Who would have thought that David Lee Roth, the former lead singer of Van Halen, would contribute lessons in management for today's managers and CEOs? Well, guess what, Van Halen and their roadies were smarter than most.

In his autobiography, David Lee Roth, wrote that their touring contract demanded that at each venue backstage there would be a bowl of M&Ms with all of the brown ones removed. To most that sounds like the demands of some quirky rock stars, right?

There was actually a very valid reason for this demand. At each venue, the band arrived with nine 18 wheelers full of gear. Stage setup was quite complicated and had to be done with the precision of a Swiss watch. The touring contract demanded very specific requirements of each venue. For example, one section stipulated, "There will be 15 amperage voltage sockets at 20-foot spaces, evenly, providing 19 amperes."

According to David Lee Roth, that touring contract was voluminous and read "like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages". Buried in the middle of the contract, Article 126 read, "There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation."

When Roth arrived at a new venue, he would walk backstage and check out the M&Ms bowl. If he saw a brown M&M in the bowl, he'd demand a line check of the entire production. He knew from past experience that when the promoter did not read the contract fully, that other problems and technical errors would occur unless they fully vetted the production setup prior to the show.

So the brown M&Ms were just a warning signal or red flag that indicated bigger issues might arise that could threaten the successful completion of the concert at that venue. It was his way of ensuring that the management and stagehands at the new venue were indeed paying attention to every detail and had read the contract thoroughly.

The management lesson here is to identify a few small telltale items in your operational processes that will expose bigger problems before they have a chance to incubate and do major damage to your business. Work with your management team to identify the red flag items and monitor them closely. That way you can optimize your operation and continue leading the field in your chosen business sector.

Who would have thought that we could learn smart management techniques from a rock and roll band that performed, Hot for Teacher and Runnin with the Devil? Surely, we are as smart as a seventies rocker, aren't we? We are...if we learn from them. My thanks to Chip and Dan Heath for writing about David Lee and Van Halen in their "Made to Stick" column in the March 2010 issue of Fast Company magazine.

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