Something had to change.īlack Sabbath decided that Ozzy Osbourne was the band’s problem, and in April 1979, he was fired.Īs with the departure of a key founder in any company, Osbourne’s exit called Black Sabbath’s identity into question. What’s more, they were burnt out from years of intense work, they had financial and legal troubles brought on by bad management, and they were tired of each other. They were trying to imitate their imitators. They became obsessed with what other bands were doing. In his memoir, Iron Man, Tony Iommi remembers bassist and chief lyricist Geezer Butler telling him, “We’re a bit old hat now with all these riffs and stuff.” The band didn’t believe in themselves anymore. Success made Black Sabbath forget who they were. As Osbourne wrote, “We were terrified of becoming one of those bands who started off with a few albums that people thought were amazing, only to follow them up with one turd after another.” Why would Sabbath change anything? Because they had a run of hit albums.
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Research has shown that if these values change, especially early on, the organization can become destabilized and has a greater chance at failure.” These beliefs are shared by insiders as well as external stakeholders. Certain values become taken-for-granted beliefs about what the firm stands for and why it exists.
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Heather Vough, a professor of management at McGill University who writes about identity processes in small companies, told me, “Founders’ values and identities set the tone for their organization that persists across time.
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We know from research that when a company tries to change its blueprint, the company’s performance suffers. Another key element in their blueprint was their camaraderie, gained in part by growing up within a few streets of each other in working class Aston (near Birmingham) and a democratic songwriting process that was driven by mutual respect for what each person contributed to the fold.īut by the time Osbourne left the band in 1979, that blueprint no longer guided Black Sabbath. The result of that figuring out is a blueprint of the company that defines its way of doing things.įrom their first album onward, the Osbourne-fronted Black Sabbath had their blueprint: Tony Iommi’s heavy guitar riffs and distinct playing style (a result, in part, of two amputated fingers), Osbourne’s singing and anything-could-happen onstage madness, and sinister lyrical content exploring themes of death, war, and the occult. Any small business first starting out goes through this process of figuring out – with each other and with their first customers – who they are and how they are different from their competitors.