Our drummer had vanished.
Joe’s Bar. North Denver suburbs, circa 2002.
The “band” I was in at the time – we didn’t have a name, we never practiced, we just showed up and played every other Friday, and somehow got paid! – had finished our first set.
We did the usual “we’re going to take a short break, be sure to tip your bartenders and waitstaff…” and left the stage.
Our drummer went out for a smoke break and never came back.
I never found out why; He didn’t say anything to us, and I actually never saw him again. He just disappeared. But, oh well, the show must go on, right?
“Who is going to play drums?“
No one else volunteered, so I traded in my lead vocal/guitar role for a lead vocal/substitute drummer role, and saved the day!
(at least that’s the story I told myself that night)
But what had actually happened was that we went from being a decent, crappy band to simply being a crappy band with a bad drummer.
We tried to do more (or at least the same) with less. And,
Doing more with less is BS.
But we hear it all the time at work. We lose a member of our team due to layoffs or a new opportunity, and so often leaders deliver that same “we can do more with less” pep talk.
And it is insulting bullshit.
And, look, I get it; being the leader is definitely challenging in times like these, and there aren’t always many easy options. But doing more with less often leads to poor quality, overwhelm, and disengagement.
“So what do we do about it?”
I had a great leader show me an alternate possibility, which was more inspiring than the standard demoralizing “do more with less” mantra.
We were in a situation where we had lost a key member of our team, and we were freaking out about how we were supposed to keep everything together.
“How are we going to do all this work without him?”
She calmly said, “We’re not.“
“We are going to stop delivering what he was responsible for until the business screams for it, at which point, we’ll reevaluate the scope of our work and figure out what we can stop doing that isn’t a priority anymore.”
Wait…we can do that???
We did less, better.
Now, I realize that it isn’t always possible, but it is possible more often than we realize.
The best leaders, teams, and high performers don’t try to maintain the status quo when the landscape has evolved; they instead…evolve. They Focus on the NEAD as I sometimes coach leaders to do – instead of trying to “do more with less” and burn your people out in the process, simply ask “what can we negotiate, eliminate, automate, and delegate?
Everything isn’t a priority. We can do less, but do it better.
And what should have happened that night at Joe’s Bar during the Dubious Dose of the Disappearing Drummer?
Rather than trying to recreate the previous vibe, I should have acknowledged that the circumstances had changed and used it as an opportunity to sound and perform differently. We could have slipped into a more mellow, unplugged, and laid-back feel suited for two guitarists and a bass player.
And a version of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged, “All Apologies”, would have rocked!