I have become convinced that every successful project is a power ballad.
I appreciate that sounds absurd, but bear with me.
On paper, power ballads are terrible ideas. And not only terrible ideas but overlong, melodramatic, terrible ideas with guitar solos, wind machines, and passionate drama queens wearing too much mascara, and that’s just the men. By all available metrics, the power ballad should have died out sometime before 1992, along with naf naf jeans and shell suits.
And yet it did not.
It remains.
Why?
Because the power ballad has something of great value. It’s not style. It’s not intellect. And it’s not word-of-mouth popularity. It’s popular in a strangely private way. I know at least fifty people who claim to have never liked Bon Jovi, and yet, can lip sync ‘Johnny used to work on the docks’ as if they genuinely knew the bloke.
Power ballads remain. In our hearts. As anthems.
‘Yes,’ you say, ‘because they are music, duh.’
But no, because not all music remains. I know it’s a subjective subject but much music has simply been consigned to the great Charity Shop in The Sky. Acid Jazz. Big Beat. Lo-fi indie jazz funk. These genres never made it. Well, not in the way power ballads did.
The power ballad retains a special place. And it serves a special purpose.
Driving home after a break-up? You know what to do. You know the only medicine worth taking is two tablespoons of Bonnie Tyler on an empty stomach. That, my friend, will hit the spot. You go from a bleary-eyed weepmonster sniffing back tears in the staff car park to world-beating demigod, commanding the clouds, ‘Once upon a time…’
They are strong medicine, so be careful with your daily dosage.
I have sometimes made the mistake of playing one while doing a tax return. Big mistake. Early Meat Loaf was not designed for Excel sheets. Some stronger hearts out there may be able to accommodate ‘Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad’ while summing up columns, but not this writer.
Power ballads are not background music for airport lounging. They are emotional equipment.
But why? And how? And what are the secrets they hold? And could they unlock how we do business?
Because let’s be honest, business is where we spend most of our time these days. In discussion. In planning. In project work. Everyone is in project work on some level, whether they realise it or not.
And many projects, despite the best of intentions, simply do not work. Unlike the power ballad, they do not stay with us. They get consigned to the bin, to the shared drive, to the archive folder, or that forgotten Trello board no one speaks about. Our projects rarely become the medicine we need.
We sigh with some dismay and look back to see where things went wrong. Why did that project fail? Why did no one buy? Why did Alan leave? What did we miss?
We assess the failures, misfortunes, and misconceptions for anything that could help.
People look everywhere for answers. For solutions. For models of success and, let’s be honest, successful persuasion. And in human affairs, success is almost always about persuasion. And yet, despite this incessant vigilance and desire for improvement, we often repeat the same mistakes, time and time again.
Completely unaware that, despite our diligence, we are overlooking the greatest model of successful persuasion ever invented. The humble power ballad.
Hear me out.
Every power ballad is a model of successful persuasion because it…
1.
Never begins at full volume
The clever power ballad starts with restraint.
Few people remember the opening eight seconds of Total Eclipse of the Heart. And that’s precisely why they matter. What we actually hear are those sixteen notes of forlorn piano that sound like the kind of doorbell my Grandma’s next-door neighbour might have had in the 1980s. A little pretentious but not overdone.
Then the calm instruction, ‘Turn around.’ It is restrained and metered just so, and offset with a slightly passive-aggressive accusation about how we’re never coming round. Tyler never explains why it might be necessary to turn around, but we do not question her. And just at the point where someone could perhaps politely ask why, she declares the fact that every now and then she falls apart, and that she needs us more than ever, and so it would then be insensitive to question her initial request. Her mastery of releasing restraint into full throttle mode is almost beyond comprehension but on closer inspection the trick is simple: start quiet and confident, before BECOMING LOUD, when you’ve earned the right to. And add maracas if you can.
2.
Promises the impossible
The best ballads are built around a promise of something that no rational person should believe, or ask for.
‘Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight’. ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’. ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’. ‘Take My Breath Away’.
You won’t find any called ‘Let’s Circle Back After Lunch.’
3.
Never wastes a note.
Despite the grandeur, pomp, and overblown music videos, most power ballads are actually eloquent examples of economy. Each note earns its place. Every instrument has its job. And everything executes when necessary. The drummer. The guitarist. The backing singers.
And more importantly, they know when they are not needed. A good song is comprised of more strategic silence than you might imagine. Intentional pausing. Held breaths. Dropped instruments. Masters know when to hold back. When to keep schtum. When to wait. Projects rarely do. Humans equate action with success. It’s called Action Bias.
We often mistake business for busyness. Trying so hard to look busy. ‘Let’s create a working group.’ ‘Build a dashboard!’ ‘Circulate another survey that nobody reads.’ ‘Produce a 94-slide PowerPoint explaining why we’re agile.’ ‘Create a task force to investigate why the task force isn’t progressing.’
Stop. Take a breath. Sometimes the pause is the persuasion.
4.
Repeats more than it innovates
This one surprised me because I always assumed the power ballad was an unfolding kaleidoscope of novelty but they’re actually not. Most contain around three good ideas, which repeat in wonderful ways.
They’re full of repetition, repetition, and more repetition, with just enough variation to make it all work. The chorus comes back. Again. Again. And again.
This is more effective and valuable than you might realise. The human mind evolved to forget new data unless it’s pertinent. No matter how marvellous the information, if it’s not repeated, the mind will often tag it as ‘irrelevant to survival’ and bin the thing off. We must work with this psychological feature in our good works. Repetition is focus. It keeps the main things the main things while giving us room to explore everything else. We must employ it as it is employed in effective teaching. In successful projects. In brilliant branding.
5.
Earns the key change
We all know that moment at the start of the song’s third act, when we just can’t see how the experience can get any better. And then the boy band stands up from the stools on the key change. Half the country briefly ascends to another plane of existence. Teenagers find God. Otherwise responsible mothers start scratching their thighs.
But had the band done their ‘stand up for key change’ in the opening bars, those fans would’ve just scratched their heads.
Businesses often reveal their “big idea” in the opening paragraph. But that’s like opening with the key change. It feels unearned. Sit down.
6.
Makes the audience sing
No matter how many meme gifs you stack in your slide deck, you can’t instruct a team to enjoy something.
A power ballad is not a powerpoint. ‘All Out Of Love’ would not work as a pie chart. Nobody falls in love with a song by nodding at it with earnest frowns.
They become part of it. They sing it, and they remember singing it. That’s the difference between an audience and a movement. Successful projects don’t create spectators. They create participants. And when people participate properly, the best ideas rise to the top.
7.
Risks ridicule
Power ballads are vulnerable. They risk looking ridiculous. That’s why they work. The opposite of sincerity isn’t irony. It’s safety. And that is where 90% of today’s professionals like to live: The Safe Zone. Aka The Land Where Good Stuff Rarely Happens. Which is fine, if you like that kind of thing. But projects that spend their lives trying not to look foolish rarely become extraordinary. Every power ballad walks right to the edge of absurdity. And successful projects must do the same.
8.
Is emotionally generous. And leaves people larger than it found them.
Nobody finishes a great power ballad feeling exactly as they did three minutes earlier.
Your emotional state changes. The same should be said of any worthwhile meeting, product, presentation, or brand interaction. No one ever accused Meat Loaf of holding back. After all, he would do anything for love (well, almost anything). You can say what you like about him, but don’t say he’s not generous.
And projects should be generous too. With explanation. With praise. With ideas. With delight.
We transform through movement, experience, and participation. Generosity makes this happen.
9.
Knows it’s not about the wind machine. And it never was.
And it’s not about the leather trousers. Or the guitar solo. Or the mascara.
Everyone thinks that’s why power ballads work.
It isn’t.
Those are just the visible parts of the ship. But the invisible emotional engine below the waterline carries all the power.
People obsess over logos, colours, websites, and slogans.
But good branding goes deeper. As do good presentations. And good teachers. And designers.
Wind machines can add drama,
but drama needs a good plot.
Many spend fortunes on stage effects and purple smoke and laser shows but almost nobody asks why twenty thousand people started singing in the first place.
Perhaps that’s why so many projects fail. They mistake spectacle for structure. They launch as choruses. They promise before they’ve earned belief. Everyone starts talking immediately. Every feature launches simultaneously. They shout before they’ve given us a reason to listen. They get excited about widgets and gimmicks. Buzzwords and hashtags. Features and funnels and functions and frameworks. For frameworks’ sake.
In other words, they pull out the wind machine but they never build the song. And so they never become anthems.
Every successful project is a power ballad. Not because it contains guitar solos. Not because it wears leather trousers. But because it starts with restraint. It earns belief before making promises. Repeats what matters. Knows when to pause. Saves its biggest moments until they’ve been earned. Invites people to take part. And leaves them feeling larger than before.
And because, long before it asks us to sing, it gives us a reason to.
And that’s the part most people forget to build.