The Brown M&M Test
David Lee Roth is a rock star
In the mid 80’s David Lee Roth was a Rock God
From the late 70s to the mid 80s Van Halen was the chart topping, power-guitar-soloing, big hair epitome of hard rock excess. And David Lee Roth was their front man…and besides his lyrics and on stage antics he was notorious for his prima-donna posturing.
The Van Halen pre-show requirements were stuff of legend. For their pre-show munchies they required potato chips with assorted dips, pretzels, nuts, Reece peanut butter cups (so far so good) and then this: Bowl of M&Ms [WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES]. Not abiding by this meant that the promoter would forfeit the entire show at full pay.
What’s the deal here? Did someone choke on brown M&M’s? Was this simply a suffer-you-plebians-we-are-the-greatest diva move. And the promoters did suffer. At some venues a special team was hired to specifically sort through bags of M&M’s and pick out the brown ones. The legend that accrued was that Van Halen were a bunch of spoiled prima donnas who would make life difficult because they could. However the reality was quite different… and brilliant!
As the man himself, David Lee Roth explains in this video
“This was touted widely as simple rockstar misdemeanor excess, and being abusive of others simply we could. And who am I to get in the way of a good rumor”
In the 1980’s Van Halen was the biggest rock band in the world..with perhaps the most extravagant rock show in the world. They had it all: huge sets, revolving stages, pyrotechnic lighting effects etc. Their contract carried a 53 page rider that laid out the concert technical requirements. However many of the venues they played in were outdated
“They didn’t have even the doorways or loading docks to accommodate a super-forward-thinking, gigantor, epic-sized Van Halen production. Most rock and roll bands had a contract that was like a pamphlet, we had one that was like a Chinese phone book”
The contract laid out point-by-point instructions to ensure that each promoter/arena had provided the required load bearing capacity, electrical power etc. Also Van Halen wanted to make sure that no one got killed from the stage malfunctioning or a parlamp falling.
“A lot of promoters..and it was a bit cowboy back in the 80s.. frequently did not read the contract riders and we would have structural fiscal issues. So in the middle of a huge contract rider I had them put there will be no brown M&M’s in the back seat area..or the promoter would forfeit the show at full price. If I came backstage, having been one of the architects of this lighting and staging and I saw brown M&Ms on the catering table..then guaranteed the promoter had not read the contract rider and we had to do a serious line check because we had danger issues or accidental issues”
Whenever Roth arrived at an arena, he would go backstage to check the bowl of M&Ms. If he saw brown M&Ms he knew that the promoter had not read the contract carefully and so a serious line check would need to be conducted at a huge expense..oh and he also made sure to extravagantly and ceremoniously trash the dressing room to feed the rumor that this was about rock star petulance.
Rather than checking hundreds of things..he had to check one!
There are many ways to think about the Brown M&M test. Lets explore a couple
Teach your garden to weed itself
What was the problem David Lee Roth faced? The problem was the ‘weeding’ out of the cowboy concert promoters from those that had read the contract. In game theory speak, what he had was a ‘pooling equilibrium’ i.e the pool of concert promoters as a whole where it was difficult to know who had read the contract and who didn’t. What he needed was a ‘separating equilibrium’ where he could pick out the ‘true’ concert promoters by the signal they sent i.e a bowl with no brown M&Ms i.e they had read the contract.
The brown M&M test in this instance is designing an environment where the bad actors ‘weed’ themselves out.
In the realm of hiring, it could be argued that a university degree sends such a signal. If not perhaps a direct reflection of skill, a degree does prove that the candidate has persistence, grit and will not flake at the first sign of trouble.
But how about for positions that do not require a degree? Is there a way of ‘teaching the garden to weed itself’ ? Lets say for call centre customer service reps?
Enter Zappos
Zappos is a US based online shoe store that sold to Amazon for a billion dollars. Before that they had established a reputation for being maniacal about customer service. The stories of of their reps going through extraordinary lengths to make their customers happy are almost mythical.
For Zappos getting the right people on the phones is essential. This is where the ‘offer’ comes in
During the onboarding period, after the candidates are put through a rigorous interview screening process, they are offered a chance to quit. The offer is $2000 to walk out the door no questions asked. All they have to do is surrender their eligibility to ever work at Zappos.
As Tony Hseih, former CEO of Zappos says, “It’s really putting the employee in the position of ‘Do you care about the money or do you care about this culture and this company’ And if they care more about the easy money, then we probably aren’t the right fit for them”
For Tony Hseih and Zappos a candidate taking the easy $2000 would be worth the long term costs of replacing a bad hire..not to mention the detriment to the company’s culture.
The (brown) Point of Leverage
Another way to think about the Brown M&M test is the doing the ‘one’ vs doing the ‘many’ to achieve an outcome i.e checking the bowl of M&M’s vs checking every single nut and bolt to make sure the promoters read the contract
Gary Keller in his book ‘The One Thing’ suggests that a to-do list leads you astray, what is required is a success list. Equality is a worthy goal to be pursued in the name of justice and human rights..however in the world of results things are never equal. And the trap we fall into is that the best decision gets traded for any decision and real progress succumbs to busy work.
And to quote our venerable former prime minister the Hon. Bob Hawke “the things that are the most important dont always scream the loudest”
Progress and achievement come down to having an eye for the essential and having a clear sense of priority. A to-do list gets you through your day, focusing on the essential builds a body of work.
The Pareto principle or the ‘80/20 rule’ has established that in any endeavor extraordinary results are created from a minority of actions. Not everything matters equally some things matter more than others
So identifying that 20% is important, but can we go smaller? According to Keller it comes down to ONE thing i.e the point of action at the intersection of your purpose and the choices laid out in front of you. The question to ask yourself to get you there is:
‘What’s the ONE thing I can do | such that by doing it | everything else will be easier or unnecessary’
For Van Halen it was the brown M&Ms, for Zappos it was the $2000 offer
The ‘such by doing it’ part of the question is key for it forces you to dig deep. It’s the bridge between just doing something and doing something for a specific purpose. Also it suggests that when you do this ONE thing something else is going to happen. The Greek astronomer Archimedes once said “Give me a lever long enough and I could move the world” . The last part of the question is the test of leverage. Its the flicking of a tiny domino, so that it topples over the slightly bigger domino, and that knocks over a slightly bigger one and so on..
It asks you to put blinders on and focus on the smallest but the most leveraged point.
Conclusion
Problems are hard. The easy ones are usually taken care of and the tough ones linger. This essay is really about being a bit cheeky about how you go about solving problems. Or as the Freakanomics authors call it ‘How to think like a freak’ (see reference below). This essay looks at the macro and the micro. The macro in the sense of how do you design a system such that problem takes care of itself by weeding the bad actors out. And the micro i.e looking at yourself, looking internally and deciding what your purpose is, deciding what your priorities are and then doing the one thing that will get you there.
References:
This essay borrowed a lot from the below. Please check them out
1. This episode of the amazing Freakanomics podcast
2. Think Like a Freak by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
3. The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
4. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose by Tony Hsieh
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