Lessons from Ike Turner: The negative outweighs the positive

Ike Turner died a couple of days ago. When you think of Ike, I bet you think immediately of Tina. And how he hit her. And all that cocaine he did. But Ike Turner also played an integral role in the history of rock 'n' roll, funk,
r 'n' b, soul and blues. His guitar, his ear, and his writing all shaped American music. "Rocket 88" came from him and his band.

Despite his musical contributions—well recognized by any professional musician around—Ike's reputation hangs static thanks to his abusive behavior. They made a movie about it, and his ex-wife wrote about it. No matter how much he tried to dismiss it or overwrite it, it's the image the general public keeps coming back to. It's just too heavy to forget, and he was so cavalier about it we don't have any inclination to.



Doing drugs and smacking people around aren't the only ways to destroy the positive work we do, though. A rude comment, or a refusal to cooperate, or a simple mistake gone unnoticed are all it might take. People are quicker to judge than to forgive these days and with the immediacy of our current market, it's unlikely that they'll give us a chance to fix things if they feel we've screwed them over. That is, if they even let us know how they feel (most customers don't bother complaining, they just go elsewhere).

I love Ike Turner's music. It was a backbone. Ike and Tina together were a force (of course, she'd be a forced even if backed by Lawrence Welk). I remember my dad playing "Nutbush City Limits" from a cassette I still have that hisses from being played too much, with that guitar stomping out of the speakers. It was unreal. But Ike screwed up bad, and he was so unapologetic about it that, as Rob Walker laments, his screw-up may forever overshadow his pioneering work.

No matter the talent, no one is perfect—in their personal life or in business—but I'd like to think that how we face our imperfections can be almost as powerful as what we do in the first place.