Million Dollar Quartets (Part 2)

(Be sure first to read last week’s Briefing “The Million Dollar Quartets”)

So why do some groupings turn into successful partnerships, and some don’t? There must be a thousand ways of looking at that question, but here we’ll use the lens of Giftings and Alignment.

Let’s start with definitions. Giftedness is one’s package of innate attributes, shaped by experience, and perfected by training. A partnership is a grouping of two or more persons combining their resources with a view to profit, however profit may be defined.

By and large, partnerships are created by gifted individuals teaming up with other such persons on the theory that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

Amongst professionals, however, the assembling of partnerships is more often than not a very unprofessional endeavour. Particularly amongst lawyers (who by training really should know better), most partnerships are more akin to shacking up than blessed holy matrimony. More of an emulsion, less of an organic bonding.

So why is it that some professional partnerships are more like The Beatles and others are more like Presley, Perkins, Cash & Lewis? And more to the point, who should consider partnership, and who should never do so?

There are a number of factors, all arising out of the Giftings of the individuals. Although the clash of personalities and incompatibility of Giftings is what leads to the failure of partnerships, personal traits and Giftings should not be considered in a negative sense. Just as sodium and chlorine can combine to produce table salt, taken alone or in other combinations, they can be deadly. It’s not the inherent characteristics, it’s the combination, and what happens when they’re put together.

Cash, Lewis, Perkins, and Lewis came from hardscrabble rural Southern backgrounds, shaped by traditions of individualism, given to hard living and hard drinking, where “crazy” can be a compliment. “Rebel” is still a compliment in Dixie.

Starr, Harrison, Lennon, and McCartney grew up in the same neighborhoods of the same large city, some even being classmates. Their Irish Catholicism informed a more ordered and homogeneous identity than did the freewheeling rural independent fundamentalist traditions of the American south.

Their respective music scenes were different, too. Nashville and Memphis emphasized singular stardom, the British and European scenes were more oriented toward bands. Agents in America tended to want to work with individual stars, in Britain with branded groups.

Finally, their roles on the platform were different. The Memphis boys were all shows in their own rights, quite able to perform without a backup band if need be. It’s arguable that none of the Beatles were ever as good individually as they were in the band.

(Second of a three-part series excerpted from the book.)