Stirring the pot

Way back when I had a head of hair and was in a rock band, we had a guy in the group who was always stirring the pot. Problem was, I didn't even know what he was doing (none of us did at first), but he effectively broke up the band.

After practice, he'd call one of us up and tactfully try to pit one of us against one of the other guys. Then he'd call the other guy up and do the same. Bottom-line, for a while it worked for him. He had a band of guys that were fighting with each other, except for him. He was the one guy no one was angry at...until we all found out he was the one stirring up the trouble. He became the pariah and was jettisoned from the band. He then went on to a string of other bands and did the same thing.

At our companies and offices, we all have pot stirring going on: People trying to create a little trouble, trying to take the focus off their poor performance, people that are miserable and want others miserable--there are plenty of pathetic reasons for this to go on.

The blunt answer for me when I confronted the pot stirring way back in my rock-and-roll days was to realize that I can't let someone make me fearful of someone else, I can't become paranoid that the band (or the company) is against me and I have to look coldly at the person stirring the pot and analyze why he or she would be doing such a thing.

Barry LaBov
LaBov & Beyond
www.labov.com
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Pink Floyd and Company Morale

Being a former rock and roller (my songs sold well under one million copies), I love to read bios on my favorite bands. It's often occurred to me that I run my company like a rock band more than a business, which has its good and bad points.

In the Pink Floyd biography, Comfortably Numb, there's a wealth of business nuggets that can be gleaned such as:

Taking LSD when you have schizophrenia is not going to contribute to a positive outcome. If only America's CEOs understood this... Seriously here are few that stood out to me:

1) Success can be a huge barrier to growth. When PF scored their first hit album, it was devastating for the band, they had a difficult time following it up, egos emerged--they went from four guys who got along well to two factions that fought continuously.

2) Together, they were magic. Apart there were not.

3) Greed never motivates. A constant stresser in the band revolved around who got credit for writing the songs. Song rights are the most lucrative part of the business and the more songs you are credited with, the more money you make every time your album sells.

Think how tough it is to deal with success in business--that's when your tempted to become fat and happy, that's when people think they're the greatest thing, etc.

How many times have we ended a relationship that had magic because we thought we could survive without that person. The truth is you usually can survive it, but if it truly was special, maybe you should have tried harder to save the magic.

And, how often do we create incentives that actually form a wedge in our company and de-motivate?

Sure they all ended up making some Money, but years later I bet they'd tell each other they'd Wish You Were Here.