If Your Company Was Run By: Guns N’ Roses

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if your company was run by legendary rock band, Guns N’ Roses?  How would the company function?  What would the culture be like?

Culture:

It’s a rock n’ roll band, so of course you would have to expect there to be a wild and loud culture.  At the early onset of the company there might have been a lot of partying and an appetite for destruction, but once the stakes were realized and they fought through the lies everything would become more about the illusion of a business.  There would probably be a lot of parties thrown by employees, but they would have to be squeezed in between the boss’ many oddly timed work sessions that give another illusion of hard work.

Management:

Axl Rose is boss, everyone else works for him.  He may delegate some duties, such as the development and creation of his ideas, and also some supporting functions like who gets lunch, but he assumes total control.  He may be late to a lot of meetings or product releases, or he may not even show up at all, leaving employees and customers baffled alike.

Project Length:

The length of a project is unpredictable due to cost overruns, poor decision making and poor planning.  Some projects may seem easy, but they may take several years to be completed, frustrating their customers.  But no matter how long a project takes to complete, the customers are so intrigued, and also have been overly impressed by earlier products, that they will hang around and wait for it to be delivered.

Talent:

There would be a lot of turnover in the company.  The company would start with a few core guys involved in the creative and management direction.  But, after a while one guy would assume full control of the company, essentially forcing the other founding members out.  A few long time employees would stick by that remaining founding member, but there would be a lot of bad blood left from the former members of the company.

Human Resources would not have a lot of control over talent acquisition.  The boss would control this process only seeking out the best development talent available, sometimes going through several employees until the right fit was found.  The boss takes full advantage of ‘at will’ employment.

Employees would not be developed from within as training is not a high priority.  Axl expects those that are hired to already know what they are doing and to buy into his style of managing.

Methodologies:

The development processes would be very ad hoc.  No one seems to know what is going on except for the boss himself.  It is difficult to identify any specific methodology.  The development of projects would appear to those on the outside to be very chaotic and strung together in a very haphazard manner.

Since Axl brings in the best, he would rely on the talent that already exists with those employees.  The results would prove to be unpredictable.  At times it would seem like employees are not doing anything except telling people that they are about to do something big.

Costs:

Due to poor planning and decision making, as well as high employee turnover and highly talented replacements, costs are very high.   Most of the costs go into the ad hoc development processes, the search for new employees as old ones leave, and the cost of training those new employees on Axl’s methodologies.  A lot of money would be spent on the equipment to perform job tasks, always having the latest and greatest computers and other tech gadgets to try and remain relevant in the public eye.  This would be an area Axl would want to show off.

Conclusion:

While it might be a lot of fun from the start to work for Axl, in the end it may prove to be too frustrating for anyone’s professional goals.  Lasting a year would provide anyone with valuable experience on how not to run a business to their next place of work.  Many former employees would feel left out in the dark and develop a lot of frustration and anger towards Axl.  They might stick together and form other companies they may do fairly well, and they might say things they regret and later change their stories to try and reconcile and rejoin the company.