Serious
Management Advice from Mel Brooks
Dealing with a hybrid office? In his autobiography, the comic genius behind The Producers discusses the benefits of building a team by gathering them in one place for a concentrated period of time. It applies to the workplace, too.
BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN
I just finished reading Mel Brooks’ autobiography, All About Me!, (now that’s truth in advertising) which charts his remarkable life in show business and his amazing and unbelievably successful career in so many different parts of the entertainment industry. Writer, producer, actor, director, composer, and entrepreneur are roles he has played in a 75-year career, which includes memorable films such as The Producers, Young Frankenstein, and Blazing Saddles. The book is filled with touching and nostalgic reflections and, of course, jokes. Not all the jokes are fabulous. Asked whether he wore briefs or boxer shorts, the now 96-year Brooks answered, “Depends.” That groaner is exactly what you’d expect from a guy who started in the Borscht Belt in the 1940s. But the book is also a thoughtful, instructive, and educational compilation in unexpected ways, which I found to be of great value.
One part of his Broadway adventures struck me as especially relevant for new business builders, as well as executives at established companies who are all trying to deal with the questions and concerns around creating and maintaining a company culture in a hybrid world. It’s the best and shortest rationale for getting folks back to the office that I’ve heard from anyone.
While we
hear from time to time that it’s the commute that we’ve come to recognize we hate,
not the office per se, millions of senior managers – especially white-collar
knowledge workers – have decided that there’s simply no good reason to return
to the noise, interruptions, irritations, and unproductive meetings that are an
unavoidable part of the 9-to-5 office grind. The fact that, by not showing up
in person, they’re leaving the younger workers and new hires at their
businesses completely in the lurch, with little or no mentoring, story sharing,
supervision, or hands-on guidance, doesn’t seem to be of much concern to them.
Safe to say
that no one has figured out an effective solution, and even the best attempts
seem entirely one-off and dependent on the special circumstances of a
particular business or situation. I’m seeing sales organizations demonstrate
convincingly that having the team in a single space works wonders and produces
concrete results even if the room’s not ruled by an Alec Baldwin-like character.
Competition, camaraderie, commiseration, and shared misery are all important
emotional drivers that just don’t translate through a video screen. There’s a
reason many of these places are called boiler rooms – it’s about heat – in the
moment and here and now. Passion, energy and commitment are all contagious in a
good way.
At the same
time, it’s highly likely that no one will devise a “one-size fits all” answer
any time soon and that trying to force a return solution on your team members
without a sound reason is doomed to fail as we’ve already seen in large and
small companies nationwide. Bribes and bonuses, spiffs and special incentives, perks
and special provisions are all temporary Band-Aids at best. They’re not cures
because they’re not really targeted at cultivating and communicating the company’s
culture.
Making it
about the money is the worst thing you can do. It sends a signal that you can
buy your way to a committed workforce, to a community with a shared goal, and
to a sustainable culture that binds the business. Even in these tough times, if
your happiness depends on money rather than the satisfaction of getting the job
done and done well and on being there for your team, you’ll never end up being
happy with yourself.
What I
learned from Mel Brooks was all about the importance of the out-of-town, pre-Broadway,
performances for a new show. Timing is adjusted, songs are added or dropped,
blocking and choreography are cleaned up and tightened, and even cast members
may be changed. But none of those efforts is what’s most valuable and additive to
the ultimate success of the show. What’s most critical about having out-of-town
tryouts is that they’re out of town. Not because the audiences there are less
knowledgeable, critical, or even more forgiving, which they probably are. But
because it’s not about the audiences at all – it’s about the actors and bringing
the team together.
Taking
the team on the road separates them from everything familiar, typical, and ordinary
and, in such an environment, they quickly learn that whatever support, comfort
and appreciation they’re likely to get will come from their team members who
they’ll need to count on and rely upon in the “wilderness.”
A
great team isn’t simply a bunch of people who work together. It’s a group that
has learned to trust each other and nothing in acting or business is more
important than trusting the people you work with. These remote retreats are
forced bonding environments – they create their own “culture” on the fly - and they
turn relative and wary strangers into a family and a unit with shared
interests, emotions, and concerns.
The process works almost every time. Eventually the mess becomes a timely vision. The players turn to and learn from each other because they don’t have their family, friends, followers, or functionaries to fall back on. It’s just like your first trip to an overnight camp without the bugs and bad food. You will remember those days forever. It turns out that - even before the pandemic - the office provided a very similar kind of refuge and development space - away from friends and family - in which to cultivate a company's culture. Now it's actually also an increasingly attractive, chore-free and kid-free place to get some work done.
The
trick for business owners and operators now is to figure out how to make all
these ongoing WFH conversations less place-based, less financially focused, and
more about how their businesses are going to (1) successfully rebuild or
replace what they previously had and grow from there; (2) integrate, educate,
and indoctrinate new members of the team and immerse them deeply and
successfully into the company’s culture; and (3) reactivate and re-engage their
more senior managers and executives personally in the entire process.
Just
to be clear, mandatory days in the office for junior staff when the folks who
should be there acting as mentors are sitting at home makes no sense. Getting
the team right and back together is an essential prerequisite to getting the
business back on track.
Here
again, this is about coming to work because you care about and are enthusiastic
about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And because you understand
that these things don’t happen by themselves or in the absence of proximity,
serendipitous collisions, and constant informal contact. The watercooler conversations and after-hours
beers are still the very best source of company communication and connection. The
war stories told by the old timers and veterans are still the best vehicles for
sharing and reinforcing the company’s culture and values.
Great
teams don’t come together in an instant by design; they’re built over time and
especially in tough times because the members went through the ringer and the
hardships together and survived. They learned that no one does these things
successfully by themselves and that they needed to count on their peers and
partners to get the hardest jobs done.
Bringing
your people back doesn’t necessarily or exclusively mean back to the office
because it’s likely that some of the key folks will never sign up for that
again. They may have moved far away, they may be without critical childcare or
reliable transportation, or they may just have concluded that they have nothing
incrementally to add by their in-office presence. But the fact is that they do.
You need to bring them to the realization that they’ve all got to pitch in and
make the new normal and the new workforce work. Real bonding and business
building doesn’t happen remotely and, even if it requires some levels of
individual sacrifice, ultimately being in a shared space with your team members
for significant periods of time is the only realistic way forward for most
businesses.
Mentoring
– whether it’s in person, at a small offsite gathering, or on the road to a
sales call – is now an even bigger part of everyone’s job. Make sure, before
you ask anyone to come into the office, that you’ve got a plan and purpose for
the visit, a clear objective, and a solid explanation for the request. Asking
people to spend two hours commuting to the office so they can sit at their
desks for Zoom calls is criminally stupid. Finally, invest the time and preparation
necessary to make the office time educational, valuable, and clearly productive
for the attendees. More structure, more content, and more personal interaction at
all levels will make all the difference.
Forty
years after Peters’ and Waterman’s
pronouncements, we’re back to “management by walking around” being one of
the best ways to see your business and your people. And if you can’t “see” and direct
your business, you won’t have it for much longer.