Why Every Manager Needs to be Like Madonna!

By James Adonis

Madonna has been condemned by the Vatican, banned by MTV, and vilified by the media. And yet there's a lot we can learn from this superstar on how to be an engaging manager.

Success and Inspiration

Having sold over 200 million albums, Madonna is the highest-earning female recording artist of all time. Her 2006 Confessions Tour is the most successful concert tour by a female artist in history, and over two decades since she first began, Madonna's still topping the charts with her most recent album, Confessions on a Dancefloor, making it to number one in 41 countries.

Granted, it's difficult for an individual manager to achieve such an inspirational level of success. But what about your organisation? Broadcast your achievements, promote your history, and communicate your goals. Employees are more engaged when they work for a company they're proud of. If they're talking to their friends and family about their inspiring workplace, it'll make it easier for you to attract quality candidates.

A study by RightCoutts revealed the unsurprising finding that highly engaged workplaces are better at attracting job seekers. Why? Because success breeds success.

Survivor

Madonna's mother died of breast cancer when Madonna was just five years old, she was in a tumultuous and at times abusive marriage with Sean Penn, and the barrage of criticism she's received for her work hasn't deterred her in the slightest. She's survived each setback and emerged victorious.

So how do you respond to setbacks? In the workplace, these can include a restructure, a retrenchment, a demotion, or a project failure. If your reaction is to get negative, not only does that impact on your staff, but also on your own energy levels. Negativity breeds negativity and before you know it, you're a walking time-bomb.

Founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, once said, "Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently."

Risk-taker

In 1978, Madonna left her hometown of Detroit and moved to New York City - with only $35 to her name. It was the first time she'd ever left Detroit, the first time she had ever gotten on a plane, and the first time she had ever ridden in a cab. Still to this day, Madonna says it was the biggest risk of her life.

How many risks are you taking in your business? Are you playing it safe? Brian Tracy, one of the world's most respected sales gurus, says "The biggest risk you can take in life is to not take risks." Take gambles such as hiring someone because of their attitude rather than their skills and experiences. Take risks by allowing employees to make decisions and to have total ownership over their work. Implement ideas for their own sake just in case one really pays off.

A study by the Chartered Management Institute found that 20% of managers feel they could have progressed more quickly in their careers if they had just taken more risks.

Leads by Example

When Madonna wanted people to be sexually liberated, she released Erotica. When she wanted people to question their spirituality, she released Like A Prayer. Always being two steps ahead, Madonna has created the trends that others follow. Even with her dress sense, the 1980s were characterised by teenage girls who wanted to look like her.

As a manager, do you walk your talk? In your office, is it "do as I say" instead of "do as I do"? By being a role model and practicising what you preach, you make it easier for your employees to buy in to your vision - and to subsequently follow you.

Team Builder

An expert in the art of building and retaining a committed team, Madonna used Donna DeLory and Niki Haris as her backing vocalists and dancers for her Who's That Girl Tour in 1987, and continued to use the ladies, and other supporting dancers and musicians, for subsequent tours.

Have you built your team with such cohesiveness that it's now more of a family? And do you develop your team so that they grow, even if it means they eventually leave? (They're going to leave one day anyway - your support, or lack thereof, will determine how soon). As a result of her mentoring, Madonna's dancers, Donna and Niki, now have successful recording careers of their own.

Collaborator

In the knowledge that you can achieve your goals faster when working as part of a team, Madonna's career has really just been one big collaboration - producers, choreographers, musicians, publicists, designers, and so on. Even creatively, she's recorded songs with Prince, Massive Attack, and Britney Spears.

With whom do you need to work to become more successful? Which relationships do you need to build and foster to help you achieve your objectives? In much the same way that a President has internal collaborators such as a Speech Writer, and external collaborators such as Prime Ministers of allied countries, you too need to form a network of internal and external relationships to help you get to where you want to go - faster.

Socially Responsible

Madonna was one of the first major celebrities to publicly support the fight against AIDS, in 2005 she performed at the Tsunami Aid Concert, and she's built an orphanage in the poor African country of Malawi, in addition to many other philanthropic ventures.

Generation Y employees especially prefer to work for organisations that have a high degree of social responsibility. By being environmentally friendly, by supporting charities and communities, by embracing diversity, and looking after your employees, you'll have a head start.

According to a study in the United States by the National Consumers League, only 20% of consumers give corporations top marks for social responsibility, with 47% of respondents saying they use the internet to find out if a company is socially responsible.

Bill Gates, one of the most philanthropic people of our time, recently said, "Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we'd want to get involved."

Dedicated

A string of movie flops left Madonna undeterred for over two decades. She continued to relentlessly try her hand at acting until she achieved success when she played the leading role in Evita, for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

How quickly do you give up? Not just on a project, but on people in your team, organisations you work for, and so on? Colonel Sanders was rejected by over 1,000 restaurants for his secret chicken recipe before he finally found the one that accepted him. Even Winston Churchill famously said one of the most profound expressions of our time: "Never, never, never give up."

The case for a dedicated and committed mentality is strong. Leading researchers, Watson Wyatt, discovered that organisations with high levels of commitment outperformed companies with low commitment by 47%.

Contemporary

Madonna is the master of reinvention - arguably a major contributor to her success. Looking back at her career, every year there has been at least one change in style, change in music, or change in message. By doing so, she's kept her image fresh and relevant, unlike most of her 1980s competitors who are all but forgotten.

Are you hanging onto old management practices just because "that's the way things have always been done around here"? Reinvigorate your processes, review your procedures, and redesign your office. A stale work environment drains your company of positive energy, fuels boredom, and attracts complacency.

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, says, "The lifeblood of our business is our R&D spend. There's nothing that flows through a pipe or down a wire or anything else. We have to continuously create new innovation that lets people do something they didn't think they could do the day before."

It all comes down to this. People actually want to work for Madonna. And that's what employee engagement is all about. When you have a team of people who want to come to work each day, who want to do more than what's required, and who want to remain working for your organisation, that's when you'll experience the pinnacle of management success.

Madonna says it best in her hit song, Cherish, with a message that beautifully translates to the world of employee engagement and retention:

Cherish the thought

Of always having you here by my side

Cherish the joy

You keep bringing it into my life

Cherish your strength

You got the power to make me feel good

Perish the thought

Of ever leaving, I never would

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