Rock Stars, They’re Just Like Us

Rock Stars face the same communication challenges, lack of trust, and frustrations as your corporate team.

I was flipping through the participant list for the 2021 TED Women conference when one name jumped out at me.

Anna Bulbrook is one of the original members of my favorite rock band: Airborne Toxic Event.

I am not your average Airborne fan.

I’ve seen them in concert 10 times and have run a half marathon to their music. Each song tells a story. It’s musical poetry.

In addition to being a founding member of Airborne Toxic Event for 10 years, Anna’s performed with Kayne West, Sia, Vampire Weekend and on Beyonce’s Lemonade album.

If you play on a Beyonce album, you’re doing pretty well in life.

Anna owns a company that produces creative events and regularly works with rock stars and celebrities.  

She is also the musical curator for the 2022 TED Conference.

More important to me, we were both going to be in Palm Springs at the same time.

The closing night of TED Women, our paths crossed when she asked to borrow a chair next to me.

We spent several minutes talking about her consulting work and her time with Airborne.

Outwardly I was calm. On the inside I was squealing like a 14-year-old at a Harry Styles concert.

As cool a moment it was for me, it was a sobering realization: rock stars are just like you and me.

Anna and I talked about the challenges she’s watched bands navigate.

You’d like to think that the problems of rock stars are way cooler than your corporate team.

They aren’t.

There are the same problems with communications, frustrations, and lack of trust.

I watched the same problems play out on the Peter Jackson documentary on The Beatles: Get Back.

Whether you are a rock band or a corporate team, you face these same team challenges.

You often get stuck in patterns of interaction.

Bands that have been together get stuck in the patterns that began when they first met – but no longer work. Change only seems to come if new members are added.

Many corporate teams circle in a holding pattern of interactions: inconsistent trust, frustration, communication breakdown. The longer we go without addressing them, the harder they feel to repair. Dedicate regular time to review and refine interactions. Small ongoing tweaks prevent the erosion to a toxic team.

Feedback needs to be invited and carefully discussed.

In the Beatles documentary, John Lennon says to Paul McCartney that he is afraid to give him feedback. Something every person has experienced at work. Feedback is always hard, often triggering sensitivity and defensiveness. We avoid bringing it up to keep harmony, only causing things to fester.

The smoothest ways to navigate this are to define a process up front for how to solicit, raise and discuss feedback. Learning when and how to invite feedback makes for a more positive experience and prevents team fractures.

If you don’t have a say in your role and contributions, you will burn out.

George Harrison quietly quits the band in one episode. He grew frustrated feeling shut out of the writing process. Decisions were made on his behalf, and things were done to him - not with him.

The group fell apart the afternoon he quit, complete with Yoko Ono wailing into a microphone (and no, she didn’t break up The Beatles). The Beatles had several conversations to define roles and contributions before he agreed to come back. Something that could have been avoided if they regularly reviewed and refined their interactions.

Same thing happens on corporate teams. If you don’t have a say in your contributions or accountability and you don’t feel valued, your motivation seeps away. Want to bring the best out of people? Let each person define how they will achieve outcomes.

Play is important.

There have been so many rumors about tension between John and Paul. I was delighted to see the joy they had joking around and acting like ventriloquists. Play was at the heart of their creation, and they truly enjoyed playing each other.

They had a deadline of finishing an album in three weeks. Instead of a tense atmosphere, they embraced play. Sessions began with the band performing cover songs. They would poke fun at each other. The playfulness added to their creativity.

The relaxed brain is the one that is the most creative. Even when deadlines and milestones approach, it’s important to incorporate play for experimentation, creativity, and engagement.

There will be days others are counting on you to do something and your heart isn’t in it.

Anna would focus on the audience member hearing Sometime Before Midnight live for the first time when she wasn’t in the mood to play it for the many-th time.

You may picture a touring rock star as the five-star experience you might see on an Instagram reel. Being on stage with everyone cheering and traveling to fun locations. For each of those moments, you are stuck on a smelly tour bus without a shower. Or as Anna described, forced to wash your bangs out in sink the sink of a Walmart bathroom.

Everyone has days at work where they aren’t feeling it. Perhaps your teammates can help you find motivation. Or you focus on something meaningful: something you’ll learn, how you’ll help someone, or how great it will feel when the task is finished. But you need to watch for when the frequency your heart isn’t in it far exceeds when it is. That is when you need to move on.

Rock stars are so much more than musicians.

When you are on tour for months on end, it’s easy to focus on your work as your life. But that is a recipe for burn out. Our work is how we earn a living. And sometimes it is a way to channel creative energy and do things we love to do. But everyone is so much more than their job. We all bring value and worth that has nothing to do with our jobs. It’s important to not lose sight of that.

If you haven’t stepped back as a team to refine how you are working together in the past year, you’re overdue. Not sure where to start? Drop us a note.

Want to receive more articles like this one? Sign up for Brain Food here.