What CEOs can learn from Kanye West
Know your unique strengths and don't shy away from your passions.
"What would Kanye West do?" CEOs and businesses should ask this question while pondering how to pick themselves up after a crisis or significant reputational issue. Sure, popular culture has had other great comeback stories over the past 60-odd years. But Kanye's return from the wilderness in 2010 and the subsequent elevation of his every thought and action (for better or, increasingly, worse) into the public domain is one of my favourites.
Before I get into why Kanye's comeback is my favourite and the lessons it holds for brands, businesses and CEOs, a quick refresher if you're not up on your Kanye history. (Disclaimer: I've not watched the Netflix Yeezy documentary yet; it's on my long list of things to watch). It's 2001; after years of honing his craft and not getting anywhere, Kanye produces a bunch of tracks for Jay-Z's seminal The Blueprint album. He uses his newfound fame as a producer to finally launch his rap career. The College Dropout is a critical and commercial smash, with Kanye's polo shirt stylings making him stand out from his more gangsta-oriented peers.
He follows his debut with Late Registration, which, alongside a passionate, unfiltered speech about George Bush "not caring about black people" post-Hurricane Katrina, catapults him even further into the mainstream. His third album, Graduation, sees him moving away from what became THE Kanye sound, adding Daft Punk samples to set the benchmark for the next few years of hip hop production.
Unfortunately, tragedy strikes not long after - Kanye's beloved mother, Donda, frequently cited as his primary inspiration and a recurring figure in his rhymes, dies. Kanye makes the stripped-back, even more electronic 808s and Heartbreak, and for the first time misses the critical wave. Things reach a head at the MTV video awards in 2009. Kanye runs on stage to interrupt Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for best video. He says he's gonna let Taylor finish (he doesn't) and claims Beyonce made the best video "of all time". The tide of opinion turns against him, imma let you finish becomes a meme and Kanye retreats from public view.
It's a major crisis - Kanye issues a public apology, but his bank of goodwill is empty. Like a challenger brand or a start-up entrepreneur, he spent too long saying and doing what he thinks is right and damning the consequences. His public image is of a boorish, arrogant loudmouth with some talent, yeah, but lacks humility. He's an easy target, and the media and blogosphere waste no time in getting stuck in.
So what to do? You're Kanye's agency - he generally ignores your advice, but now he needs it. What's your recommendation?
Call it quits as CEO of the Kanye brand; there's no way back from this? Kanye isn't likely to go for that.
Take some time out, let the fuss die down, then quietly make your way back on the down-low, edging your way back into public view with plenty of humbleness and humility. "I've learned my lessons, and here at [new company x] to do things differently this time". A sensible plan for most people - just not very Kanye.
How about going back to basics and remembering what made people love you in the first place? Focus on your core skills and provide a timely reminder of how you became a highly-regarded leader in your field. You set the bar for innovation - time to raise it again. Much more Kanye. That's the one.Â
In Kanye's case, what made his brand famous was pushing the boundaries of hip hop production. So he spends nearly a year making My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, drawing on everyone from Nicki Minaj and Sir Elton John to King Crimson, concocting the comeback album to end all comeback albums. It's (in this humble writer's opinion) a masterpiece - the album that says "welcome to the 2010s. Hope you enjoy them". In the blink of an eye, Kanye is forgiven and becomes (once again) a critical and commercial smash. While the Taylor Swift incident can never be erased - in our online age, our past is only ever a click away1 - it's a footnote, not a headline. Kanye follows MBDTF with Watch The Throne, a collaboration album with Jay-Z, and the two tour together - producing one of the best shows I've ever seen in my life.
The challenge now for Kanye and any successful CEO or business leader is what do you do when you reach the top? You've executed a supremely successful business turnaround; your work and thinking are now the blueprints for anyone wishing to follow in your shoes. Up and down the land, case studies sing your name; you're as ubiquitous as Apple, Dove and Innocent in lazy 'great branding' decks.
So what to do? You're still Kanye's agency - he always calls you for advice. Long, rambling calls interspersed with rants about bottles of water left next to you on planes. What's your recommendation to Kanye this time?
Option one - enjoy it. You've worked hard to get back to the top of your game. You've focused on your work at the expense of everything else - family, love life, friendships. Settle back and ride the wave of critical adoration, let the natural momentum of the business take care of itself. The average tenure of a CEO is four years - you've likely got one year left before someone else loudly angles for your spot, bringing their own brand of hip hop production (business strategy). Besides, the after-dinner speaker circuit is lucrative nowadays, and you won't have trouble getting booked.
Two, you could quit while you're ahead and move away from the limelight in favour of smaller passion projects. Work with some unsigned artists. Go back to your community and reconnect with your roots. Find some exciting start-ups in need of leadership and expertise. You might call this the Dave Lewis playbook - completely turn around the fortunes of Tesco, then move on to helping the WWF with their mission.
Again, both are sensible options - but you know that Kanye won't listen to either. Don't even bother suggesting them. Kanye's got ambitions to change the world. He's ready to focus on his Purpose (with a purposely capital P). And that Purpose is to smash down the barriers that stop black people from succeeding and expose the systemic racism that we think (at the time) disappeared because America elected a black president and the UK produced an Olympics opening ceremony for the ages.
With Yeezus, Kanye takes particular aim at the fashion industry. Despite his fame, fortune and reputation, he feels excluded from the high fashion world. No one will listen to his ideas, much less produce his designs. Yeezus goes in hard - it's a brutal, unrelenting 40 minutes of in-your-face production and rhymes that don't just try and grab your attention but slap you around the face and dare you to respond. It's a record for the post-Trump, post-Brexit Twitter age four years ahead of its time. Kanye deliberately made Yeezus to provoke a reaction - he whacks his self-confidence, his hot takes, his give-a-shit attitude right up to 11, declaring himself a god in the process. Like anyone going for the clout on Twitter, it doesn't matter if he believes these things. It matters that you're paying attention, that he exposes more people to the points he's making.
He doesn't just want to be famous; he wants to be inescapable.
It works. For better or worse, it works. Every utterance, every fashion range (Yeezus successfully gets him the opportunities in the industry he previously felt denied) and every album becomes scrutinised to the nth degree. The Life of Pablo combines music and fashion to significant effect, even if there are questionable moments and an inability to let the work be. Summer 2018 sees a glut of releases, either produced by Kanye (Daytona, Nasir, KTSE) or authored by him (Ye, the excellent Kids See Ghosts). It kinda goes downhill from here (if you ask me). Jesus Is King underwhelms, Donda and Donda 2 overwhelm with their sprawl. Kanye gets banned from Instagram after some extremely ugly hounding of Kim Kardashian's boyfriend, Pete Davidson.
There's not much CEOs can learn from this third age of Kanye - apart from what not to do when the public gaze becomes Eye of Sauron-like in its intensity. Is there any way back for Kanye or a CEO or business with a reputation tarnished for a second time? It's not likely - it's hard enough to come back once, let alone twice. Not everyone is David Bowie.
There's only one piece of advice I'd be giving Kanye these days - give it a rest, mate. Take some time out. See what happens. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. Whether you're a CEO or a world-famous rapper, a step back is sometimes a step in the right direction.
He does end up rapping about it, and it's supremely uncool