Creating Alignment: What Jim Collins and Francis Ford Coppola Can Teach Us

As Jim Collins and Jerry Porras famously wrote in "Built to Last," "Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent alignment." Perhaps less well known is legendary film maker Francis Ford Coppola's guidance, "Always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words." At Artistic Leadership, these two leadership insights guide our communal songwriting engagements.

The process of distilling an organization's mission into song demands both the clarity Coppola speaks of and the alignment Collins emphasizes. When leaders engage in communal songwriting, they're forced to articulate their vision with precise, personal language that invites their target audience to enter their story. In only a few lines and minutes, the song needs to communicate the soul of the organization.

This creative alignment process taps into what the Integrative Enneagram (IEQ9) framework identifies as our core motivations and fears, transforming individual perspectives into collective purpose. Each participant in our sessions has a unique perspective on the topic and values different details. The iterative process of communal creation always for a generative convergence from vision to theme to lyric to song. The process manifests what IEQ9 practitioners call "integrated teams" – groups where individual differences become organizational advantages.

Research from Missouri University of Science and Technology's Music Cognition Lab shows that music activates multiple brain regions simultaneously, creating neural pathways that enhance memory retention and emotional connection. When teams write and record songs together, they're literally rewiring their brains to operate in alignment – creating shared neural networks that support collective action.

The science behind this alignment is compelling. During creative collaboration, our brains release oxytocin, the neurochemical responsible for trust and attachment. This biological response creates what we call "creative cohesion" – a state where teams naturally synchronize their thinking and emotional responses. But the process of alignment doesn’t have to stop with just the creative experience.

Organizations are also hiring Artistic Leadership to produce commercial recording of the custom songs. This creates an opportunity to reveal not just the core message of your organization's mission, but also its tone – how that message should feel and resonate with its intended audience. The resulting artifact becomes more than just a jingle; it's a carefully crafted expression of organizational identity that teams can use to realign and reinspire.

When the California Agricultural Leadership Foundation (CALF) gathered their board of trustees together for an annual retreat, Artistic Leadership was honor to serve as their team development facilitator. In just a few hours, a group of business leaders and CEOs created the lyrics and desired tone of a song that reflected their mission to strengthen California agriculture and sustainably supply the world, something extraordinary happened. What began as an experiment in creative expression became a masterclass in what Collins meant by alignment – that elusive state where every team member not only understands the vision but feels it in their bones.

By investing in a produced version of the song, Ag Leadership now has a sonic representation of their aligned vision, a reminder that sustainable agriculture requires unity of purpose and action. But perhaps most tellingly, the song's fresh, upbeat pop style wasn't chosen at random. It emerged from deep discussions about how CALF wanted their message to resonate with modern audiences through their upcoming video content. The musical direction itself reveals how the team sees their mission: not as a traditional, staid approach to agriculture, but as a dynamic, forward-thinking movement. This is creativity in service of culture – where the very tone and texture of the music amplifies not just what the organization does, but how it wants to be perceived and experienced in the world.

For board chairs considering this approach, the investment directly addresses Collins' 99 percent challenge – creating alignment that sustains vision. CALF's investment extends beyond the initial experience: they now own both the full song and instrumental tracks with an unlimited use license in perpetuity, allowing them to incorporate this authentic expression of their mission into future marketing materials, training videos, and organizational content without additional licensing costs.

For those who believe Collins and Coppola, communal songwriting offers a unique path to lasting alignment. Strategic vision set to music becomes shared reference points rather than forgotten documents. Most importantly, the creative process could also reveal misalignments early, allowing teams to address them through artistic collaboration rather than conflict.

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The Artistic Approach to Leadership in 2025