Music/Entertainment Company Case Study

Each Case Study has its own unique perspectives. The very nature of a Case Study is that it drills down on who people are, what they’re doing and why we showed up. Below, you’ll see a bullet-pointed list of items about this particular Case Study, which was in the music entertainment business, something a bit different, though, I’ve had enough entertainment business to consider myself a semi-expert in the industry.

This one was unique because it was a family business, a family that had developed the real niche for themselves over the previous 12 years.

It was unique in the sense that it was religious, very upbeat music that was diverse and popular. And the people were wonderful. In this particular case, the family was a big positive; even though this was a big company, everybody felt like family. They also felt free to do what they needed to do.

Things were going in a lot of directions, and it was hard to pull people together. It wasn’t as productive as it needed to be.

I decided that, with this family dynamic, I needed to pull the family together. I gave them a survey with all kinds of questions plus some fill-in-blanks; as well, I asked them to write what they needed to talk about. In many ways, the survey information became part of that particular family and the business through an important 1-day retreat: we’re gonna do this together. This worked really well.

People began to realize that they weren’t fulfilling their team responsibilities as much as they believed they were. They were failing to understand what others were contributing. I suggested that they create 2½-hour presentations for each of the 7 or 8 departments. The purpose of these presentations was to discuss everything conducted in each department, with a focus on how members of the departments add value and support to the business and to other people. They also needed to honor what the other departments were doing directly or indirectly for them. What others were doing was the key ingredient they all needed to understand and how they all fit together in making this a value-added business.

We used findings and impressions from the collective 2.5-hour presentations to build a new way to interact. We created a whole new business platform for success.