Craig Colby's Blog, page 2

GET BACK to Work: What the New Beatles Documentary Tells Us About Workplace Dynamics.

by Craig Colby

I watched all eight hours of Get Back, Peter Jackson’s new documentary about the Beatles, for one reason. It was a rare chance to see one of the greatest bands ever do their jobs during one of their most contentious times. I’m fascinated with how people work, particularly creative people. It’s easy to forget that art is the product of labour. It’s work! Watching the Beatles, I found some workplace takeaways we can all apply in our lives.

The Beatles had work life balance

The Beatles worked during the day and went home at night. The work was important, but not to the exclusion of family. All the Beatles wives showed up at one point. Yoko Ono was there the entire time, usually sitting right next to John, silently, as the band worked through the songs. At one point, with a deadline looming, the Beatles decided to work on the weekend, but only on Saturday. They saved Sunday for themselves and their loved ones.

Takeaway – Even culture-shaping work like a new Beatles album takes a back seat to your loved ones. Protect our time with them.

Don’t be the one idea guy

The Beatles weren’t just making an album. They planned to shoot a documentary of the creation of the new album and finish with a live television concert. Michael Lindsay-Hogg oversaw both. The Beatles favoured shooting the concert in a studio or setting up a surprise event, like playing in Parliament until the police threw them out. Lindsay-Hogg was insistent that the Beatles, who had not played a concert in two and a half years, belonged to the world, and the concert should reflect that. He wanted the concert staged at the ruins of an amphitheater in Tripoli. The reception from the band was lukewarm at best, but the director kept pushing, adding helicopter shots and a boatload of fans shipped in from England (perhaps on the Queen Elizabeth II). The Beatles indulged him, but the idea died when John asked who would be footing the bill for this huge production. The longer Lindsey-Hogg hammered at the idea, the more his authority diminished.

Takeaway - Read the room. If an idea isn’t working move on to your next one, and you should have a next one and another one after that.  

Sometimes you need to walk

There was tension amongst the Fab Four. Their manager, Brian Epstein, died the previous year, so the man who guided much of their decision making was gone, leaving the Beatles to work things out for themselves. Paul tried to fill the void – which wasn’t always well-received - including creating the current album-documentary-TV show project. Just two weeks had been slotted to complete the songs, then perform. On the seventh day, George and Paul bickered, which was caught on camera.

There are three pillars of workplace happiness, two of which are being appreciated and being heard (we’ll get to the third later). George felt like he was neither. Unhappy with the work dynamic and that it was being filmed, George walked away, leaving a note saying he quit the Beatles.

After an angry jam session, the rest of the Beatles decided to visit George to see if they could work it out. It took two face-to-face negotiations but when the Beatles went back to work, they were in a recording studio, not a sound stage, and the deadline for the project had been extended.

Takeaway – Sometimes you need to leave the table to get the deal you want.

Respect for coworkers

Immediately after George walked, John, clearly upset, suggested replacing him with Eric Clapton. Paul and Ringo didn’t bite.  Being a good filmmaker, Lindsey-Hogg sat down with Paul McCartney and his soon-to-be-wife Linda Eastman, and asked about the tension in the band, particularly prodding at Yoko Ono’s constant presence. While Paul acknowledged that it wasn’t ideal, he was quick to explain John’s point of view, that the couple wanted to be together all the time and it wasn’t his place to tell John otherwise. He also said John would choose Yoko over the band. Paul was honest about his own feelings, but empathetic to his coworkers’ too.

So, despite the drama, the Beatles resolved their issues and finished two albums afterwards.

Takeaway – Don’t gossip about your coworkers.

Introduce new talent

Pianist Billy Preston dropped in on the sessions, something George had suggested earlier. When Preston started playing along, the Beatles struggles with the arrangements ended instantly. John was so pleased he called Preston the fifth Beatle. Having a guest in the group may have put the band on their best behaviour too.

Takeaway – Bringing in someone with a fresh take can add a new spark to a stale work environment.

Authority figure needed

When work resumed, George Martin, the Beatles producer was a constant presence, on the periphery wearing a suit. He looked like authority. Martin didn’t weigh in, but it was clear that an arbiter was present.  The following sessions were productive.

Takeaways –Sometimes the only contribution a boss needs to make is to be there for support.

Be empathetic

Near the end of the recording, John mentioned to Paul that this project had turned away from Paul’s vision to something the rest of the band wanted. It was an acknowledgement of a partner’s potential disappointment and an opening to talk. Paul looked a little let down but agreed that they needed to do what the group wanted. The exchange was short, respectful and meaningful. 

Takeaway – Even if you don’t agree with a colleague, showing you respect their point of view, and their efforts can improve a working relationship.

Be Flexible

The Beatles blew past their two-week deadline, cancelled the live TV show, changed locations and altered the group dynamics. The concert wasn’t played in Tripoli or at Parliament. The crew set up equipment on the roof of the Apple office building and ran wires down to the recording studio. The short concert created the disruption Paul had wanted. The weeks of recording also created all the songs on Let It Be and some on Abbey Road. Despite the challenges the band was facing they created high quality work in volume.

Takeaway – Initial plans and deadlines are often best guesses. Make decisions that will lead to the best product.

Creatives should have the final word

In the end, the band members made the final decisions, which turned out to be the right ones. They cranked out absolute classics – Get Back, Let It Be, The Long and Winding Road, Across the Universe, Two of Us, Oh Darling, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Octopus’s Garden, Something. The Beatles’ final concert, on Apple’s roof, became an iconic moment in their legacy. Filmmaker Lindsay-Hogg took a back seat to everything except production of the documentary. His camera assignment for the concert is bang-on – five cameras to capture the performance on the roof with the Beatles, one on a roof across the street, three in the street to capture the crowd reaction and, the most inspired choice of all, a hidden camera in the reception of the Apple Studios office to capture the inevitable arrival of the police.

Takeaway – Creatives should lead creative endeavors and expertise needs to be respected.

It’s clear from the film that the Beatles were having trouble. That shouldn’t be a surprise. They had been in the same basic work situation for the better part of a decade. Each band member needed to grow (the third pillar of workplace happiness). That meant leading their own projects. The Beatles would break up less than a year later. Still, using healthy workplace practices led to exceptional results.

Takeaway – The Beatles showed us that even in a challenging work environment you can still find ways to Come Together.

Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses.

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The Burning Heart of Thunder Bay

by Craig Colby

The Fire

“The Hoito is on fire”.

My friend Relita Hagberg said this as I dropped off Christmas presents at her house in Thunder Bay. It’s a shocking statement. The Hoito, a restaurant on Bay Street in city’s north side, is an institution. My wife and I both grew up in Thunder Bay. We have Hoito t-shirts and a water colour print of the building hanging in our Toronto home. I decided to drive by to see how bad it was.

The situation wasn’t bad. It was tragic. Flames leapt through the collapsed roof of the large brick building as I pulled into the Italian Hall parking lot next door. I got out of the car and walked surprisingly close, within 100 yards. Water streamed onto the fire from a hose attached to a long ladder. Plumes of smoke and steam ascended high into the pitch-black sky. What I could see was bad, but the worst was still obscured. More flames peeked through the thick black and grey billows. There was no way this beloved landmark could survive the damage from fire and water. Several hundred people watched on a night that would live forever in Thunder Bay history. We were witnessing the end of an era.

Saying “the Hoito is burning’ was only partly accurate. The building itself was the Finnish Labour Temple, which opened in 1910 as a place to better the lives of the large Finnish community who had been settling on the north shore of Lake Superior since the 1870’s.  The large structure with a three-story tower in the front was named a National Historic Site in 2015. It housed a Local, a Temperance Society, library and a newspaper.  As important as those services were, it was the basement restaurant that opened in 1918, the Hoito, that resonated with the wider community. It was established so that Finnish workers coming in from jobs in the forest would have a place to get a good meal at a good price.  The menu was varied, but the star was Finnish pancakes, thinner and chewier than their buttermilk counterpart, but no less delicious. The décor was straight-down-the-middle diner, with a coffee bar and standard tables, an understated setting for a comforting meal. The Hoito was a place to relax and be yourself.

I moved permanently from Thunder Bay after I graduated from university in 1988. Working at Canada Malting, a malthouse and grain elevator on the harbour, paid me enough to put me through school. As every former resident will tell you though, you may leave Thunder Bay, but it never really leaves you.  It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Hoito to people who haven’t lived here, but I’m going to try. You have to understand the make-up of the city before you can appreciate the Hoito’s place in it.

The Reputation

Right now, Thunder Bay has a bad reputation across the country. Recent headlines have given Thunder Bay a national identity as the murder capital of Canada. It’s also known as a racist city because of some horrifying headlines - the deaths of seven First Nations youths and of a woman who died after being hit by a trailer hitch thrown at her by a man in a passing car. My friends who have remained at the Lakehead bristle at these labels, but I’ve seen the racism here first-hand. In the last year, three people I’ve met, two Indigenous and one black, have immediately responded to the mention of Thunder Bay with “that city is so racist” then recounted personal experiences to bear that out. So yeah, it’s a problem here. But it’s not a problem exclusive to here. It’s also an incomplete picture of my hometown.

The Treasures

If you ask the people of Thunder Bay to list the things that identify the city, I’d wager the following would be the top three. The first is the Sleeping Giant. Technically, it’s a peninsula on the traditional territory of the Fort William First Nations. Visually, it’s a man lying on his back, always present across the harbour. Culturally, he is Nanabijou, the Spirit of the Deep Sea Water, who, in one version of the legend, turned to stone to protect the Ojibway’s silver mine from exploitation by the white man. The legend speaks to the complicated history of relationships here, but it is embraced by all of Thunder Bay’s residents.

The second would be the persian, a cinnamon bun with pink icing only found here. It was created by Art Bennet of Bennet’s Bakery in the 1940s and named after General John “Black Jack” Pershing, a World War I general who happened to visit Art while he was making the dough. So beloved is this mouth-watering treasure, that Nucci’s, the successor to Bennet’s Bakery, sells buns by the dozen separately from the frosting to Thunder Bay expats taking them home on airplanes, along with the advice that you have to pack the frosting in your checked bag to avoid it being confiscated as a liquid. At the airport, in the shop past the security gate, tubs of the frosting are sold to passengers who did not heed this advice.

The third, of course, is the Hoito. More than just a restaurant, this cultural institution speaks to the best of this hardy community, lodged on the rocky shores of unforgiving Lake Superior. It was created to help people, to provide a good meal at a reasonable price. Its menu embraces the restaurants Finnish roots. Cultural diversity is a common theme in Thunder Bay, where people gather for drinks at the Italian Hall, line up for perogies and cabbage rolls at the Polish legion, and regale visitors with the legend of Nanabijou. Every background contributes to the whole. You didn’t have to be Finnish to belong at the basement restaurant in the Finnish Labour Temple Building. Everyone, from every background, would come to the Hoito, our complicated history crowding at simple tables, together. There was always a long line to get in.

That’s why the pictures and videos of the fire on social media have been met with comments like “heartbreaking” and “it’s a tragedy,” My media friends, who either featured the Hoito in television programs (I’ve sent two productions there myself) or just stopped for a meal, reacted with shock. In their brief visits they felt the power of the Hoito. For my Thunder Bay expat friends, who regularly posted pictures of persians or Nanabijou or the Hoito on social media as a sign that they had come home, the fiery images were a stab in the heart. “This is devastating” was the common theme.

The Resolve

But this story is not over. The Hoito is about to show another aspect of Thunder Bay, perhaps unfamiliar nationally but well know locally. This town is tough. People here don’t endure the frigid winters. They turn them into playgrounds filled with outdoor hockey rinks, ski hills, snowmobiles and ice fishing huts. This city does what it takes to solve a problem. Thunder Bay survived downturns in the main industries of forestry and the grain elevators by embracing biotechnology and life sciences.   The city is tackling the racism problems too. The local public library board established an Indigenous advisory council, opened facilities to smudging ceremonies, and shares space with the Anishinabek Employment and Training Services. Thunder Bay has also produced the most NHL players per capita.  That level of toughness speaks for itself. The Hoito is about to become another example of Thunder Bay’s fortitude.

After being shut down because of a financial crisis caused by the pandemic in 2020, a former resident, Brad McKinnon, bought the place and was renovating the building, preparing to reopen. The fire has altered the plan, but not changed the goal. McKinnon says they’ll tear down the charred remains and rebuild.

No, the Hoito won’t be the same, but neither is Thunder Bay. It’s emerged from its own fires, working through the pain, building towards something better. While they wait, Thunder Bay residents will have to find comfort with a delicious persian, the reassuring presence of Nanabijou, and the knowledge that the Hotio’s simple pleasures will return to this complicated, but resilient, town.

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Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses.

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Social Inbreeding on the Information Highway and Two Roads That Lead To a Better World

by Craig Colby

“Sharia law declared in Iowa City”. I saw a post with a headline like this on my Facebook news feed. It was accompanied by a picture of several women in full black Niqab. I clicked the link. A warning popped up saying the site contained misinformation. The warning was right. The story was a complete lie.

The link had been posted by an acquaintance from high school named Chris. I told him in the comments that the story was false. Chris quickly thanked me. Not for pointing out the misinformation though. My comment had earned Chris a dinner of wings and beer from his friends. He bet his buddies that if he posted this lie, one of his libtard friends would jump in and correct him. Chris congratulated me on taking the bait. We had a brief exchange, during which I pointed out that sharing these lies creates problems for Muslims, including some of my neighbours. In the end, I called Chris an anatomically unflattering name and unfriended him.  I don’t dump people for having different opinions, but I will for spreading hate. Chris had it coming, but it also meant he had one less dissenting voice in his social media circle when he posted harmful lies.

I thought about Chris when a Muslim family was killed by a 20-year-old white man in his pickup truck. Not much has been released about the driver except that he targeted his victims because of their religion. How much material like this had the killer seen? What echo chamber had spurred him to murder?

Hate crimes are on the rise across the board. Social media, especially Facebook, has been tagged as a likely contributor. It feeds people more of what they like, encouraging sameness, and prioritizes posts that get a lot of reactions. This means volatile material appears more frequently in news feeds. Homogeny and hate go hand-in-hand so that tech giants can make money on the information highway. It’s bad for the world but good for business.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Commerce once drove the mixing of cultures.  In 130 B.C.E. the Han Dynasty opened the Chinese border to start trade with the west. This was the beginning of the Silk Road, a trade route through Asia and Europe, where different cultures mixed to exchange their treasures. Technological advancements migrated from country to country too. Paper, and the methods used to make it, moved from China to Europe. Buddhism travelled from India to China. Renaissance themes appeared in Hindu temples. By appreciating our differences, the world became a better place.

Comparing the results of the Information Highway and the Silk Road teaches us an important lesson. Diversity is better for the world.  Social inbreeding only leads to deformities. 215 children in a mass grave at a residential school site in Kamloops B.C. are a testament to what happens when one society thinks everyone needs to be like them.  We need to do better.

We can’t let people entrenched in their own superiority, whether it’s based in culture, religion, gender, colour or orientation, get away with spreading discrimination, but there has to be a better way to do it than the one I chose with Chris. A cussing out rarely achieves a positive result, as any episode of Jerry Springer will show you. I still haven’t figured out a way to influence the isolationists. However, there’s a current transportation route that might show us the way. You can find that perfect example on the Old Town Road.

In 2019 rapper/singer/songwriter Lil Nas X remixed his song, Old Town Road, with vocals from country star Billy Ray Cyrus. Over 18 million units were sold of a collaboration between a young, black, gay, urban artist teamed with an old, white, straight, country star. You couldn’t’ walk down the street without hearing kids singing it. Their collaboration went to number 1 and earned two Grammy awards.  A lyric from the song insists “can’t nobody tell me nothing”, but this song did more by showing than telling anyway.

We need more coming together and being loud about it.  The entrenched isolationists aren’t going to listen to anything we say.  Maybe they’ll come around, though, if they see diversity enough to figure out its value for themselves. Jackie Robinson smashing the colour barrier in baseball was an inspiration to societal integration. The Pride Movement led the way to public support for gay marriage. We haven’t arrived at a happily mixed Promised Land yet, but we’re way further down the road because brave people showed us that we’re better together.

When we get past the pandemic, let’s really be together, as publicly as possible.  To beat a system built on sameness, let’s post pictures with our friends who are defined differently than ourselves. Go public with our thoughts on the strengths of diversity as much as possible. And when you see those posts from your friends, like, comment and share the hell out of them. That’s what puts those posts into the algorithm’s rotation. We need to be like Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus. Our shared experience is the horse we need to ride ‘til we can’t no more. Maybe I’m naïve to think sharing some pictures can make a difference, but this is the road that leads where I want to go.

#BetterTogether

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Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses.

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What 215 Children's Bodies Tell Us About Canada Today

by Craig Colby

215 children’s bodies in a mass grave. The youngest was three years old.

The remains were discovered by ground radar, on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops B.C., the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced.

Even that limited amount of information says a lot, not just about what happened in the past, but where Canada is today.

The number itself tells us that children at this school were regularly killed, either through intent or neglect. The school was open from 1890 to 1978 with a peak enrollment of 500 students. It’s unlikely that half the school’s population died in one big purge. This must have been a steady stream of fatality.

Worked Into the System

If that’s the case, the mass grave reveals a system created to dispose of a child’s body secretly. If the new guy at school killed a child, or if one died because of malnutrition or disease, one of the senior staff would have to show this new employee what to do with the body. “You put the corpse here” would be part of the system like “this is where you do your laundry” or “the cleaning supplies are in this closet”.

The mass grave also tells us the deaths were covered up. 51 deaths were reported at the school over the years. Therefore, there are at least 164 deaths unaccounted for at this school alone. The children’s lives weren’t honoured with a ceremony. They weren’t returned to their homes so their families could grieve. They were thrown out like trash.

 The cover up shows that the deaths were okay with whoever was running the school. No one reported them to their superior, or the school system, or the church, or the government. There were no investigations to find the guilty and no procedures were put in place to prevent anything like this from happening in the future. The disposal of children was just part of getting things done.

The entities getting things done were the two most powerful forces in the country, the government and the church. Their goal was never education. Their goal was to eliminate Indigenous culture and lives. The schools have been referred to as cultural genocide. The mass grave tells us that the softening descriptor of “cultural” doesn’t go far enough. Genocide is the only word you need here.

The bodies were discovered through the efforts of the the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. Despite Truth and Reconciliation and a formal apology, the government isn’t unearthing Canada’s terrible history.   That work is left to the victims.

“Moral Superiority”

When I moved to Thunder Bay, Ontario from Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1971, I heard over and over again that the United States was terrible, and Canadians were just naturally better. I was assured that Canadians were more educated, kinder, less racist. The underground railroad was trotted out time and time again. One colleague said flat out that what Canada really had over the United States is “moral superiority.” 215 young bodies tell a different story.

I’ve listened to white people complain about Indigenous people, either because of perceived traits, government payouts or free education. I’ve heard claims that the residential schools did a lot of good, even after the horrible truth came out. I can’t even repeat some of the phrases used or venom spewed about the people who have been crushed under the bootheels of white expansion.

It’s Not Just History

Canadian history is as horrible as anyone else’s. Until Canadians own their villainous past, we can’t fix our ugly present.  In this century Indigenous women have been abandoned and forced into sterilization. First Nations communities still lack clean drinking water. None of that will change until white Canadians quit being smug about a moral superiority that doesn’t exist.

Canadians need to call this what it is. The two pillars of colonial society stole children, killed them and hid the bodies. They didn’t create schools, they built concentration camps.  The number of children killed at these institutions is believed to be 4,100 but we don’t know for sure. The government and the church haven’t bothered to find out how many children they killed let alone who they were. It hasn’t ben a priority. This is what white supremacy looks like in Canada.

The 215 dead children aren’t a tragedy from a terrible past. They are the evidence of a white supremacist society that continues today. That’s what needs to change.

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 Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses.

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What Do We Do With the COVID-19 Freedom Fighters?

by Craig Colby

My son Curtis, 12, doesn’t like needles. He was ready for this one though. Curtis was seated at a table in a hockey arena with two nurses. One was across from him, the other across from his brother Shane, 16. I took pictures as they received their first dose of Pfizer. They posed for a victory photo afterwards. I teared up a little. The tide was finally turning. The end of the pandemic was approaching. But the events of the week made me worry about one problem that will come with recovery.

As we stood in a long line outside the arena, a man in his 40s marched past everyone, unmasked and way too close, spouting conspiracy theories and deriding us for getting the shot. I’d like to dismiss him, but he’s not a one-off.

Death and Protests

A week earlier, I was waiting in the car while my wife Nancy was getting her vaccination. A social worker from a local hospital was being interviewed on CBC Radio.  She was talking about the horrors of the current wave of the pandemic. COVID-19 patients in this wave were younger and were falling critically ill faster. She said that when people were intubated this time it was almost a certain death sentence. She talked about children who were orphaned because both parents had died within a week. The deaths had kept her busy for 14 hours a day for months. The suffering made me angry.

While I listened to the social worker, protesters were marching downtown in the World Wide Rally for Freedom. A few friends posted about their attendance on social media.  Thousands railed against wearing a mask, social distancing or getting a vaccine. People I knew who were attending the rally explained their rationale the same way. They don’t believe the science. They trust their own instincts. Their willful ignorance made me angry.

COVID Hits Home

I would get angrier later in the week. At my Wednesday morning networking group, I’d learned that one of our members, Angela, was just getting out of the ICU after catching COVID-19. She had been rushed from Scarborough to Kingston and intubated for 8 days. Angela is a chronic illness coach and mindfulness facilitator. She was born with a heart condition which has required seven surgeries. She’s also battled lung ailments. Angela is the most emotionally resilient but physically vulnerable of our group. Fortunately, she’s recovering, but who knows how long that will take. Angela’s illness made me angry.

There’s a lot to be angry about. A heaping helping of my anger, though, is reserved for the people who looked at a disease that is affecting everyone in the world and that requires all of our help to address and whose biggest concern was “what about me”.  They protest against inconvenience and only listen to the voice in their heads. Their selfishness and arrogance have been paid for with other people’s lives. They’re also holding back the recovery created by the incredible efforts of scientists and medical workers.

What Now?

What do we do about them? My emotional reaction is to ostracize them. I want to remember who they are and avoid them at all costs. Being able to do that would give me some control at a time when we’ve had little. But making a group of people “the other” is a terrible idea. We’re seeing why every night on the news.

I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion about the violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The only thing that seems clear is that hate is winning, and when hate wins everyone else loses.

So, what am I going to do about COVID-19 Freedom Fighters? First, I’m going to stop defining them by one issue. Humans are more complex than that. One of the people I know who attended the rally is a lovely person who I enjoy working with. She busts her butt on set and is friendly to everyone. Another wears a mask in places that require it, but she disagrees with the way the pandemic has been handled. I’ve also enjoyed working with her.

Second, when I discuss this topic with them, I’m going to start by listening. How can I expect them to see a different point of view if I’m not willing to do the same? I don’t have to agree with them. In this case, I know I’m in the right.  That won’t always be the case though. I’ve been wrong plenty of times and will be again. When that happens, I hope people will be patient as they show me what I’m missing.

We can discuss ideas. We can oppose actions. And we have to find ways to live together, especially when we can’t agree.

 

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 Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses.

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Four Meetings and a Funeral for Leadership

In Ontario, we’re more than a year into the pandemic, with vaccines rolling out around the province. Yet, we’re still in lockdown until at least next month. This is what failure looks like.

It’s not a failure of science. Science has come through heroically.  It’s not a failure of compliance. I see masks everywhere I go. Every business I enter has marked out paths and enforces social distancing. This is a failure of leadership. Epic, catastrophic, debilitating failure.

If you want to see leadership fail or fly, pay attention during meetings. Here are examples of how leadership succeeds or sinks in four meetings.

Meeting One

The first meeting is of Doug Ford’s Ontario Conservative Leadership group prior to the April 16th announcement that shut down outdoor activities including at playgrounds and allowed police to stop people to ask why they were out of their houses. Our officials walked into a room with a clear picture of the problem - the virus being spread indoors, primarily at workplaces. They had expert recommendations on how to address the problem – shut down workplaces that aren’t really needed and give paid sick leave to workers in places that are. They walked out of the meeting with actions that didn’t address any of the things causing the problem and shut down things that weren’t. How does that happen?

Meeting Two

You can find a clue in the second meeting, one I attended at work. The head of our department was dissatisfied with an inhouse survey that showed the people at the meeting weren’t happy at work. It was the second survey in a row with that result. Our department head talked for the whole meeting. At one point, about half an hour in, she invited people to speak, indicated that if they didn’t voice their opinions nothing would change, and said their silence would be the reason why. No one spoke.

After the meeting, I hung back once everyone had left. I approached the department head and suggested that there might be a way to structure a meeting that would encourage involvement. The response was “people have to stop complaining.” I didn’t push it, because the department head was clearly frustrated. Instead, I sent her an e-mail with some suggestions and offered to meet with her to discuss them. She didn’t reply to the e-mail.  The problem with that meeting was focus. The meeting wasn’t about the problem, it was about her problem.  This meeting didn’t solve either.

If a leader wants a problem solved, you have to engage your staff.  To do that, you have to get their opinions. To get their opinions, you need to create an environment where people want to speak up. In meetings that I chair, I try to ask for opinions before I give mine, so others aren’t reluctant to disagree. Do that enough and people feel empowered to share their ideas.

Meeting Three

I learned that in the third meeting. My favourite job was at a startup company called High Fidelity HDTV. We launched the first four HD channels in Canada, and my bosses mortgaged their homes to make it happen.  At one of our first meetings, 10 people sat around our boardroom table, every one of them knowing our leaders had bet their futures on this company.  Ken Murphy, one of the owners, stood up and gave us direction on how we would operate. “We want you to feel empowered to make decisions on your own. If you’re ever in a position where you need the input of ownership, but we’re not around, we want you to make the best decision you can. We expect mistakes. We just ask that you learn from them.”  

I walked out of that meeting with a colleague who turned to me and said “that’s the best meeting I’ve ever been in.” From that day forward, everyone spoke their mind.  The staff would also run through a wall, smiling, for our ownership. The best leaders put the focus on the people who will be solving the problems. By the way, that company sold 6 years later for $85 million, making our bosses wealthy men.

Meeting Four

The best meetings I’ve ever seen though are, unfortunately, fictional. When Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek the Next Generation had a big problem, he called a meeting of all his team leads. Picard started by having people identify the problem as they saw it. Then he asked for recommendations. After everyone had spoken, Picard would ask questions. There would be some debate. Then Picard decided.  Those decisions were always fully informed by the experts in the room. Picard’s job was to weigh the value of each person’s expertise given the current situation, then direct people towards the solution.  And lest you dismiss this as pure fiction, I saw the same process play out in the intensive care unit at Sick Kids hospital. This is how the pros do it.

The dismal failure of Ford’s leadership is that their meeting addressed the wrong problem. According to a report in the Toronto Star, the government was more concerned about alienating the people who helped them get elected than following the recommendations from health care experts.  In effect, the meeting was not about the problem, it was about their problem. Their problem was managing their stakeholders, not the pandemic. Therefore, they didn’t value the right opinions.   Therefore, they didn’t address, let alone solve, Ontario’s problem.

As a result, businesses are going under. Children aren’t in school. Our health is taxed, mental and physical. All of those are felt in my home. It’s going to get worse into June at least. The restrictions won’t be lifted until we’re below 1,000 cases a day and at the time I write this there are still 4,000.

The Takeaway

The takeaway from this is simple – leaders don’t have to have all the answers, but they must get the best ones.  Leaders get the best answers from experts in their field. Leaders make sure those ideas are put into action. All of that happens in an effective meeting.

If you’re in a place with leaders that can’t run an effective meeting, I have another takeaway - make a change.  In Ontario, we won’t get to do that until next year. It can’t come soon enough.

 

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 Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses.

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Is the Change Finally Coming?

by Marcelle Edwards

guest columnist

Race wasn’t something I talked about for a long time. By ignoring it, I thought I was treating everyone as an individual, therefore doing my part to diminish the effects of racism. I was wrong. By ignoring the topic, I wasn’t acknowledging what people of colour experience daily.

Most of my conversations about race are with my good friend Marcelle Edwards, who looks at me as a mentor. I wrote about her here. I’ve been reluctant to broach the subject with my Black friends because I don’t want to turn them into “My Black Friends”, but Marcelle often starts the conversations and has been generous with her thoughts and feelings.

She was asked to share her perspective in an article for her workplace. I’m turning over my blog to her today because we need her insight, especially white people. You should also know that the original article was fully footnoted, because when Marcelle speaks her truth, she back it up with reliable sources. Here’s Marcelle’s take on the times.

Marcelle’s Message

I was born by the river, in a little tent Oh, and just like the river

I've been running ever since

It's been a long

A long time coming

But I know a change gonna come Oh, yes it will

When I feel oppressed and have to cope with feelings of neglect, anxiety and anger resulting from racism, I turn to Sam Cooke’s song “A Change is Gonna Come”. It eases my frustration, giving me hope that one day a change will in fact come. Cooke’s beloved song was written to describe many of the civil unrests Black people were facing in the early 1960s. Inequality, lack of voting rights, shooting of unarmed Black men and police corruption were common. Cooke was further inspired by Bob Dylan’s protest song“Blowin’ in the Wind”, and Martin Luther King’s speech “I Have a Dream”.When Cooke was denied entry to whites-only Holiday Inn in Shreveport, Louisiana, he put his ideas into this song.

Cooke never saw the change. He didn't even see the release of his single. “A Change is Gonna Come” was released days after his funeral in December 1964. Hotel Manager Bertha Franklin shot him dead after claiming he broke into her office and attacked her. But his family believes he was set-up because of his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. Cooke’s popularity was growing, crossing colour barriers and entering the homes of White America who were hearing his protests. He refused to play at segregated venues. Cooke also owned his own music, and there was a sense that he was getting too powerful. Music executives wanted Cooke to just focus on his fans, but he was determined. It’s been reported that Cooke’s friends even said, “He was getting too big for his britches for a suntanned man”.

It's been too hard living

But I'm afraid to die

'Cause I don't know what's up there Beyond the sky

It's been a long

A long time coming

But I know a change gonna come Oh, yes it will...

It didn't take long for “Change” to earn a spot on the national pop and R&B charts. Sung straight from Cooke’s heart and soul, it delivers the message of pain, urgency, suffering, determination, desperation, anxiety and hope. Unfortunately, his full voice wasn't heard. The single was released without the third verse, “I go to the movie. And I go downtown. Somebody keep telling me. Don't hang around”. Removing the bold message of segregation was meant to eliminate the politics from an intentionally political song. Fortunately, the full song had already been released on an album.

At the time of the song’s release, Black people’s full voices were not being heard anywhere, especially in the South where they yearned for change. Voting rights were still being denied even after the Civil Rights Act passed a few months before Cooke’s death. In Dallas County, Alabama, more than 50% of the population was Black, but only 2% were registered to votev. Tensions were running high, so the Civil Rights Movement picked up on “Change” immediately. Cooke’s song expressed what was going on, what would happen and what needed to be done.

Civil rights organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) headed by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) led by the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., were faced with fierce pushback when trying to register Black voters. For months, people organized peaceful demonstrations to gain voting rights in Selma, Alabama; but nothing worked. Their voices weren’t heard. On the night of February 18, 1965 things took a tragic turn. As 26-year-old deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson was trying to protect his mother and grandfather from being clubbed by troopers, he was brutally beaten and shot. Days later in the hospital, he died.

Instead of stopping the protesters it fueled their fight, resulting in a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement. On March 7, 1965, 600 unarmed demonstrators took to the streets in Selma, to walk 54 miles to the state capital of Montgomery. Activists John Lewis led the way with King’s colleague, Hosea Williams. Lewis was only 25 years old at the time, but like everyone else in that protest, he wanted the basic right to vote. The demonstrators also detested the “whites only” bathrooms and water fountain. They wanted to voice their grievances directly to Alabama’s Governor George Wallace, a man who arrogantly opposed desegregation. Wallace knew the demonstrators were coming and ordered his state troopers to use any force necessary to stop them.

Hundreds of peaceful protesters arrived at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named after a Civil War Confederate general who became the leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. As they crossed the stark reminder of their oppression, a band of state troopers and local police formed a blockade. A voice over a loudspeaker blared, “This is an illegal gathering. Either go back to your churches or go home”. But the protestors did not leave; they bowed down to pray. That is when things turned ugly.

Then I go to my brother

And I say, “Brother, help me please”.

But he winds up, knockin' me Back down on my knees.

The troopers moved into the crowd of unarmed marchers, striking them with billy clubs and crushing their bones. Tear gas dispersed the crowd. People screamed with burning eyes. Police on horseback chased retreating marchers and continued to brutalize them. A crowd of White onlookers did not intervene. Instead they cheered the troopers as people fell to the ground with each hit. Lewis, his head severely beaten, almost lost his life. It’s almost as if Sam Cooke wrote part of his song to explain this very incident.

Television coverage of the march, showing the violence in real time, triggered national outrage. That day came to be called Bloody Sunday. President Lyndon Johnson called it an American tragedy and addressed the nation with a plea to stop the legacy of bigotry. This led to a federal judge overturning bans on demonstrations in Alabama. Martin Luther King organized another march, and Johnson ordered the National Guard, along with the US Army, to protect them.

This time, Martin Luther King was there with his wife and kids. King delivered his “How Long? Not Long?” speech. Actions of bravery and hope led to the Voting Rights Act, which Black people had been seeking for 300 years. Unfortunately, Sam Cooke would never see the change that was gonna come.

Oh, there been times that I thought

I couldn't last for long

But now I think I'm able, to carry on.

It's been a long

A long time coming

But I know a change gonna come Oh, yes it will.

Sixty years after its release, I’m still listening to “A Change is Gonna Come”. But when will a change come? How many times does this sixties anthem have to soothe my pain when I hear the same news in the twenty-first century? Breonna Taylor, Daniel Prude, Ahmaud Arbery, James Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Dijon Kizzee, Walter Wallace Jr., Johnathan Price, Casey Goodson Jr., Andre Hill...These are all the cases of senseless acts of brutality against Black people in the last 12 months. They all became rallying cries for protestors. Most of them were killed at the hands of police in the USA.

Historic Black Lives Matter protests erupted around the globe 8 months ago, fighting for the basic right to be treated as an equal human life. Then there was the attack on the U.S. Capitol, where supporters of President Trump, almost all of them White, stormed the building with little resistance from the authorities. They waved Confederate flags and hung a noose to scream white supremacy. It is clear that the fight is not over. It is clear that a change STILL needs to come. We are still seeing what Sam Cooke pleads.

The legacy of slavery is still here, deeply entrenched in systemic racism, involving schools, healthcare, workplaces, housing, government, the list goes on. Canada is not exempted from racism. There is a low representation or absence of Black Canadians in leadership roles in all institutions and systems. Black University graduates earn 20 cents less on every dollar earned by White university graduates, even with the same qualifications. More Black youth and children are seen in child welfare systems. Black Canadians are more likely to be victims of hate crimes than any other racial group in Canada. Black people in Toronto are 20 times more likely to be shot by police than white residents.

However, the Civil Rights Movement we are in now is giving me some hope. The crowds at Black Lives Matter protests were filled with people from all different backgrounds and it happened all over the world. There have been actions to root out police brutality. Many institutions have publicly stated that they will work to tear down all forms of systemic racism, increasing not only diversity but also inclusion at all levels. Ontario schools are putting an end to academic streaming in Grade 9 that disproportionately places Black kids in lower levels than their white peers. Monuments honouring racist figures are being torn down.

Things are in motion, but they must not be short–lived victories. We have to keep talking, keep telling the full truth about racial oppression, keep working together, keep moving forward, keep fighting and fully knowing that ending racism starts with each of us. Our voices must finally be heard.

If a change is finally going to come, the change has to be YOU.

Pepe Le Pew vs. Cardi B and What It Means for the Bachelor

by Craig Colby

Every Saturday morning when I was a child, my brothers and I watched a cartoon skunk try to rape a cat. In fairness, he thought the cat was a skunk, because somehow, she always got a big white stripe on her back, so the skunk thought he could have sex with her just because he wanted to. That was the message. The joke was that the skunk didn’t know that he stunk.

It took people a long time to figure out how odious this character was. Pepe Le Pew is finally being pulled off the air. Unfortunately, the response I’m seeing all over my Facebook feed is this: why is Pepe suddenly so bad but everyone is okay with Cardi B?

In case you missed it, Cardi B performed her hit song WAP at the Grammy’s with Megan Thee Stallion. WAP refers to aroused female genitalia. As Grammy host Trevor Noah said, “think of a cat having a bath.” Both the song and its Grammy performance lack subtlety. This is apparently where many in my feed take exception. Why is Cardi B okay and Pepe Le Pew terrible they ask? It’s a one-word answer.

Consent.

A Clear Yes

Yes, Pepe is a cartoon and Cardi B is crude. That actually makes it worse for Pepe. The cartoon skunk persevered while a bulge-eyed cat pushed him away and ran like hell the first chance she got. Pepe always responded with a sly look at the audience, primarily children, and assured them that he won’t stop until he gets what he wants. What kind of message do kids take from that? For boys, it’s “don’t take no for an answer”. For girls, it’s “they’re coming for you.” 1 in 4 North American women will be sexually assaulted. It’s a shocking number, but should it be? Male entitlement was so ingrained in society, it was taught in a cartoon on Saturday morning. Think that’s an overstatement? Guess how many instructional conversations or school videos I was given about consent when I was young? If you guessed a number bigger than zero, you’re wrong.

Now consider Cardi B’s song. What’s more consensual than a Wet Ass Pussy and its owner telling you how much she wants you to enjoy its benefits? Tell me again what’s really offensive here. As for how graphic WAP is, consider this. How many of the people in my feed do you think have complained to me at any point in our lives about Robert Plant singing about squeezing his lemon until the juice runs down his leg, or orgasming during one of his songs? If you guessed a number bigger than zero, you’re wrong.

So, is a skunk aimed at children that normalizes rape culture worse than a song aimed at adults that celebrates a woman’s right to control her sexuality? Yes! Clearly.  So why are people having such a tough time handling this?

A Rose By Any Other Name

The Bachelor faced a similar problem.  The program made a big deal about featuring the first Black Bachelor this season. By the way, the big deal should be that it didn’t happen until season 25.  There are a lot of explanations for why it took so long and none of them are good. Because race was such a part of this season’s premise, no one should be surprised that race was the turning point in the season’s conclusion. Matt James, the bachelor, found out between the second last episode and the finale, that his chosen one, Rachel Kirkconnell, had attended an Antebellum party in 2018. Basically, she dressed as a slave owner, because she and her friends thought that would be fun.

Not only did the problems this created evade her, but they also missed the show’s host, Chris Harrison. He stepped down for the finale after supporting Kirkconnell.

In the final episode, James revealed that, despite their professed love for each other in the previous episode, he had broken up with Kirkconnell. James praised her for now being willing to do the work it takes to understand what it’s like being black in America. From what I saw of her during the show, I have little doubt that the consequences of dressing like a slave owner never occurred to her until she saw the effect it had on James and their relationship.

I Would Not Could Not

That is the real problem. There are far too few conversations about race. There are even fewer about how centuries of white supremacy have affected people of colour. When the conversations are started, a lot of white people push back with indignation. White people lost it when Dr. Suess’s heirs decided a few of his lesser-known books, which contained racial stereotypes, shouldn’t be published anymore. Indignant, and incorrect, memes talking about cancelling the Cat in the Hat were shared on white people’s feeds.

How can we move forward when putting away problematic parts of the past is protested? We can’t sacrifice books we’ve never read for someone else’s wellbeing? What the hell is wrong with us?

None Are So Blind

It took losing a potential husband for Rachel Kirkonnell to realize the consequences of her actions. Thar’s why the Bachelor finale may be the most important show of the year. A whole lot of people who hadn’t given a thought to the fallout of their entitlement may finally realize why they, like Kirkconnell, should start putting in the work. It’s not always easy to realize the environment that produced you also created problems for other people.

White privilege and male sexual entitlement are like the vapor cloud that followed Pepe Le Pew as he bounced through life, carefree and oblivious to the damage he caused. It’s hard to stop the toxic actions that hurt other people when you’re not even of aware of your own stink.

 

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Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses.

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