. The power dynamic – John, Paul, George and Ringo – was set when they were teenagers.
“You have always been boss,” Paul says to John in a covertly recorded conversation in Get Back. “Not always,” John replies. “No, listen,” Paul comes back with. “Listen! No, always.” Paul’s attempts to deputise for John are not working: riling everyone up, and Paul knows it. They know they need a manager.
2. Senior leaders need emotional intelligence
That covert recording was made in the canteen after George Harrison has left the Beatles. Lindsey-Hogg has set up a hidden mic in a flower arrangement. Don’t do this – this is not how to gain insight!
“George said he didn’t get enough satisfaction anymore because of the compromise he had to make to be together. It’s a festering wound that we’ve allowed. Yesterday, it’s a wound that festered even deeper, and we didn’t give him any bandages.”
John Lennon, Get Back episode 2
Away from everyone else, and especially away from the cameras he plays up for, John shows emotional intelligence in dissecting why George has walked out. Paul, in response, admits he knows he’s messing things up trying to be both Lennon’s deputy and a replacement for Epstein. The band – the SLT – converge on Ringo’s house, where, away from cameras and over a couple of band meetings, the group thrashes out a deal so George can return. The live TV special is dropped, and the outputs will now be a documentary film and a live album.
3. Leaders should listen to people with experience
Towards the end of the series John has started meeting with Allen Klein, the manager of the Rolling Stones. He comes in after one meeting and enthuses about Klein to George and Ringo before Paul gets there. After all four meet Klein, John is talking about him with Glyn Johns. Glyn is the Beatles’ sound recordist and co-producer of the album. Glyn gives a warning that Klein might not be how he seems.
“He really is very strange. Very, very clever, but a strange man…I don’t know if he speaks to you the same way he does to other people. Perhaps not, because of who you are. But he’ll ask you a question and halfway through answering it and if he doesn’t like the answer or if its not really what he wanted to hear he’ll change the subject, right in the middle of a sentence. That bugs me a bit, actually.”
Glyn Johns, Get Back episode 3
How often do we hear that in organisations? How someone behaves around the SLT is different to the disparaging way they treat others?
Later in 1969, the Beatles vote 3-1 to appoint Klein with Paul the only dissenting voice.
It was not a good decision.
4. Identify problems and make changes to solve them
The band starts off rehearsals at Twickenham sound stage. It looks amazing: some lighting engineer clearly had a task of putting in different colour gels to match the boys’ outfits.
It doesn’t meet their needs as a live band looking for a rehearsal space though, so they move to the basement of their building in Savile Row. They are still struggling with how to play their new tracks live. They want piano on some tracks but if John or Paul swap to keyboards then they lose a vital Beatle guitar sound.
And then Billy Preston pops in to say hi. Billy was Little Richard’s organist. Back when the Beatles were playing all nighters as a house band in a sweaty club in Hamburg, Billy was there with Little Richard. He’s in town to play on a Lulu TV show and has swung by to see his old friends. John spots the opportunity and immediately asks Billy to sit in. Everyone agrees and Billy joins the project. At one point John suggests they invite Billy to officially join the Beatles but Paul highlights it’s hard enough for the four of them to agree things. The SLT is not going to get bigger.
5. Manage your disruptors
There are some brilliant things about Michael Lindsey-Hogg: without his maverick approach to film-making, Jackson would not have the footage and recordings that make ‘Get Back‘ a feast for fans. On the other hand, he doesn’t let go of ideas easily.
During the first week at Twickenham he is constantly suggesting the gig at the end should be in Libya. He inserts himself into band conversations to push his idea. George is very keen not to go to Libya. Michael persists. His obsession with the visuals of the end product actively interferes with the production of any product because George quits. It’s hard not to see Michael’s persistence a factor in why George left (though not as big a factor as how John and Paul are ignoring him). When Michael finally accepts Libya is off and considers other options, he is one of the people who suggests playing on the roof of the building instead.
His film from the footage he shot, ‘Let It Be‘, got mixed reviews. It was released on videotape in the 1980s but has never had a digital release.
6. Don’t neglect your long term employees
If the Beatles are the SLT, their established team of middle managers were crucial to get the project over the line. You can see them trust the people who have been with them since the start.
Mal Evans, their road manager, was an electrician and part time doorman at the Cavern Club in 1962. By 1969, there’s no road for him to manage so he acts as an executive assistant. And like all good EAs, he can quietly solve anything. One minute he’s bringing them cups of tea, then he’s finding an anvil and hammer (for the track Maxwell’s Silver Hammer), then he’s helping Paul solve a lyrical sticking point.
And then there’s George Martin. Martin was the record producer at Parlaphone/EMI who took a chance on signing the Beatles. He’d previously worked with the Goons and other comedy acts, including adding sound effects to Bernard Cribbins’ ‘Right Said Fred’. He’s from a very different background to the Beatles but a shared love of absurdist comedy meant they worked well together. In 1969, he’s still in the studio with the Beatles, still in beautifully tailored suits, and still enabling the band to deliver.
“I don’t think we should have Alex build one [a studio] because it’s better to have something that we know we can use and is reliable.”
George Martin, Let It Be, episode 1
Martin makes it happen. When the Beatles relocate to Savile Row he gets EMI to lend them some equipment and has his engineering team turn the basement into a recording studio over a weekend. Once the Beatles have thrashed out the idea of a rooftop gig, they start talking themselves out of it. They don’t have enough new songs to make an album. Quietly, Martin takes a folded up piece of paper and hands it to Paul. It’s all the songs they’ve worked up over the previous three weeks. It’s enough.
7. Be bold
The Beatles did not seek permission for the rooftop gig, and didn’t make the final decision to play until the last minute. Instead Martin’s engineers rig up mics and amps that are wired down to the studio. Michael sets up the multiple camera crews, including three on the street to capture people’s reactions. The Beatles decide to do it and, with Billy as their keyboardist, they step onto the roof and start playing. Mal, downstairs, works with the doorman and receptionist to gently delay the two unfortunate police officers tasked with telling the Beatles to stop it. When the police do get to the roof, someone switches off George’s amp. And George, who had walked out two weeks earlier, flips it back on. If this is it, if this is the last gig for the Beatles, then George is in.
It’s the live gig they wanted to do, being recorded to become an album. It’s not in front of huge crowds and it’s definitely not in Libya.
It was their last gig.
Using the seven management lessons from ‘Get Back‘
The seven management lessons are:
- You need a trusted and respected leader
- Senior leaders need emotional intelligence
- Leaders should listen to people with experience
- Identify problems and make changes to solve them
- Manage your disruptors
- Don’t neglect your long-term employees
- Be bold
These can apply at a project level or an organisational one. The Beatles change the project as things change, including bringing in new people and changing the outputs. They do that using a structure, and steady honest negotiation. They deliver their minimal viable product, a gig, despite all the setbacks.
“I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition.”
John Lennon, Get Back episode 3
You can watch all of Peter Jackson’s Get Back on Disney+.
You can listen to different versions of the resulting album, Let It Be, on Spotify.
- Let It Be (2009 remaster of Phil Spector version released in 1970)
- Let It Be: Naked (2014 remixed and remastered without Phil Spector production additions)
This is not the first time I’ve written about drawing lessons from the history of the Beatles: read my 2019 post on Who buried Paul and the audience’s need to create meaning.