I never expected that putting on Beatles Halloween costumes would teach me one of my most memorable lessons about leadership and perspective. But there I stood, decades ago at an AGC conference in Seattle, wearing a wig and suit alongside my dad, brother, and Dick Brisow, joining The Beatniks on stage. In that moment, we weren't construction executives. We were the Fab Four.
What surprised me was how differently people treated us, and how differently we carried ourselves. The costumes gave permission to be playful, to take risks, to be ridiculous without consequences. That evening reminded me that the best leaders know how to step outside their own identity sometimes, to see things from a different angle and bring back what they find.
The Beatles themselves were masters of costume and transformation. From their Hamburg leather phase to the Sgt. Pepper uniforms, each reinvention was a deliberate signal: we're not who we were yesterday. As a leader, what costume might you need to put on, metaphorically, to see your organization fresh?
