The Muddy Waters School of Management

There have been several popular self-help books on management over the past few years. You might have seen The Pursuit of Wow! by Tom Peters, The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Dr. Spencer Johnson, or Who Moved My Cheese? by Dr. Spencer Johnson. Each of these deceptively short books tries to simplify one of the most difficult subjects on the planet: management.

Tom Peters has rewritten the book on management, and his Work Matters Movement is truly reinventing the world of business one leader at a time. Ken Blanchard and Dr. Spencer Johnson have helped people realize the importance of learning on the job, and their insights have helped redefine work as we know it in very uncertain times.

Whether you're a single parent balancing a household budget with more month than money, or an executive managing the bottom line of a Fortune 500 company, I'm confident that you will also learn from the life lessons of McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters.

Muddy Waters was a true giant of the blues, and this year I'm honoring his birth and death in the month of April. Muddy was born on April 4, 1915 in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, and died in his sleep on April 30, 1983 at his home in Westmont, Illinois, near Chicago next to his wife Marva.

So, let's get started. Class is in session.

Today, we'll consider Muddy's views on the importance of determination, persistence, and risk-taking. Each of these life lessons can be applied to life and work, regardless of occupation.

Our textbooks for today's session are Robert Gordon's Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, published last year by Little, Brown, and Sandra Tooze's Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man, from Canada's ECW Press.

Determination is a key trait shared by successful people in business and in life. Growing up in a sharecropper's family, Muddy was motivated to leave the plantation from an early age, using his skills as a preacher or a bluesman.

"I had it in mind, even then, to either play music or preach or do something that I would be known.... I kept that on my mind. I wanted to be a known person," is how Muddy described his desire to James Rooney as quoted in Tooze's excellent book (Tooze, p. 29). So, the first lesson today is determination. If you, as Muddy did, want to be a "known person," develop your skills the best you can, and focus on that dream.

Secondly, Muddy modeled the behavior of successful people. Anthony "Personal Power" Robbins has acknowledged that this skill is an important one, and his star turn in the movie "Shallow Hal" aside, Robbins is quite an inspiring figure on many levels.

Coming up, Muddy looked up to Big Bill Broonzy and Broonzy's observation goes a long way to explain the importance of persistence. In Gordon's book, Muddy recalled in the 1970s that "Big Bill, he don't care where you from. He didn't look you over ‘cause he been on records a long time. ‘Do your thing, stay with it, man. If you stay with it, you going to make it.' That's what Big Bill told me. Mostly I try to be like him." (Gordon, p. 73).

So, it's not enough just to have a dream. You've got to stay with that dream and be persistent.

Finally, Muddy realized the importance of taking risks. In the Delta, Muddy played harp and acoustic guitar. Folklorist Alan Lomax captured Muddy on the Stovall Plantation in 1941 and 1942 with the assistance of noted Fisk University scholar John Work III, and in 1994, the Complete Plantation Recordings (MCA) received the 1994 W.C. Handy Award for Reissue Album of the Year.

When Muddy added the electric guitar to his blues tool box, it was more complicated than just plugging in an axe. As Robert Gordon relays in "Can't Be Satisfied," Muddy was well aware that any mistake would be amplified, but that was a risk Muddy was prepared to take.

"That loud sound would tell everything you were doing," he explained. "On acoustic you could mess up a lot of stuff and no one would know that you ever missed." (Gordon, p. 79).

These three lessons in determination, persistence and risk-taking just skim the surface of the potential of Muddy Waters as a management guru. In future classes, we'll look at how Muddy the bandleader helped launch the careers of many bluesmen, from Jimmy Rogers to Pinetop Perkins and James Cotton. Muddy knew blues talent when he saw it. Or, more accurately, when he felt it. For Muddy, the blues was a feeling, and this feeling helped propel him, and his protégées, to the top of the blues charts for more than four decades of the last century.

Few bluesmen have the power and passion of Muddy Waters, and I'd like to recall the words inscribed on a plaque honoring his memory that's nestled in the cotton fields where he lived and worked.

With legends like The Rolling Stones (whose name came from a Muddy song), The Beatles, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix acknowledging his influence, his position as a godfather of rock is secure. As his friend and protégé Eric Clapton said, 'Muddy Waters' music changed my life, and whether you know it or not, and like it or not, it probably changed yours, too.'

I'm going to bring this class to a close with just one assignment. Listen to the blues, particularly the blues of the King Bee himself. Whether you choose his later GRAMMY-winning work produced by Johnny Winter on Blue Sky, Muddy's salad days on Chess, or Lomax' plantation recordings, you'll discover a true giant of American music.

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Muddy's death and the 88th anniversary of his death this month, let's play his blues.

For more information on Muddy Waters, go to the official website of the Estate of McKinley Morganfield: www.muddywaters.com.

Special thanks to Midwest Beat editor Tom Lounges for his assistance. For more of Eric Steiner's blues writings, please go to www.midwestbeat.com or a new blues site by harp player Vince Cheney, www.thebluessite.com.

(C) 2003 - Eric Steiner