It's the start of a tour cycle and the first gig is an outdoor concert, in February, in Minneapolis. It's for the Super Bowl. We're playing the night before the game as part of the festivities. The weather calls for 5 degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill of minus 6 and snow. ... we're playing an outdoor show. A rather portentous way to kick off the year, but we're told "it's a great opportunity."
I know there is plenty I don't see and so I don't pontificate on what is great about it. But I can take solace in the fact that working in zero degree weather today will make thirty or forty down the road easy.
Let me fast-forward now through the gig and say that it went off better than expected but mostly because we had managed to sink our expectations so low. Overall, the show went off but we did have problems.
The set started late because we had problems with the gear. This made the event producers anxious. At one point one of them came to me and asked "What's going on? How close are you? What's the issue?"
I turned and said "The gear is all FUCKED up. It's fucked." Not with exclamation points, but matter-of-factly.
That provoked "Is it because of the cold?"
"Yea and the snow. This gear isn't meant to operate in 5 degree weather."
I find this layman sort of answer works better than going into technicals. If I have said ... "The Stage Rack took a shit because of the cold. So they are now going one-for-one on the back of the SC48. It takes a few minutes. Also, one of the IEM transmitters isn't transmitting, which is an unrelated problem" ... it would have meant nothing.
"It'll take a few minutes. I know we had a twenty minute changeover, but that is standard based on normal conditions. If the conditions are different there's a chance the outcome will also be different."
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I guess it seems so obvious that you wouldn't have an outdoor concert in 5 degree weather. But I know there is much that I don't see. And at some point someone weighing her options just said, "Well, we don't have any other choice. We have to do the concert outside."
The complexities of our world sometimes lead us to situations that we don't understand. I'll say it again for the third time, there is plenty I don't see. So I don't see why it's a great opportunity to play an outdoor concert in Minneapolis in February. But someone else, doing some other job, may see it as the start of a fruitful relationship.
Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky are famous for their
work on cognitive biases -- human judgement errors. Basically they've shown how humans make errors in decision-making based on processes like emotions,
social influence, "short-cut" thinking, and others.
One
such cognitive bias is WYSIATI -- What You See Is All
There Is. It's exactly what it sounds like in that we only see the world
that we see. We don't see beyond anything outside of our own head.
And yet -- despite the fact that there is so much that we don't see -- we make decisions based on only our worldview.
So
in this instance my world is the logistics of production. And to me,
it's totally fucked. But someone else's world is brand relationship. And
to them, it's a success.
Over the long-term, successful teams need balance -- some middle ground where it's good enough for everyone.
If we did the
event over again, and production was omnipotent we might do the show
inside, in a venue that is too small. And it will be ideal for
production, but a disaster for brand relationships because not enough people
will be able to attend. Production would need to recognize that.
Ideally every project will have balance. But if a project doesn't have balance, you need some team members to make up for it. Short-term pain can lead to long-term gain. But only if the pain causes reflection, which leads to fixes.
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Either way, we are stuck with the pain on this one. Sometimes situations are just bad, and they beget bad outcomes for some people. And you can't follow up a really bad situation with small fixes. You can't tinker your way out of it.
The 80 / 20 Principle works in reverse too. The 80 / 20 Principle says that 80% of the output comes from 20% of the input. It's usually used to describe things like corporate efficiency where 20% of the customers provide 80% of a company's income; or wealth distribution where 20% of the people hold 80% of the wealth. Sometimes these instances are more like 95 / 5 but the principle of it is that a few small things have a disproportionate effect on the outcome.
In this instance 80% of our day will be dictated by the simple decision of "let's do the concert outdoors." That one simple decision will have such an impact on our day that we won't be able to overcome it.
For instance, there
were heaters on the stage but it was equivalent to sticking a
heater out in an open field because the stage was open in all
directions. There was snow on the stage and gear because it was windy and the snow was blowing in sideways.
The key wasn't to have heaters or canopies, the key was to not have an outdoor concert in February in Minneapolis.
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Overall I think the takeaway is that sometimes ideas and situations are just bad, and you are stuck with them on a project or for a short period of time. But you have to overcome them. And then impart the problem to the team so reflection can lead to future fixes, which balance out the team. Short-term pain can lead to long-term gain.
If the team doesn't have balance over the long-term -- if one part of the team gets stuck with the short end of the stick too often, they won't be able to overcome it and the whole thing will suffer.
In this instance we're just a band showing up to do a gig. We don't see behind the scenes of the decision-making. Hopefully they will aim for balance.
For me though, it was best to recognize that this day was going to be difficult, but that we needed to overcome it and move on. We weren't going to be able to tinker our way to an easy day. I can stare the cold wind and snow in the face and say, "I see you. I feel your sting. I acknowledge your strength. But this is one day, and I will use you as a point of reflection."