Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead

The Ten Most Innovative Lessons from a Long, Strange Trip
By Barry Barnes PhD (Trade Paperback, 2012)
The Grateful Dead, one of the most popular bands of all time, still enjoys incredible relevance to this day. But let's admit it, they weren't exactly poster boys for corporate America. Or were they? For an extraordinary 30 years, the Dead improvised a business plan-all while making huge profits and pioneering practices subsequently embraced by the business world. Now, business professor and lifelong Deadhead Barry Barnes shares the 10 most innovative business lessons from the band's illustrious career, including: creating and delivering superior customer value; implementing a flat management structure; sharing your content; and more. Barnes shows how the Dead were masters of "strategic improvisation"-the ability to adapt to changing times and circumstances-and that their success lay in their commitment to relentless variation. EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT BUSINESS I LEARNED FROM THE GRATEFUL DEAD teaches readers how they did it-and what any business can learn from their long, strange trip.
  • Grand Central Publishing
    • Format: Trade Paperback

    • Price: $15.99 US/$17.50 CAN

    • ISBN-13: 9780446583800

    • On Sale Date: 11/20/2012

    • Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

    Formats Available: Hardcover Book, Trade Paperback, Electronic Book

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The Grateful Dead, one of the most popular bands of all time, still enjoys incredible relevance to this day. But let's admit it, they weren't exactly poster boys for corporate America. Or were they? For an extraordinary 30 years, the Dead improvised a business plan-all while making huge profits and pioneering practices subsequently embraced by the business world. Now, business professor and lifelong Deadhead Barry Barnes shares the 10 most innovative business lessons from the band's illustrious career, including: creating and delivering superior customer value; implementing a flat management structure; sharing your content; and more. Barnes shows how the Dead were masters of "strategic improvisation"-the ability to adapt to changing times and circumstances-and that their success lay in their commitment to relentless variation. EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT BUSINESS I LEARNED FROM THE GRATEFUL DEAD teaches readers how they did it-and what any business can learn from their long, strange trip.

Barry Barnes is a professor at Nova Southeastern University in Florida.
  • "It is Barry Barnes' not-too-outrageous conceit that the Grateful Dead, a prototypical band from the era of Vietnam and shoulder-length hair, have something to say about running a business. Jerry Garcia was no mogul (a fact for which his fans will rejoice). Yet perhaps in these life's lessons the executive will learn to loosen his tie, widen his gaze, and rescue his bottom line by not, for a change, obsessing over it. I have read many business manuals. This is one of the few I will remember."

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Product Details

Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead
  • Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
  • Price: $15.99 US/$17.50 CAN
  • Pages: 256
  • Physical Dimensions: 5-1/2" x 8-1/4"
  • ISBN-13: 9780446583800
  • On Sale Date: 11/20/2012
Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead