Monthly Archives: July 2018

July 23, 2018 · 12:38 pm

Conducting

Did you play in your school’s band or orchestra? Maybe you sang in the chorus? I did all of those as well as in the school’s jazz band. If you did, you came face to face with a conductor. For those of you unfamiliar with how a conductor operates, I’ll spend a few words on the topic. For those of you already familiar, please keep reading because those hours spent under their baton can tell you a lot about business.

Whether you played in an ensemble or just listened, you’ve seen a conductor at work. Their right hand, usually the one holding the baton, keeps time. Their left hand, the far more expressive one, serves many purposes; among them cueing various instruments, helping the musicians understand the dynamic you want to project or the phrasing you’re after.

One of my childhood memories is of seeing Leonard Bernstein conducting the NY Philharmonic. He conducted the orchestra in a way that was a cross between dancing as a listener and working hard as a musician. There is no doubt, if you watch old videos of him, what he is trying the get from his musicians. That’s not true of all conductors.

What you probably never thought of is how anticipatory conducting really is. It begins in rehearsal, where the conductor will often stop and explain what he or she is after. The musicians are learning what each gesture means and they get a sense of the speed and phrasing the conductor wants. It’s assumed the musicians already know the notes and heaven help the musician who causes the conductor to stop and demand the musician play a phrase the conductor heard as wrong. It also means the conductor is a few beats ahead of his musicians so he can cue them, hopefully in a way that also tells them how he wants the upcoming music played.

What does this have to do with business? A lot. I always looked at my role as being similar to an orchestra leader. My job was to bring coherence to a large, diverse group of executives who played very different roles. I kept time with one hand, meaning that I set goals for the entire group and established how we’d get there. With the other hand, I let individual elements within the group know when to speak up. Most importantly, we rehearsed. No, I didn’t have my group do things just for the sake of doing them. I did, however, ask them a lot of questions to make sure they knew the music and that when it came time for them to be front and center they would shine. I was careful to be clear about what I wanted and about what I meant when I asked for something. I was also a few beats ahead at all times.

Watch some of the great conductors. Bernstein, Loren Maazel, Seiji Ozawa, and others. There are some great business lessons there, don’t you think?

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July 20, 2018 · 12:36 pm

Mageirocophobia

It’s Foodie Friday and today we’re going to address what for some people is a debilitating problem: mageirocophobia. I know – how can I think about something I can’t even pronounce? Well, hopefully, it’s not something you think about at all, but it might just get you thinking about something that goes on in your business life, so read on.

Mageirocophobia is the fear of cooking. Yes, such a thing exists. It can take many forms and even experienced cooks might have a little of it. For some folks, they’re fine cooking for themselves but the thought of cooking for a large group – a party, a large family gathering – can become a problem. Maybe that’s when they opt for a caterer, telling themselves that they’ll be busy preparing the house when in fact they’re afraid of failing. For some people, they’re afraid to cook for others or their children, worried that they’ll poison them by serving undercooked food. In other cases, it’s a simple fear that what they’ll serve will be inedible, or at least bad enough to cause ridicule. Some people are just afraid of the entire process – sharp knives and hot pans can cause cuts and burns (I know that from personal experience!).

As with most fears, a fear of cooking is really a reflection of other things going on such as a strong need for approval or a fear of failure. It can cause people to do odd things such as never serving chicken to guests or insisting on overcooking pork. Some people I know are terrified by sharp knives and the blades in their kitchens are always dull which, as any good cook knows, causes more accidents than sharp knives do.

Some of us do the same thing in business. A decade ago I wrote a post that asked each of us to consider if our fears in business are rational? Fear of failing is not irrational but it can be debilitating. We listen to the negative voice in our head that tells us we can’t do something and we’ll be a laughingstock when we fail. We play it safe. We take the safe route and don’t push to scale quickly, avoiding new markets or products. Ultimately, as with the fearful cook, we miss out on pleasure as we avoid pain.

I’ve made my share of mistakes in both the kitchen and the office. I try to learn from each one and move on. We all have a bit of fear in new and difficult situations – we’d not be human if we didn’t. We need, however, to push through our fears if we’re ever going to achieve our goals, don’t you agree?

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July 18, 2018 · 10:19 am

Messing Up Moviepass

Do you have MoviePass? I do and I think it’s fabulous. For roughly $10 a month (about the cost of a ticket here) you can go see one movie a day as long as they’re not IMAX or 3D. Too good to be true? It really seems that way but I’ve never had an issue using it.

You might be asking yourself how do they stay in business? Lots of other folks are asking the same question since I gather they have to pay the theater the full price of admission when you use the pass. I go to an average of one movie a week (4/month) which I gather from this article on Recode is more than average. They’re recently starting charging a premium if you want to see a very popular movie right as it’s released, but that’s a minority of what’s out there. Still, they must be losing money on most users so how do they stay in business?

In a word, data. I go to see some movies in the theater that I might ordinarily wait to see on pay cable or via streaming. I often hit the concession stand, which is where the theaters make most of their profit. Good deal for them, right? Where Moviepass is thinking they’ll make their profit is from understanding the moviegoer and selling that data. That’s why they’re so inexpensive – to scale quickly – and they’re hoping to become so ubiquitous that they end up getting a cut of the increased attendance they are generating (the 3 extra trips to the theater I make in a month!). With me so far?

A friend of mine also has a Moviepass that she was given as a gift. Her 6-month gift ran out the other day and she went to renew. Here is where the fun begins and where we all can learn a little something. There is no way to renew a gift subscription. Seriously. She wanted to convert the gift to a regular subscription on her own credit card and Moviepass won’t let her. Instead, they require that you start all over and create a new account using a different email. Let’s think about how many things are wrong here.

First, you’re a data company. By demanding an existing customer start all over, you’re blowing off all the data you’ve collected on them to date. Second, since Moviepass requires a physical card to work, you now must issue a new card. Besides being an expense for you (create the card, ship the card, etc.) it’s extremely inconvenient for the customer. Third, I’m anticipating that since an account is married to a device, there will be an issue when she gets her new account and tries to tie it to her existing phone. You can’t use your pass without using the app and the app is tied to a device and your card. There isn’t a single reason I can think of that makes this a smart policy.

This silliness has forced many customers to reach out for customer service (a cost!) and from the heated postings on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and elsewhere, it’s resulted in a lot of lost business for Moviepass. One of the main advantages of the digital world is how there is far less friction in many transactions. Online commerce brings your shopping to you and you never leave the house to lug stuff home unless you care to. Moviepass seems to have found a way to increase friction among its existing customer base – those who received gifts and want to remain as customers. Not very smart in my book. Yours?

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