Photo byMéline WaxxfromPexels
As a big Rock fan I was saddened to learn earlier this week of the passing of highly influential guitarist Eddie Van Halen. Those of us of a certain age will remember his ground breaking approach to guitar playing in the late 1970's and early 1980's, the soundtrack to a generation if you will. Before we get to the M&M's I've listed below three of my favourite Van Halen tracks:
Eruption (Van Halen, 1978)
Ain't Talking' About Love (Van Halen, 1978)
And The Cradle Will Rock... (Women & Children First, 1980)
And so Eddie Van Halen joins a growing list of rock musicians who have passed this year including Pete Way (UFO) and Neil Peart (Rush).
So what has this got to do with business lessons and M&M's?
What follows is the transcript of a vlog I recorded nearly two years ago about lessons that can be learnt from the rock band Van Halen and from the candy M&Ms.
'Now, that may look to be a funny connection there, leadership lessons from Van Halen and M&Ms. One of the things that we found with Van Halen, that's a band as you may know, is when they very first started going out on tour in the United States, late 70s, early 80s, they hit all of the small town markets. Rather than go to the sort of traditional markets of LA, New York, et cetera, they were hitting a lot of the small towns across middle America.
One of the things they found in doing that is that they venues that they were playing were not used to hosting the rock band that they were with the type of stage show that they had. What they did with their rider was to make it very detailed and very specific about what they needed in terms of the equipment, the sound system, the stage show, and also the safety elements that they've acquired. To make sure that they could check that people were reading the rider, they used to put a light in there on their requirements for catering that said that with their M&Ms, all of the brown M&Ms needed to be taken out of the bowl.
Now, David Lee Roth's autobiography looks at this and laughs and says the rumor got 'round that this was Van Halen being "rock stars" and making these unrealistic demands on venues. Even thought they canceled a show because they walked into their dressing room and the brown M&Ms were still in the bowl, the reality of this was quite different. The reason they put that in there to say that they didn't want the brown M&Ms was as he explained. If they got there and found they were still in the bowl, it meant that the venue hadn't read the rider correctly. If they hadn't read the rider correctly, what else had not been done? They found at one stage they continued with a concert, ignoring that warning sign, only to find part of the stage show collapse during the set. By putting this rider in, this particular element, it actually meant that they were focusing on that safeguards for safety and performance.
What does that mean for us in business? Well, linking back into our idea of the strategic briefing process with our back brief, is making sure that everybody in the team understands the specific requirements of the project, or the particular activity that they're gonna be doing. If you can get people to be able to repeat that back to you so that you're clear that you're both on the same page, you're unlikely to have those disasters take place. Now, in a lot of organizations it's not gonna mean the stage show is gonna collapse middle of a concert injuring people, but it could be costing your organization thousands, if not millions, of dollars if something isn't completed on time or to specification.
In the future, if people ask you why are you focusing on the details, tell them the story about Van Halen and the M&Ms. If you found that interesting, please feel free to share with your colleagues. If you'd like to find out a little bit more about the work that I do and the workshops that I run, then check out the website at bluegemlearning.com. I'll speak to you soon.'