My View
Passion for The Beatles and the Power of Analogies
BY JOSEPH M. PORTO/School Administrator, April 2022

AS A NEW SUPERINTENDENT preparing for my first school district staff meeting, I wanted to make a splash. In my professional life, my passions are leadership and organizational change. In my personal life, my passion is The Beatles, both their music and their cultural impact. Why not merge these two into one powerful analogy to convey the process for developing a shared vision?

At that first meeting, I introduced myself and jumped right into the cultural references. I identified my favorite musical group before playing two of their hit songs, “She Loves You” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” on an old cassette recorder. I instructed those around the room to compare and contrast the instruments, lyrics and song structure of the two tunes.

The group plunged into the activity, with everyone buzzing quietly about this odd but exciting start with their new superintendent. And they nailed it. The instrumentation of “She Loves You” (1963) included guitars, bass and percussion — standard fare for rock bands of the time — while “Strawberry Fields” (1967) exploded with a cacophony of sound that featured a Mellotron (precursor of the synthesizer), horns, a string quartet and a distorted vocal track that gave the song a dreamlike quality. The former dealt with young love, while the latter’s lyrics evoked self-awareness, self-doubt and whimsy. In terms of song structure, “Strawberry Fields Forever” resembled a complex symphony compared with the simplistic pop-hit formula of “She Loves You.”

Now that I had them hooked, it was time to make the analogy. “In three short years, The Beatles progressed from pop song writers to sophisticated composers. How do you suppose they did that?” I asked.

Like lightning, the group compiled an insightful list of factors accounting for the evolutionary change:

»Innovation
»Risk-taking
»Continuous-growth mindset
»Sparking ideas

With that groundwork, I asked the staff to design a list of specific activities the school district could launch within the upcoming three years to move educationally from the “She Loves You” level to the sophistication of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The staff generated an impressive array of ideas that ultimately became the foundation of our shared vision and initial strategic plan. The experience taught me the power of analogies in leadership. I was definitely on to something.

As I directed that first strategic plan, I often returned to my Beatles analogy, finding endless connections between the band’s music and the leadership lessons I wanted to accentuate. For example, when feeling the stress of trying to accomplish too many goals at once, we learned the lesson that “less is more” by listening to the simple melody and solo guitar work of Paul McCartney on Blackbird. We were reminded to periodically “get back to basics” after examining the straightforward tunes and stark cover of the beloved White Album, which followed on the heels of two experimental, highly produced and elaborately packaged albums, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Magical Mystery Tour.”

And what could better demonstrate a balanced approach to change than the yin-yang of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s differing outlooks on life in “We Can Work It Out”? Even the Lennon-McCartney collaboration itself supports the professional learning communities model.

Inspired Thinking

After experiencing such success in my district, I subsequently expanded the breadth and depth of The Beatles’ analogies by creating an all-day leadership workshop, connecting the songs and careers of The Beatles with the leadership theories of Michael Fullan, Jim Collins and Richard DuFour. I took my act on the road, and rave reviews often followed each workshop.

It’s not just The Beatles who make a difference. It’s the power of analogies to educate, inspire and captivate adult learners. Whatever your personal passion might be as an education leader, try connecting it to an analogy for your next staff workshop. The journey could be amazing for you and those along for the ride.

JOSEPH PORTO, a former superintendent, is an educational consultant in Arlington Heights, Ill.