Fame, Faith, and Social Activism: Business Lessons from Bono

Published: June 20, 2011
Author: Kim Girard
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6700.html

Bono on business

The business takeaways from U2's story, according to Koehn, are universal and ring true whether she's teaching the case to advertising execs or second-year students in the MBA program.

They include:

Take smart (and onging) stock of how you are using your people, your authority, and your resources. Bono became interested in Africa in the mid 1980s when he and his wife, Ali Hewson, worked at an Ethiopian feeding station.
He used his growing celebrity status to forge a crucial longtime relationships with Eunice Kennedy Shriver (U2 recorded a song for her Special Olympics cause), and then Bobby Shriver, who connected him to the Kennedys and other influential politicians. Bono and Bobby Shriver helped form the political advocacy organizations DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) and ONE, and the fundraising group (RED) to fight disease, poverty, and hunger in Africa.

He also used his fame and understanding of Christianity to convince North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms to change his position on government funding for AIDS. As Koehn points out, Bono chose to use his authority as a rock star for social ends, recognizing that his own status has been critical to his ability to make a difference: "Bono doesn't get to meet with Bill Clinton and shake hands with the Pope John Paul II if he's not a rock-and-roll roll star."

A leader's mission is not static; it evolves.
Bono continuously sets new goals around several related global challenges. For example, he started advocating for famine relief in Africa in the mid-1980s, and then in the early 1990s began raising awareness of the conflict in Sarajevo, playing live footage of the war during U2's Zooropa tour. After working to get eight industrialized nations in 1999 to agree to $100 million in African debt relief, he continued with a campaign to cancel debt owed by Third World nations to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Then he began lobbying the administration of George W. Bush for additional funding to fight AIDS (in 2003, the US government pledged $15 billion toward the disease). Like Bono, Koehn says, leaders "must take a hard look at (their missions) on an ongoing basis."

The mission of the CEO should align with the organization's performance.
The band's mission is to make fulfilling music that comes from the four members' heads, hearts, and souls, and that connects to many audiences.
Koehn says the band would not have been as successful if its members had not remained true to themselves and this larger purpose.
For example, at various moments, Bono's commitment to the band was questioned by his colleagues because of all of the time he devoted to political causes.
In Koehn's case study, manager Paul McGuinness says Bono "takes far too much on but it is hard to criticize him because his political achievements are very real." Ultimately, the other members believed in what he was doing. "There was a sense that (the political activism) could demystify and devalue U2," Bono has commented. "It wasn't very glamorous work...It should have damaged us…but it didn't."

Who you are and what you stand for as an organization have great relevance to the people who buy your product. Many of U2's supporters embrace the band because the causes the four members work to address—from social injustice to hunger—are issues the fans themselves are concerned about.
By participating in Live Aid, Band Aid, and the Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope tour, U2 also refuses to sell out creatively, which keeps fans loyal.
"People don't just buy (the single) "Walk On" or (album) No Line on the Horizon," Koehn says, "they are buying the backstory to that music, just like grocery shoppers buying organic milk or fair trade coffee."

This lesson applies across all businesses. "We think this is only true for artists and entertainers, but it's true for making tennis shoes and semiconductors, and for how you create limited partners at an investment bank," she says. "The backstory of organizations is now part of the value proposition for consumers. The lads from Dublin understood that early on and they still understand it."

Koehn says the U2 case remains a work in progress and she believes she will someday interview Bono for her work—just as Oprah showed up at her classroom to answer student questions during a case discussion about the talk show icon.. "Stay tuned," Koehn says. "I am meant to meet this restless, devoted, and inspiring leader."