At the end of November this year, Forbes contributor and self professed Iron Maiden fan Jono Bacon sat down with Bruce Dickinson to “delve into the entrepreneurial core that drives him”.
The conversation revealed that Dickinson is a surprisingly warm, engaging and down to earth man, whose infectious energy has helped him enjoy success in almost everything he does.
During their chat, Jono pulled out perhaps the most consistent thread that runs through Bruce’s life story – a perseverance in everything that he does. Whether its recording and touring with Iron Maiden, training to become a commercial pilot, or starting his own aviation company. It seems that whatever Bruce pursues, he does so with a huge amount of drive.
This voracious drive to succeed is something that is common amongst many entrepreneurs. So where, asked Jono, does this trait come from within Bruce?
“I can’t pin where that comes from. I can’t pin whether that comes from genetics or nature or nurture or whatever, but I think you need that”
Bruce went on to say “You need to have a huge amount of energy. Because other people will give up but you cannot. An entrepreneur, whilst they might be leading a team or putting a team together, can never assume that the team is gonna have the same level of energy. Entrepreneurs don’t have holidays, even if they’re on holiday. If something happens then the buck stops there and so you’ve gotta be prepared for all of those eventualities.”
Interestingly this energy and drive sits alongside another common entrepreneurial trait – the need to create. Whilst some may think financial success is the ultimate goal for many entrepreneurs, for most it is in fact an inherent need to make a difference, discover something new, change something for the better. As Bruce explained:
“Sometimes entrepreneurs get themselves into problems because they’re not just about the money. It’s about the vision. It’s about trying to build something. It’s about creating something, whether it’s jobs, a project, an enterprise, or an invention, you know? It’s about creation and any time you’re talking creation, you’re talking an artistic streak.”
Whilst there’s no doubt that Bruce Dickinson displays this artistic streak throughout his musical and writing careers, rather uniquely he manages to combine this creative side with discipline. The logical, analytical, objective thinking required in the business world.
“When I was 25 I did a load of left-brain/right-brain questionnaires. As you can imagine. I did every questionnaire and in every single one I ended up bang, slap in the middle.
I’m using both sides of my brain at the same time, which makes it difficult for some people to speak to me because people who are very left-brain or people who are very right-brain can’t see a solution using the other side of their brain.”
This ability to balance these two ways of thinking has been hugely helpful to Bruce in business, which requires entrepreneurs to be able to bring together the different skills, visions and abilities of the various stakeholders in a project in order to build a productive working community.
“So you’ve got somebody who’s absolutely brilliant with spreadsheets but can’t see the creative vision beyond the end of their own nose, but you need the spreadsheets because you need people who have very little imagination who only understand spreadsheets and the people that unlock the money. And so you need to span the creative, and the pure creative is something really to be celebrated, but you have to cocoon them and constrain them because if you try and make them work to the schedule of the bean counter, they’ll just crack up.”
As Bruce went on to explain, this entrepreneurial ability to creative a productive culture is important no matter what industry or sector you go into. A point he illustrated using his own careers in Iron Maiden and the aviation industry as an example.
“For most organizations, as you go down the pyramid, for example, an airline or even a road crew on tour like with Iron Maiden, you come up with a culture. In terms of airlines the culture is determined by standard operating procedures that everybody has to obey and everybody expects everybody to work a certain way. That way everybody gets on.”
As well as headlining sell out music tours worldwide, Bruce Dickinson travels the globe providing keynote speeches that focus on business creativity and turning customers into fans. To enquire about booking Bruce for your event, please contact Dave Daniel at CSA on +44 (0) 1628 601 411 or dave@speakers.co.uk.
Read the full interview: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonobacon/2017/11/27/iron-maidens-bruce-dickinson-on-entrepreneurialism-adventure-and-managing-adversity/2/#55ca189d6100
