Panos A. Panay - Two Beats Ahead: What Great Musical Minds Teach Us About Creativity and Innovation

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First published in the United States of America by PublicAffairs 2021
First published in Great Britain by Penguin Business 2021

Copyright Panos A. Panay and R. Michael Hendrix, 2021

The moral right of the authors has been asserted

Cover design by Luke Bird

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ISBN: 978-0-241-98724-7

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Two Beats Ahead is the first of its kind a book that turns on its ear the popular myth that business and the arts are at odds with each other. There is so much we can learn from musicians about innovation and creativity in business, and in this groundbreaking and riveting book, Panos A. Panay and R. Michael Hendrix show us exactly what were missing

Amy Cuddy, social psychologist and bestselling author of Presence

I have always believed that the best outcomes in life come from the discipline of business combined with the chaos of art. All successful musicians are entrepreneurs and all great business leaders are artists. In Two Beats Ahead, Panay and Hendrix prove it. This is a must-read if you want to enjoy finding the path of least resistance to the dream you are chasing!

Kevin OLeary, Shark Tank investor and chairman, OShares ETFs

At its heart, this is a book about the creative journey. While the main ingredient is music, it is spiced with entrepreneurship, leadership and design, and served through engaging stories. The result is one that will be of great inspiration to anyone looking to expand the reach of their creativity

Tim Brown, chair of IDEO and author of Change by Design

For a long time, researchers have known that musical intelligence can awaken the nonlinear whole mind to healing, creativity and innovation. This book is a roadmap for innovators, entrepreneurs and those seeking new avenues for exploring and reimagining the future evolution of human consciousness and its infinite possibilities

Deepak Chopra, MD

How we perceive the world is the key to how we act in the world. Based on their course at Berklee, Panay and Hendrix show that a musicians perspective, much like a designers perspective, can unlock inspiration and innovation, no matter who you are

David Kelley, founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school

This book is not just about innovation. It may be the most provocative and thoughtful business book of its time, an approach to managing through the cacophony of fifty years of disruption

Jim Champy, business consultant and co-author of Reengineering the Corporation

Great popular musicians must simultaneously master tight structures and freeform improvisation, selfless collaboration and solitary self-expression, artistry and commerce. What a treat to get an inside look at the creative process and enterprising spirit of some of the most talented people on the planet

Scott Dadich, creator of Abstract: The Art of Design, recipient of the National Design Award and former editor in chief of WIRED

Being an artist isnt just a matter of having imaginative ideas to make songs and put them out into the world, you have to use that imagination to problem-solve, collaborate, pivot and hustle. This book shows how thinking like a musician can provide valuable lessons for entrepreneurs, educators and anyone whos trying to create something new

Hrishikesh Hirway, creator and host of Song Exploder

We all know that creativity plays a major role in the world of music, and that innovation plays a major role in the world of business. But are creativity and innovation two sides of a coin? Like the subjects it writes about, Two Beats Ahead is a highly creative, innovative and enjoyable book

Irving Wladawsky-Berger, former chairman, Board of Governors, IBM Academy of Technology, and research affiliate, MIT Sloan School of Management

Music is the skeleton key that opens every door.

Pharrell Williams

In Bostons Back Bay neighborhood, just blocks from Fenway Park and the Charles River, sits a twelve-hundred seat performance hall on the campus of Berklee College of Music. On an unseasonably cold April day in 2018, every seat was filled with students, faculty, and guests, with eyes fixed on a large screen suspended over the stage.

When the screen blinked to life, it was filled by the larger-than-life grin of Pharrell Williams. He had beamed in by Skype from his home in California to talk to the Berklee community about the artist as start-up. Pharrell is a musician and producer who has won eleven Grammy Awards and an Oscar nomination for his work with collaborators, including Daft Punk, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, and Robin Thicke. He is equally well known for his work as a design director, creating sneakers for Adidas, Chanel, Reebok, and Timberland; eyewear and jewelry for Louis Vuitton; down jackets for Moncler; and a fragrance for Comme des Garons.

But before the conversation started, Panos thanked Pharrell for joining, especially since it was on his birthday. At that, a group of five students stood up from their seats and began singing Happy Birthday to You a cappella, then seamlessly shifted, after a few bars, into a sunny, stomping rendition of Pharrells hit song Happy.

When the music stopped, Pharrell bowed graciously to the singers in thanks, and then began the conversation with a simple statement: Music is the skeleton key that opens every door. He went on to say that mindsets he had learned in the recording studiofollowing his intuition, collaborating with others, trusting his own voice, and exploring new outlets for expressionhad also led to success in his many business ventures.

Im always curious about new sounds, new textures, new ways of expressing myself, he told us. I think curiosity is where it begins for me. There are people who focus on one thing singularly, and that works for them. But a lot of us, including people here in the audience today, need to be able to express ourselves in different ways. When we do, we enjoy the fruits of having seeds in many different grounds.

For nearly three decades, Pharrell has applied these mindsets to both art and business. As a musician, whether in live performance or in the studio, he is adept at trading in emotion, building upon the logic of chords and scales to connect with audiences. These same tools have equipped him as a creative director for global brands and fashion houses and to connect with customers. In many ways, he is the embodiment of the ideas that we will explore in the pages following: that the mindsets developed by musicians make them good entrepreneurs. That artists, executives, and creative spirits can draw upon these skillswhether as small business owners, visionaries looking to get a start-up off the ground, nonprofit managers, or leaders in the gig economy.