You Must Play Politics

To my ears, "I don't play politics" translates to one of the following:
   1) I'm not good with people and I will burn bridges.
   2) I deal with stress poorly and I will cause drama.
   3) I'm very good at politics and I play dirty.

"I don't play politics" is a red-flag statement for me.

Unless you're interacting solely with your instrument or DAW, you're dealing with politics.

Politics is the art of accomplishing your goals while keeping the most allies possible. This is a flexible statement for a reason.

Humans are composed of moods, feelings, hunches and many other idiosyncracies that color every single interaction. If you're alive, bias is inevitible.

It's never just about your raw skill. In fact, according to MIT researcher Thomas Malone, it's the groups' intrapersonal skills that determine their collective talent, not the "average" of their talent levels. This is why so many supergroups end up as a disappointment.

Imagine you're a highly regarded promoter with bands approaching you every second of every day. Would you rather give a leg up to the band you hung out with after a couple shows, or "Band #1093703"? Whether you believe this is wrong or right, this is how the world functions.

Public relations is simply politics on a wider scale.

Your political skills will play a large part in your eventual success or failure in business dealings.

Pay attention to your relationships with others.

How Meetings Kill Ideas

After reading the research showing that brainstorming doesn't work, I began to think about how meetings sometimes smothered good ideas.

Most meetings are uneventful, consisting mostly of routine decisions and loyalty signaling. Once in every great while, we'd have a meeting that felt like a real breakthrough. Time flew and everything was discusssed. Refrains of "Let's do that" set to a chorus of agreement.

We had the plan. But no motion.

Next week: agreement and excitement continued to swell about the plan. But no motion.

The following week: no motion.

Enthusiasm waned. Soon, the idea wasbe forgotten and relegated to life in an assisted living home. Visition hours would be from ten to noon on weekdays and during nightly bingo (except Wednesday, as that night belonged to arts & crafts).

Idea are alive. Like our bodies, ideas need lots of nutrition and activity to grow correctly. If we want our ideas to flourish, we need a parent to ensure the idea is raised right and/or isn't eaten by wolves.

Getting everyone to agree on an idea is often easy but anyone ever stuck writing a "group" paper knows, it's really easy to dodge responsbility like a ninja. Often, it's a game of chicken played according to who cares the most about their grade.

When responsability is assigned to a collective instead of an individual, it's easy to be a free rider since everyone can rationalize that someone else will do it.

There's a scary analogue in psychology called the Bystander effect, which attempts to describe why a huge crowd wouldn't help someone in the middle of an emergency. (See the tragic and controversial case of Kitty Genovese being murdered in public.) Saying "help me" to a group of bystanders is less effective than pointing at one individual and saying "You help me!" There's no dodging responsiblity or question of who should act. This simple action vastly clarifies how the bystanders should act instead of leaving it to a moral quandry.

The secret to getting ideas to grow, then, is to make sure there's a baby-momma / baby-daddy for every idea.

 We can do this by either taking responsability ourselves ("I love this idea. I'll take ownership of this") or assertively asking one person to take responsability ("Great. Since you're the best with people, will you make this happen?"). Make the commitment firm, but not agressive. Follow up by checking progress and ensure the idea's parent has really internalized the concept that they are the one responsible for the idea.

Make a record.

Feed that baby.

Negotiation Without Being a Jerk Vol. II

You're halfway through negotiating a sponsorship deal with a major guitar string company, conversation is fluid and light. Envisioning the bliss that would be free guitar strings sends a flood of warmth through your mind.

Everything feels groovy.

A buzz.

The representative reads the text and her expression darkens.

The room begins to feel colder.

"It looks like the terms we initially proposed to you are off the table. We can only offer you half price or nothing."

What do you say?

---

Negotiation is a delicate dance of power and persuasion. While each dancer may have an endless repertoire of moves, it is the beat they bring to the dance that colors their movements. And that beat is called the BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement).

A BATNA provides an anchor for you to determine how valuable the offer currently on the table. How attractive is the offer from the example above when:

• You have a meeting with another guitar string company in two hours?
• You've already got an offer for a 60% discount?
• You don't have any other offer?
• Your band doesn't play any guitars?

Notice the nuances of how each BATNA lead you to different strategies.

The dynamics of any interaction change depending on your other options. Getting turned down for an audition hurts much less when.you've got three more lined up next week. Greasy diner food sounds a lot better when you haven't eaten for the last twelve hours.

So how do we use our knowledge of BATNA to improve our negotiations?

IMPROVE YOUR BATNA

1. Getting multiple offers will give you some leverage to negotiate with. Don't hinge your entire career and happiness on one label, make sure to court a few different labels. The way the field is built is how the game is played. Look back at the example above. Even if your backup offer is something really unimpressive like 5%, this gives you guidelines to determine how good a deal is.

2. Learning to talk persuasively increases others' perception of your BATNA. Desperation is a stinky perfume. If your language conveys that you don't value yourself or that your band isn't that great, the other side of the table will pick up on these cues. It's not just the actual value of your BATNA that influences your outcome, but the perception of your BATNA. Learn to frame your conversations and issues to present your product (band) in the best light. Appearing confident makes others believe you are confident as most negotiators are not psychic, and this imbued confidence will strengthen your negotiation position. This doesn't mean be arrogant, as that usually is a bad idea, but being able to clearly and firmly articulate your position will increase the value of your BATNA, even if you don't have one.

Perception creates reality.

3. Create a list of alternatives to the main deal that you can propose should the main offer become undesirable. Unless you're working with a vending machine, there are many more ways to win than just in terms of cash. In the next installment of this series we'll get deeper into this topic.

Previous entries: (Vol 1)

Negotiation Without Being a Jerk Vol. I

Whether it be predicting how much merch to purchase, choosing whether to book a larger or smaller venue for your release show, or what time you tell everyone to load-in, how you manage the expectations of everyone involved can be the difference between resounding sucess and abject failure.

I'm continually reminded of how all-encompassing this concept truely is.

Managing expectations is when you EXPLICITY outline the criteria to be used to evaluate an experience and the how everyone involved wants issues handled. This is why getting written contracts are so important. A contract serves as a visual aid outlining the expectations of all parties involved so everyone is crystal clear on what exactly to do.

Until you've worked with someone a couple times, you need to be painfully clear with how you want the deal to go. Not to the point of being patronizing ("and you'll play the guitar with your hands, correct?"), but the more work you put in up-front about your requirements, the easier your life will be when money starts to change hands.

Van Halen added a now famous clause hidden deep in their contracts that the band must be served M&Ms with all the brown ones removed. They added this clause not to be capricous rockstars, but to verify that the venue thorougly read through the contract. David Lee Roth explained that a venue not matching the expectations of the contract could lead to their road crew having to deal with life-threatening safety oversights.

Last year I was going over show details for my heavy-metal band Onward We March with a venue we booked a show at, only to find out that they "didn't want any of that screaming stuff" for the show.

No. Can. Do.

Not matching expectations can ruin your credibility, stall your marketing, or even cause your band to collapse.

When people aren't sure exactly what you want/offer, they fill in the gaps with their best guesses.

Your goal with managing expectations is to minimize hearing phrases like, "Oh you guys wanted a sound check? Sorry, we don't have time for it. Didn't think you'd want one because our last band didn't care."

Be clear.

Why Being Polite is Overrated

Negativity as a tactic is severely underrated.

We're taught to say something nice or not say something at all. After all, art is subjective so even if we don't like something, we don't have the right to critique, right?

But what do we do when the execution of the song is obviously flawed?

Sometimes, however, the best thing you give someone is a piping-hot plate of uncomfortable truth.

Steve Jobs was notorious for his outbursts of anger, but there's not a person in the world who wasn't affected by the inventions he shepherded into the market. He busted heads because he had to bust heads in order to release high quality products.

To make a masterpiece you must be willing to disagree.

Sometimes forcefully.

In fact, arguing and sarcasm make you more creative by forcing you to view concepts in a different light. Negativity improves group performance on idea-generation tasks. Competitive tasks improved creative output, (like Eric Clapton competing for the love of Layla). Moderate rule breaking is positively correlated with number of leadership roles. Anger at people who slacked off can make them up their effort (assuming they cared in the first place). Being angry also makes you process information more analytically. 

Being negative will also help you be more persuasive.

Negative reviewers were perceived as more intelligent, competent, and expert than positive reviewers, even when the content of the positive review was independently judged as being of higher quality and greater forcefulness.

However, don't storm into your next band practice, punch a hole in the wall, and go full-on Ghaddafi expecting magic to happen. A willingness to be negative when needed is different than oppressive pessimism. As anyone who has worked in a dictatorship of a job knows, pervasive criticism without positivity leads to learned helplessness. This is about the necessary balance between being emotionally sensitive to the needs of your band mates and being assertive enough to push through hard decisions to get serious work done.

Negativity is a tactic, to be used in some situations where strong analysis or action is needed. Breaking deadlocked negotiations, evaluating new opportunities, critiquing new songs: all of these are times where a little negativity might be needed to push through resistance. Trying to write new songs, improvising, networking or marketing: these activities would be much better served by positivity.

The next time you're stuck, step back and ask:

Should I be using a soft or firm touch to solve this problem?

--- 

*Shout out to Eric Barker at Barking Up The Wrong Tree, almost every link referenced was from research he found.

Why Do Some "Supergroups" Fail?

It's a sad day when a brilliant musician leaves the band that made them famous. The band is never the same. Some bands break up (Zeppelin, Nirvana), some bands keep marching on (Pink Floyd), but it's never the same.

But what of "Supergroups"? When you take the best members of multiple bands, why do some flourish and some fail? It's clearly not lack of talent, these supergroups are the MVPs of the music world. Stick the greatest guitarists on the planet together an you get a platinum record, right?

Not always.

So what is it?

What makes a band "magical" is the quality of their interactions as a group.

When dealing with projects alone (musical, school, business, etc), the only input is skill. Obviously, the skill of the individual is the primary input into this project so that's what determines success or failure.

But when we introduce group dynamics, the formula changes. Who writes the guitar part at the bridge? Do we add a five-minute drum solo? What is the song trying to say? These decisions are made as the result of negotiations between the band members. The term negotiation usually conjures up images of "playing hard ball" and the like, but almost every interaction is a negotiation of some sort. "Should we add a second vocal part to stress these syllables?" is a question that people skills determine the outcome of.

Musical talent and people skills are TWO VERY DIFFERENT SKILL SETS. Some people have one, some have the other but the truly intelligent musician takes the time to develop both skills.

I'd never be in a band with Yngwie Malmsteen, the guy seems like a wanker bent on showing off. Sure, he's got skills, but I'd argue with him just on the principle that he's so pretentious. There's a reason he's a solo artist.

Have you ever played with a guitarist who heard an idea and immediately said "I won't play that. End of discussion."? Aside from making your head want to explode, how do you think this guitarist's personality affects the quality of the music he'll end up writing in a group setting?

Jack White, on the other hand, happens to make great music with every project he touches. He's not the most technically insane guitarist on the planet, but he writes good songs with good musicians. He's able to deal with the people side of a project to get the best music possible.

If you want to make better music, you must work on both MUSIC and PEOPLE skills.


Learn to listen to your band mates and open yourself up to new ideas and directions. Read some books on management or organizational behavior. TRY TO UNDERSTAND YOUR BAND. You'll be rewarded, both in terms of a happier band and a better songwriting process.

(The new song we're currently practicing I had to be convinced to play initially, but now I love it. You only make progress in a band setting by learning how to best utilize your group.)

Communication

We compose our songs initially using tab writing software so we can write parts for everyone and play with more complicated ideas. Plus, it's fun to write parts you can't even play without massive amounts of practice.

In the process of passing around ideas, I noticed that some (what I thought were) seriously good ideas were flopping. It was frustrating, especially when I had that feeling of knowing this song was good.

So I began to ruminate, and after many cups of tea I realized something. We all saw the same music file, but only I got the full picture. I was hearing a different song than everyone else. Every time.

Although I wrote in a guitar part or a bass part, the rest of the instrumentation I didn't transcribe. Even though they were an integral part of the song, I assumed that the drum parts were obviously implied complements to the melody I wrote down. "Why bother writing them down? Everyone knows what I mean!" And another song would flop.

Bad assumptions kill communication. By not completely transcribing the music I heard in my head to the software program, I was effectively "spking n brkn st n o ne cld ndrstn me." Talking like that is not persuasive. Hearing incomplete, stuttering music tracks is not moving. It is not fair to your song to improperly communicate it.

Effective communication is clear. Don't mumble. Don't make assumptions. Spell it out.

The Art of Band Negotiating

So creativity is correlated with psychosis, schizotypy and various other mental illnesses. It makes sense. It takes a very different type of person to say "You know what? This reality sucks. I'm going to make a new one!" That's why good, powerful, original music has such an impact. It should take the wind out of your lungs and leave you thinking, "Where the hell did that come from?"

-However-

It also means working with creative people just *might* be a *little bit* of a challenge. Ideas, egos, and emotions are constantly battling for their place in the ethereal concept of the music. (I thought of this riff last night after a breakup and it's PERFECT and why won't you guys put this in the song WHY) Conflict is inevitable. It eats bands all the time. It'll eat yours too, if you're not careful.

Here's how to avoid murdering your band members:

-Separate egos and the music
 When you come in with an awesome idea that you've poured blood and sweat into, it's hard not to become emotionally attached to the idea. (If you weren't attached to an idea, why the hell would you want to make it a song?) But what happens when someone tells you, metaphorically, that you've got an ugly-ass baby? You cut that vato! Don't take your idea's rejection personally, it's just a chunk of music. There's always more ideas.

-Be firm, but not a dick
  If something *really* doesn't feel right with the music, stick with it. You should love your music. But don't stonewall, make sure you say

-Why doesn't this part fit?
  Be specific about what doesn't fit. Rhythm? Scale? Context? Personality? If it's close but not quite, this will help you figure out how to fiddle around with the section to get it to blend with the rest of the song.

-Creating vs. Honing
  There's two distinct stages in the creative process, know which one you're in. It's important not to criticize any new riffs or melodies when you're Creating, just let them come in waves and bursts. If you begin to shoot down ideas before they're formed you will end up second guessing yourself, miss your best ideas, and come up with mediocre dreck that you worked on forever but still can't care about. Only after an idea has taken root can you effectively switch into Honing where you weed out good ideas from bad. Wait until then to criticize.

-Freak out on the good stuff!
  If you LOVE a part, don't just say, "That'll work." If it's that powerful, get animated and say something like "I WANT TO MAKE BABIES WITH THAT RIFF." Make sure your band members know how good their good stuff is. Good music should make you freak out.

-Fuck it, lets get tacos.
  If it gets to be vicious, get out of the practice room pronto. Taco Beuno has mediated every major dispute we've had.