Sheen and Galliano's lesson for business

From high-end fashion to television production houses, business must learn that stars like John Galliano and Charlie Sheen are only part of the enterprise - because when stars explode, they tend to do so spectacularly.

FT.com

When creative stars explode, they do so with a more spectacular bang than the average sufferer from a midlife crisis.

Christian Dior this week fired John Galliano, its 50-year-old chief designer, for allegedly making anti-Semitic remarks to a couple in a bar. He denied the claims but it seems that he told others in the same bar: "I love Hitler” and that their forefathers would have been "gassed” - a video of Galliano slurring those words was published by The Sun.

CBS, the US network, meanwhile halted production of Two and a Half Men after Charlie Sheen, its 45-year-old star, went on a drug binge. He then called Chuck Lorre, the comedy show's producer, by a Jewish version of his real name, described him as "a contaminated little maggot” and gave a series of media interviews in which he appeared paranoid and mentally disturbed.

Dior and CBS were right to take action against their errant stars. It is just a shame that it took CBS so long and that Les Moonves, the network's chief executive, is already talking about having Sheen back. Dior acted faster and more sharply against a man who is more talented (and writes his own script).

Both Galliano and Sheen are acting weirdly but the biggest delusion of all is that, as Sheen phrased it in an open letter to Lorre: "These are my people, not yours.” He thinks that the show's fans are his and that CBS should "right this unconscionable wrong” of only paying him $2 million per episode.

It is the age-old illusion of the creative star – that the business, distribution and marketing that enables his talent is irrelevant, and the enterprise depends on his genius alone. This is as valid as the claim that Hitler was lovable.

Actually, the industries in which the pair operate are proof of the opposite – that creative talents do best when they are meshed in teams of people. In particular, highly disruptive and original figures such as Galliano are most successful when allied with producers and impresarios to guide them.

That is clearly true of the entertainment business, in which successful actors gain rewards out of proportion to their contribution to the product because they are visible. Sheen has been behaving erratically for some time but CBS finally acted because Lorre is the producer of several television hits, and thus more valuable.

The fashion industry is also a prime example. There is a tradition of top designers pairing with business figures who can guide them through the financial thickets and help to translate their wilder ideas into something saleable. That was true of Valentino (Giancarlo Giammetti), Yves Saint Laurent (Pierre Berg) and Calvin Klein (Barry Schwartz).

Galliano's right-hand man – until his death four years ago – was Steven Robinson, an executive whom Galliano called "the glue that kept all the magic together”. Robinson's role was as a bridge between Galliano's disruptive and vivid imagination and the Christian Dior machine, and he appears to have been sorely missed.

Jean-Marc Bellaiche, head of the luxury goods practice at Boston Consulting Group, argues that the most vital job in fashion often lies somewhere between creative designers and business people - the producer-like role of merchandiser. "You need a frame for creativity. It cannot go crazy,” he says.

The Robinsons and Lorres of the world matter in other industries that rely on research and development. Teresa Imabile, a professor at Harvard Business School who has studied innovation in science and technology-based businesses, argues that creative tensions are endemic and must be managed.

The most creative employees are often scientists and engineers who "are high idea proliferators with many ideas who tend to have little patience for plodding people who think more slowly”. These people are often "very arrogant, very sure of themselves, superior and intolerant”, which sounds familiar.

The managerial trick is to bind such volatile talents into the broader enterprise without either stifling and frustrating them or letting them run wild. An example of an organisation that gets the balance right is Apple, which yesterday launched its new iPad, a device that is both inventive and commercial.

Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, is an entrepreneur and impresario who has assembled a team of talents that meshes beautifully. Jonathan Ive, Apple's chief designer, produces elegant and innovative designs but his design work is embedded in the production process – he is not a Galliano-style maverick.

The question for organisations that cannot achieve this balance is what to do when a creative star explodes. If the episode is simply a drink or drug binge, or a breakdown that will respond to medical treatment, it is worth being tolerant not only on human grounds but for the good of the company, as many fashion houses have been.

But when a talent turns poisonous and lashes out at others, forgetting how reliant he is on the fabric of the enterprise, it is time to say farewell. Endlessly indulging a star merely reinforces his solipsism and damages the morale of other employees whose work is equally valuable to the company in others ways.

Yves Saint Laurent once reflected on his psychological travails: "I've known fear and terrible solitude. Tranquillisers and drugs, those phoney friends. The prison and depression of hospitals. I've emerged from all this, dazzled but sober.”

Let us hope Galliano and Sheen come to their senses – but they must do so themselves.