Leadership topic - Sly and The Family Stone

What breeds what many are looking for in the workforce today? Creativity, Innovation, and most importantly, Engagement – all come from encouraging and embracing constraints… with this word that you don’t hear much today… Clever!

A critical skill that leaders and teams often overlook is built from the inevitable constraints we have to operate under. Budgets, schedules, markets, customers – all eventually lead to the paradox that usually then leads to tough decisions. Often in those moments of conflict, another voice can be found, one that takes a different approach, often risky, always challenging, and most importantly, Clever.

Continuing our focus on Black artists for their History Month, I can’t think of a band that mixes together the themes we have been exploring with more Cleverness than Sly and the Family Stone. If you haven’t seen Summer of Soul on Hulu, please find a way to see the whole thing. Sly’s set is just amazing, and QuestLove put in more of their material because they were so alive and full of the power that permeated the movement. The outtakes of the people who were there now in their 60’s were priceless. One exclaimed, “How do you put this together? A woman trumpet player, an organ, some guy slapping the bass… and with a WHITE guy playing drums???”

One of the first multi-racial, multi-gender, multi-genres…. multi-everythjing bands… the Cleverness and great music of Sly and the Family Stone!