“Don’t surround yourself with yourself.” – The group Yes, from the song “I’ve seen all good people.”

If you’re familiar with the group Yes, you probably hadn’t thought of them being philosophical, but like many musicians, sometimes they just can’t help it.

When you hire someone to work with, do you hire someone that clicks with you, that is like you?  Or do you hire someone who is a little different, who compliments you?  Most people unconsciously choose someone like themselves.  What most people need is rarely another of themselves, it’s someone who is strong where they’re weak.

Otherwise you run the danger of the movie Multiplicity, where a man duplicated himself to get more done, but every copy was just a little dumber, just a little stranger.  It didn’t wind up working out at all.

I guess I’m suggesting that you fight the natural impulse, to like and hire someone like yourself.  Instead, do an inventory of your strengths and weaknesses, and find someone who will balance you…even if a little.  A great example is what Steve Jobs did when he hired Tim Cook as his COO.  Time will tell, and we all miss Job’s creative way of doing things, but Cook has been doing well in his own way.  He’s not trying to be Jobs, he’s trying to be himself.

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”  – Kurt Vonnegut

There are people you meet in your career who leave a mark.  Sometimes good, sometimes not so good.  One of those people for me was Kevin Metheny.

When I first met Kevin we were competing with each other, me at KING in Seattle, and Kevin at KJR.  It was a magnificent battle, and one of those radio stories where people were in combat all the time and yet friends too.  He was this kid in a t-shirt and overalls who practiced a mean variety of guerrilla warfare.  That’s probably what I remember the most.

Kevin moved on from there, and followed a career of creativity, no matter how controversial it got.  He was a focused, strategic person who wasn’t afraid to take a few bullets to win the battle. In a lot of ways most people will never understand, he blazed a new trail wherever he went.  He was not afraid to jump off the cliff and flap his wings.

I remember sitting with him at a restaurant in Jacksonville, talking about the “old days,” when he looked at me and said, ‘How would you like to go through the rest of your career knowing you were “Pig vomit’ from the Howard Stern movie Private Parts.”  That eclipsed all of what he did with so many stations in his career, with a batting average much better than many in the majors.

I’m  not letting you know all this because he was a friend, but because he was a strategic and creative mind at the same time.  You know how I feel about creativity, we’re lacking in it as we focus on incremental improvements from where we are.  He died of a heart attack last Saturday at the age of 60.  Surely it was due to putting so much of his heart into his work.  But what a ride it was, covering so many major markets and and so many innovations.  If you ever said to Kevin, “I don’t think you can do that,” you had to be prepared to get out of the way as he plowed ahead through any obstacle.

You might not know it, but we’ll all miss that goofy kid from Seattle, and the energy and focus he brought to radio.

What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50 million years. It’s about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it’s something that people have wanted forever.” – Seth Godin

As they often do, Fast Company provided a moment of insight and inspiration for me. It’s a story about naming a brand based on the color they use – especially the legion that use the color blue.

According to them, “If you are able to distinguish Facebook-sapphire from IBM-azure, then you are either incredibly observant or around these particular shades so often that they’ve seeped into subconscious associations.”

I wonder if that’s true with radio? We all want to think we are differentiated enough to have our own color of blue, but is it true? If we showed generic logos in our color and typeface, would they know us? Better yet, if we ran three air checks with the station name edited out, back-to-back with four from other stations, would we be differentiated enough to be recognized?

Here’s what I would say is the probable answer, “Your fans would, but it would be a struggle for everyone else. Your fans, your tribe, are the ones with the emotional connection, while everyone else is using you more as a utility. We’re not as different as we think to the more casual listener.

But differentiation actually isn’t the topic of this posting. It’s the common rallying cry that radio is a cume business, and success is proportional to the size of your cume. That may be true if your mass appeal, as the large cume is the boat in which your fans float in, but not so much if you’re not country, CHR, AC or talk. But sometime those stations are so mass appeal they get their success from being everyone’s number two station more than from a tribe.

Isn’t the key here to make sure the tribe is a larger one, so you have enough people to make a difference, but being distinctive enough so your tribe feel “special?” Otherwise you might be like smooth jazz, where the tribe was passionate enough to “vote” the station to success with a diary, but not large enough to sustain itself commercially in a PPM world.

There’s nothing wrong with having a large cume unless you’re sacrificing tribal distinction to get It. In the end it comes down your fans, who give you the preponderance of your listening. They want to feel special and they want to feel included.

Recently I heard that some in radio management said the music was all that counted on a station, that a the talent didn’t add much value.  In fact that the concept of “personality” radio was old school, and in modern times it was about having good DJ’s.  I really didn’t know what to say.

You certainly can’t turn good DJ’s into personalities, and maybe that was at the root of it.  You have to know the principles of personality in order to be one.  However, a blanket statement about personality being old school fade me to think, “That means the pilot of an airplane doesn’t matter, just the airplane.”

I consider the right personalities a “force multiplier,” another of those military terms I tend to use.  According to wikipedia, force multiplication, in military usage, refers to an attribute or a combination of attributes which make a given force more effective than that same force would be without it. How cool that you can have this kind of forcer multiplier at your station.

All it takes is a strategy of understanding what kind of talent and why. You can’t take the “good DJ” route and then wonder why you’re not building an ongoing relationship with your listeners. It takes strategic intent to hire or develop talent that can build the relationship. It’s more difficult than the typical approach, because, in my experience, the best talents are also the most quirky.  That’s a nice way of saying high maintenance.

That high maintenance is worth it when you’re in competition as much as we all are.  While a good DJ might be able to keep people from tuning out, a force multiplier talent is magnetic, drawing people to him or her.  They’re the elite special forces of the radio airwaves.  Strong willed, independent, unique and maybe even a little egotistical.

I don’t know about you, but if I were trouble I’d rather hear a Seal is coming to rescue me.

“Instead of, “do what you love,” perhaps the more effective mantra for the entrepreneur, the linchpin and maker of change might be, “love what you do.”

If we can fall in love with serving people, creating value, solving problems, building valuable connections and doing work that matters, it makes it far more likely we’re going to do important work.” – Seth Godin

I guess this is the non-musical version of, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”

I run into so many people who aren’t happy in their jobs.  The explanations run from wishing they didn’t have to deal with other people to a boss who makes their life miserable (or just doesn’t know what he or she is doing) to some version of “the people I work with are idiots.”  Only rarely do they realize that their happiness lies inside them, not outside them.  No one else can make you happy, only you can.

An important part of that is loving what you do.  Again, it’s what’s inside that counts, not what’s outside.  We might feel like we’re being oppressed or miserable, but it’s under our own control.  An uncomfortable conclusion, but you can always leave, and pursue what you love.

It’s especially troubling when the person is a part of leadership.  When leadership is unhappy and feels like everything is bad, it trickles down into everyone else.  They’re looking for their happiness from someone else, and it’s not going to happen.  It’s important to understand that leadership is supposed to provide inspiration and happiness to their people.  Leadership should help people grow their passion, not kill it.  Yeah, sometimes that sucks, but it’s the job you’ve chosen to handle.

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” – Herman Melville

What do Gibson Guitar, United Airlines, DHL, Hertz, and AutoZone have in common with many radio stations? They’re all companies that have employees working at odds with the company goals, according to a study by brandchannel.com.

The bottom line is that your switchboard is one of the front lines for listener contact, but those people usually aren’t well trained or well motivated.  They’re just punching the clock and putting it time each day, and that can result in an experience that’s different from what you might want.

We tend to think of the jocks and the only first line of contact, but every time anyone from your station touches a listener, it can be good or bad.

Have you read any online reviews lately?  Social media has increased this razors edge.  Try searching for “(your station) sucks” and you’ll see what I mean.

The challenge with those companies listed above and many radio station companies, it that we’ve been great at taking the “connectivity” out of our stations so we can get better “shareholder value.”  From the obvious like voice tracking to the more subtle like IVR phone trees when they call the station, we’re eliminating an important emotional connection.

What can you do to reverse this trend?

Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed – the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day – Frances Hesselbein

As The Dramatics once said, “You know some people, Are made of lies, To bring you down, And shame your name.”*

I’ve worked in places like that.  They have virtuous slogans on the wall, and preach about their “culture,” but only rarely does what they say match with what you see.

Managers try, often by spreading little slogans around the station.  But a quote hanging on the wall is more of an aspiration, not a core value.  We can aspire to have a strong corporate culture like Zappos or Chick-fil-A, but still act like your values are, “Beatings will continue until morale improves.”

What you do is more important that what you say.  In fact many organizations lose credibility on the culture front because they aren’t consistent with what they do and what they say.

It works against them.  People begin to distrust anything management says, and accept the real culture is what they see happening, not what management says.  Soon, they’re not paying any attention to what management says.

Whatcha See is Whatcha Get

So, who really cares?  Well, if you look at the best performing organizations around the country, there’s a direct parallel between a strong, well-understood culture and success.

Conversely, those with cultures and realities that don’t match, are the least successful.

More personally, people will stop believing what you say, and accept what you do as the true culture.

And you may not like that!

* The Dramatics, 1972

“I’d like to be remembered as one who kept my priorities in the right order. We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed, and the important things will not change if we keep our priorities in proper order.” – S. Truett Cathy

S. Truett Cathy died recently  Not the world’s most well-known name, but he founded, and grew into a billion dollar organization, the Chick-fil-A restaurants across America.

A few years back I read a book of his, and was inspired by his own inspirational way of working with his teams.  He was also a constant marketer and cheerleader for Chick-fil-A.

One memorable moment was when he was flying and the plane was delayed for some time.  He spoke with the captain, who gave him permission to pass out cards for free “Chikin” to everyone on board.  Changed the mood of the people on board and created brand memorability for everyone.

His Vice President of Marketing was at Momentum, and talked about the leadership style of the organization.  One of his main points was for leaders to see the value in their people.  Too often we see people as problems or something to be managed, but if you look for their value, your own perception of them will change.

What do you see when you look at those who report directly to you?

Do you see a tool to be used, or the value the person contributes to your organization?