I read recently that there are plans to release a sequel to “This is Spinal Tap”, the 1980s fake documentary about a heavy metal band that never existed. While in retrospect I don’t think the original aged particularly well1, I did learn one very important lesson from that movie. I’d like to share that with you today.
First, though, I need to set the stage. The movie documents the career of Spinal Tap, a supposedly world-famous British heavy metal band. As was de rigeur in the 80s, they have a perpetually stoned guitarist (Nigel) who is not nearly as smart, insightful, or funny as he thinks he is.
The band has a song called “Stonehenge,” and in one scene Nigel is talking about the production he wants to do with that song at the next show. His big idea is that as the band starts to play, giant replicas of the Stonehenge monuments will drop down from the ceiling. Then, while the band plays the rest of the song, dwarves will come out and dance around in the shadows of the monuments.
As he’s describing this, he sketches out on a napkin a diagram of what the monuments should look like. But, since he’s perpetually stoned and not particularly detail-oriented, he labels the diagram in inches instead of feet. Without bothering to check the details, the manager takes the napkin and says something like “Don’t worry about it, I’ll make it happen.”
When the night of the show arrives, the monuments, each about a foot and a half tall, drop from the ceiling. Instead of the monuments towering over the dwarves, the dwarves tower over the monuments. The song, needless to say, doesn’t go well.
After the show, the band is yelling at each other about what went wrong, and eventually decides that since the manager took the sketch and had the monuments made, it must be his fault. He defends himself by saying, roughly, “Nigel’s the artistic genius here; I just took his sketch and did what I was told to do.”
Okay, now that I’ve set the stage, I can get to the lesson I learned from all this. That spiritual lesson was the band’s response to the manager, which was essentially:
Yes, but it’s your job to be less confused than he is.
This can be a very powerful reminder for me. There are many times when I encounter someone in the world who, for one reason or another, is confused. Maybe they’re in the grip of powerful emotions that are impacting their ability to see things clearly. Maybe they’re so focused on their short-term goals that they’re unable to see the bigger picture. Maybe they’re so focused on the things that they already know that they’re unable to open their mind to learn something new.
Or, maybe the nature of our relationship is such that it’s incumbent on me to be less confused. Maybe I’m their boss, or sponsor, or coach, or they have asked me to help them in some way. In any of these cases, it can be very helpful for me to remember that it’s my job to be less confused than they are.
Being less confused than they are involves understanding why they are seeing things the way they are, and what they’re hoping to get out of the situation. It involves being patient with them as they get some additional clarity on the situation, or sometimes as they don’t get that clarity. It involves not taking the situation personally, so that I can maintain a clear perspective without my emotions taking over. It involves maintaining empathy for their experience, whatever it is and however confused I think they might be about it.
Being less confused than they are usually also means staying future- and solution-focused. It means not getting stuck with them if they go down the path of asking why this is all happening to them. It involves staying focused on whatever the real issue is—making sure that our priorities are appropriate—and not getting side-tracked by anything tangential.
Now, it’s important to note that this I’m not suggesting that we be arrogant or dismissive or cavalier about whatever it is they’re confused about. For example, it’s almost never a good idea to tell the person that I’m trying to be less confused than they are. 😊 And, I know that arrogance and condescension is a place that I can go to the detriment of myself and everyone around me; being less confused than they are is not a recipe for trying to make their decisions for them.
But, if I remember that they might be confused, and that everyone will be better off if I can respond with patience, empathy, and solution-focus, things usually go better than if I don’t.
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- There were probably about a dozen individual minutes of absolutely hysterical humor embedded in almost 2 hours of not-so-funny action. ↩