partner before the seat opens?
“DAD!!! I am keeping the time … NOT you!!!”
Kyle… for the second time this week, taught me about Succession the hard way. I was playing rhythm guitar in our church band… that had a very tough time staying in time. If you are a musician, this is a fatal flaw… if you can’t stay on beat, you will never make good music. I was brought in to help… and it was better, until Kyle showed up with his drums. And he was right – his beat was WAY better, and now I could relax and just play my part…
…the partner you stopped calling once the project ended…
There is somebody you used to talk to every week who you have not called in a year. Not because anything happened. Because the project you had in common finished, and neither of you ever had a reason to dial that was not about work. When did the reason become the relationship?
Leaders lose more bench strength to drift than to resignation. Nobody quits the friendship. It just stops getting scheduled.
the year Matchbox Twenty nearly stopped… and nobody noticed
By the middle of the 2000s the band had sold into every house in the country and had run out of road. Adam Gaynor was gone. The rest were exhausted and quietly done. Paul Doucette, the drummer since 1995, put it about as plainly as a man can: “I didn’t know if I wanted to come back. I didn’t know what was there anymore for me.” Rob Thomas had the same feeling and they were the only 2 willing to say it out loud.
The band was never the thing that needed fixing.
…and the fix was not a band conversation at all…
Thomas did not call a meeting about the future of the group, the label, the touring schedule or anybody’s share. He went at it from the other end: “Paul and I were best friends, and it was like, ‘Forget about the band. Let’s talk about how to fix our friendship.'” They fixed the friendship. The band came back with it, and Doucette was the Successor to the empty rhythm guitar seat rather than the drum stool he had left.
If You’re Gone is the same instinct written 5 years earlier. Thomas wrote it during a few weeks apart from the woman he would marry, on the phone constantly, wondering whether what was happening to the band would make a life together impossible. He has called it a song to get her back. Not a negotiation. A reach.
Succession runs on relationships you built before you needed them
You cannot hand anything to a person you are not in relationship with. Every real Succession I have watched work ran along a line of trust that was laid down years before anybody needed it, usually in conversations that had nothing to do with the job at hand. Every one that failed had an org chart where the relationship should have been.
The partner who will Succeed you one day is not somebody you manage. They are somebody you know, and more importantly, knows you…
… interestingly Kyle taught himself to play drums. I offered him guitar lessons, and he is a fabulous guitar player… And, on his own, he said “I think I want to play drums” and bought a set with his own money, studied and practiced… and was amazing. I could now enjoy playing with my son who was pulling this band back together, and on time 😉
Who would you partner with tomorrow, if you called today?
Pick the name that arrived before you finished reading the question. That is the call. It does not need an agenda, a meeting request or a reason, and the moment you give it one it becomes work again and the year goes by.
Your “Simple… Not Easy” move: call the person you have drifted from and talk about the friendship. Nothing on the agenda.
Most of the repair work I do with leaders turns out to be a conversation somebody postponed for 3 years. Schedule time with me here.
Make the call while it is still easy to make… If You’re Gone
