engage with what is actually said…
“Wow, Santana has a new song out.” My son Kyle said, “No, Dad… THAT is Rob Thomas from Matchbox Twenty!!” … leading to the classic blame game. I am right, you are wrong. Until it turned out we were both right, and each of us had to change to hear what the other one had heard…
Rob Thomas wrote it for a voice that was not his…
…and that is where our Succession story starts. In 1999 he wrote a song with a keyboard player named Itaal Shur, put together by a label man who needed a lyric and a melody for a track that already existed. Rob had George Michael in his head the whole time. He was never meant to sing a note of it, and he has been plain about that: “At the time, I was just going to do it as a writer. I wasn’t supposed to perform on it.”
Carlos Santana, looking to make a comeback, heard the demo with Thomas singing the guide vocal, and asked the only question that turned out to matter: does he sing? Clive Davis remembers how the verdict came back: “We have to have him. He has to do it. He’s perfect.” Smooth spent 12 weeks at number 1, took Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and made a household name out of a man most people could not have picked out of his own group.
engage who comes next?
“Do you have a Successor?”… one of the first questions I ask leaders. It usually comes right after “I want to be promoted to be…” The blank stare is the normal response… followed by a discussion of someone that isn’t as good as they are. “And… what are you doing to invest in them to get them ready?”… another blank stare… and my own stories of being asked to BE that person in a conference room in a crisis with no preparation… repeatedly… until…
5 men out of Orlando, and almost nobody could name 4 of them
Matchbox Twenty came together in Orlando in 1995 out of an earlier Florida band, billed first as Matchbox 20 and restyled around the time of their second record. Rob Thomas sang. Kyle Cook played lead guitar. Brian Yale played bass. Paul Doucette played drums. Adam Gaynor played rhythm. They sold records by the truckload and hardly anyone outside the room could put a face to any of it. Thomas said it himself years later: “There wasn’t a narrative, we were like the most successful faceless band in the world.”
…somebody heard it in him before he heard it in himself…
That is what Succession looks like from the inside, and it is almost never a plan. It is 1 person hearing a capability in another person and saying it out loud, early, before all the evidence is in. Thomas walked into that room as a writer. He walked out as the voice, because somebody with nothing to gain named him as one.
Every Successor I have watched was sponsored by somebody before they were ready. That is the whole trick. It is also the part we skip, because sponsoring a person costs something and a spreadsheet costs nothing. This is a real gap in women’s leadership – they are rarely sponsored which we will discuss in a whole week about Women’s empowerment…
Who are you waiting to engage until they are ready?
Rob was not looking to leave Matchbox Twenty, but who turns down recording with Santana?? You don’t… and you don’t think about what happens next… are you ready for the superstardom, are your “friends” going to welcome the “rock star” back into something that was started together? Do you have a foundation for your relationships that will be tested by the unexpected success or…
… they will not be ready. Nobody is ready. The short list of people who could do your job in 2 years is sitting in your head right now. Are any of them walking around certain you have even noticed…
Nobody grows into a seat they have not been told about.
Your “Simple… Not Easy” move: Talk with the 1 person who could do your job in 2 years, and have the conversation that Kyle and I had… They don’t think they are ready, and you think they are… You are BOTH right… the middle is what you both need to invest in…
Helping leaders say the name while there is still time to do something with it is what I do now. Schedule time with me here.
So come along for a week of preparation – for Succession planning through the eyes of a great band, and leader, and how that journey is rarely… Smooth
