Andy Freed has spent 30 years helping leaders communicate with clarity — but one cross-cultural marketing blunder taught him that clever means nothing if you haven't considered your audience. The CEO of Virtual Inc. and author of “Lead Like the Boss” shares what went wrong, what he learned, and what Bruce Springsteen's set list can teach every leader about preparation and intentional communication.
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My guest for Episode #346 of the My Favorite Mistake podcast is Andy Freed, CEO of Virtual Inc. and author of Lead Like the Boss: The Bruce Springsteen Framework to Elevating Your Leadership. Andy has spent more than 30 years helping leaders communicate with clarity and intention, working with clients ranging from Microsoft and Google to associations and nonprofits. His company has been named a best place to work for more than a decade.
Andy's favorite mistake takes us back to 2006, when his team was helping launch what became the PCI Security Standards Council — a global organization for payment card security. To recruit members worldwide, they created a marketing piece modeled on the classic Uncle Sam “We Want You” poster. It seemed clever until their Japanese partner, JCB, pointed out that American World War II propaganda doesn't land quite the same way in Tokyo. The campaign was already far along, forcing a sharp pivot and teaching Andy a lasting lesson about the cost of viewing your audience through a single cultural lens.
From there, we get into the ideas at the heart of his book — what Bruce Springsteen's meticulous set list preparation teaches leaders about the “think, feel, do” framework, why communication isn't just a leadership skill but is leadership itself, and what it means when Springsteen shakes every musician's hand at the end of a show. Andy also shares practical examples of how well-intentioned messages backfire when leaders skip the audience's emotional reality, and why preparation and self-awareness matter more than positional authority.
Themes and Questions:
- Why “clever” marketing falls apart when you don't consider a global audience — and what Andy's team learned after a Japanese partner flagged their Uncle Sam-style campaign
- The “think, feel, do” framework: why addressing only the rational side of a message guarantees you lose your audience
- How Bruce Springsteen's handwritten set list is really a communication plan — and why most leaders skip that step entirely
- What happens when leaders open PowerPoint before they've asked themselves what the audience needs to hear
- Why Springsteen shakes every musician's hand after every show — and what William James meant by “the deepest human need is the need to be appreciated”
- The difference between people listening to you because of positional authority and people actually following you
- How a company's well-intentioned cafeteria policy drove employees to quit — because nobody thought about how the message would land
- Why Tom Peters was right that leadership is a performance, and what that means for your body language, energy, and even your Zoom lighting
- How to deliver hard messages to clients or teams without losing them — starting with their emotional reality, not your logical case
- The Tiger Woods sand saves story: why self-aware leaders lean into strengths instead of obsessing over weaknesses
- “If nobody can hear you, they're definitely not listening” — preparation as a form of respect for your audience
- Why communication has gotten easier and worse at the same time, and how leaders can push back against that trend
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Communication Is Leyadership, Not Just a Leadership Skill — with Andy Freed
Andy Freed's Favorite Mistake: A Cross-Cultural Marketing Blunder
Mark Graban: Hi, welcome to My Favorite Mistake. I'm your host, Mark Graban. Our guest today is Andy Freed. He is the CEO of Virtual Inc., a strategic consulting and professional services firm. And he is author of the new book available now — I got a pre-publication copy, here it is — Lead Like the Boss: The Bruce Springsteen Framework to Elevating Your Leadership.
It's not “lead like a boss.” The Boss — Bruce Springsteen. Before writing the book, Andy spent more than 30 years helping leaders communicate with clarity and intention, with clients ranging from Microsoft and Google and other tech companies to associations and nonprofits. His company has been named a best place to work for more than a decade.
Andy, welcome to the podcast. How are you?
Andy Freed: Thanks for having me.
Mark Graban: Best workplace for a long time. That's a great honor, and I'm sure that is something to be proud of.
Andy Freed: Something we're very proud of and something we certainly aspire to.
Mark Graban: I will aspire to being a clear communicator here today. You probably won't have any trouble with that as we get into the book and leadership topics. But first off, of course, Andy, we're going to start with the main question like we always do. What's your favorite mistake?
Andy Freed: The big picture is that anytime you don't consider your audience when you're communicating, you leave yourself with a chance to make some good mistakes.
My favorite story on that comes from 2006. We were helping launch a global organization that was going to help with payment card security. It's gone on to become the PCI Security Standards Council. We had the idea — we were trying to get members to this organization from all over the world. Their general manager had a white beard and was kind of a distinctive looking guy. So our marketing team had the idea: let's get a picture of him pointing out from the picture that says, “We want you to be a member of this organization.”
Mark Graban: The Uncle Sam thing.
Andy Freed: Uncle Sam. This is awesome. We are then reminded by JCB, which is basically the American Express of Japan — as it turns out, World War II propaganda is not as popular in Tokyo as one might think.
Mark Graban: Oh no.
Andy Freed: Hearkening back to the nostalgia of American World War II propaganda isn't really what the audience was looking for in Japan. Another example of how if you don't think about your audience from all different angles, you can find yourself backtracking pretty fast. I was looking at that with just an American lens and totally missed the boat. I loved getting that call of, “We think about World War II a little different than you guys do.”
Mark Graban: At what point did that mistake get caught? Was that still during the brainstorming and ideation?
Andy Freed: It was fairly far along at that point. There was a pretty good 90-degree turn that we needed to make.
Mark Graban: Feedback better late than never.
Andy Freed: Feedback better late than never. And now it's one of those things that I've come to remember — just thinking about everything with that global lens and thinking about it through the eyes of my audience, because that's what matters. Even though I thought it was clever, a smaller audience might not have shared that belief.
What Leaders Get Wrong About Audience Awareness
Mark Graban: I imagine one category of not understanding or not considering your audience would be international or cross-cultural elements. I'm sure you've done a lot of work internationally. What was part of your learning from that mistake? To put in some earlier checks or make sure there were people reviewing things?
Andy Freed: Really thinking about everything from that global lens if it's going to go that way. And understanding that there are even words that don't translate from English to English well. Our English is different.
Mark Graban: Yeah.
Andy Freed: Just understanding that everything's going to get perceived by somebody from their own lens, and that lens is going to be very different depending on where they're sitting.
Mark Graban: What was the aftermath of that being pointed out?
Andy Freed: It was understanding. It was really just the sense of, “Hey, we're happy to screen things for you and happy to provide that eye for you.” Just more realization on our part. And it's one of those things for me that's now in my bag of tricks when I work with our team. Let's take a look at this. We're even doing things now like — if we come up with a name for an organization or a domain, let's search that domain name in every language to make sure we haven't picked the French word for something we wouldn't want to pick. Because that happens sometimes.
Mark Graban: It happens all the time.
Andy Freed: It's just a question of being aware of it and thinking about your audience.
Mark Graban: And these stories are funny if you weren't involved in them.
Andy Freed: That's always the way. It's funny until you have 500 of those flyers sitting on your desk.
Why Communication Mistakes Are Getting Worse, Not Better
Mark Graban: What are some of the other categories of mistakes — not considering your audience? I think of a speaker in a field like mine. I have to be aware, am I speaking to an audience with a similar technical and jargon background, or am I speaking to a general public audience?
Andy Freed: I think people make these mistakes more and more these days because communication has gotten too easy. If I want to do a presentation, people think, “I'm just going to open PowerPoint and start cranking out slides because I can.” And now with AI it makes it even easier to do that. If I want to communicate with somebody in Japan, I can just click a button on Teams and there they are on my screen. There's no 12-hour flight to get there and forethought.
I think people are making these mistakes more because communication has ostensibly gotten easier. People just start in the middle. “I need to communicate. I'm cranking out slides. Here we go.” They haven't thought about what people need to hear, thought about what the audience is, and ultimately what they want that audience to think, feel, and do.
Mark Graban: There's a huge difference between what I want to say and what my audience needs to hear.
Andy Freed: Absolutely. And if you don't address what they need to hear, they're not going to hear you at all.
Mark Graban: Mm-hmm.
Andy Freed: If they're coming to a meeting from a place of fear and you haven't addressed that fear, they're not going to hear you at all.
The Think, Feel, Do Framework
Mark Graban: Can you think of an example of trying to address that upfront — that fear or whatever emotion?
Andy Freed: There are plenty, but I'll take a pedestrian example that I use in the book. Something as simple as, “We're changing health insurance as a company.” It's really easy to get up and have HR crank out a bunch of slides that says, “New plan X, Y, Z. Old plan X, Y, Z. Now here's how you sign up.”
But if at some point in that you don't acknowledge that everyone in the room is thinking about, “Is this going to cost me more?” and “Can I keep my doctor?” — and they're worried about that — you're losing the audience.
Mark Graban: Mm-hmm.
Andy Freed: If you don't think about that right from the get-go — think about how they feel and people's personal worries about it — they're not going to hear you on the facts. They're never getting to your lovely AI-generated matrix that compares the two plans.
Mark Graban: It sounds like there's a mistake of assuming that people only care about the logic of a situation. Logically, rationally these plans are better. But as humans, we're more complicated than that.
Andy Freed: That's why in the book one of the things I talk about is think, feel, and do. What you just talked about is that rational side, the think. So many people forget about the feel. You think about what your audience feels too. And how do you want them to feel? Do I want them to feel that I have explored every option on healthcare and that I'm on your plan too? This matters to me because I worry about my family, and that's why I want to make sure this is so good. How do I want them to feel? Do I want them to feel safe? Do I want them to feel threatened? What are the things I want them to feel coming out of this? That's something people forget.
And that last step of “do” is all about, “What do I actually want them to do at the end of this?” Making that explicit for folks as well. So often somebody comes up and they just address one of those three things and they miss the boat on being able to really communicate.
Mark Graban: And addressing only two of the three is also not enough.
Andy Freed: It's just not enough. It's a three-legged stool for a reason.
What Bruce Springsteen's Set List Teaches Leaders About Preparation
Mark Graban: Think, feel, and do. Let's talk more about the book. It's Lead Like the Boss: The Bruce Springsteen Framework to Elevating Your Leadership. First off, how did the book come to be, and why a book focusing on Bruce Springsteen?
Andy Freed: I am one of these people who is this close to just selling everything I own and following Bruce and the E Street Band around the country. I would happily do that if I could. I've seen Bruce 95 times live.
Mark Graban: Wow.
Andy Freed: And I'm looking forward to the 96th time on this coming tour. But somewhere along the way I started learning something. I started watching how he was interacting with the band, watching how he was interacting with the audience. I decided years ago — in part probably just to justify my trip to a concert in Phoenix — I did a LinkedIn post about what I had learned from the show. I heard from a lot of folks that it resonated with them, so eventually I chose to turn that into the book. I think there's a lot of lessons every leader can take away, whether you're musical or not, whether you like Bruce or not. There's a lot you can take away from how he stayed on top for 51 years.
Mark Graban: Is the cover photo a photo you took at a show?
Andy Freed: That one is not. There are a couple other photos from shows that I took in there though. I've got a phone full of them.
Mark Graban: Was there any issue of having to reach out to Bruce or his representatives about using his name?
Andy Freed: We talked to his representatives and they couldn't have been more cooperative. They couldn't have been better about everything. Everything you would hope.
Mark Graban: And I'm glad that didn't lead to a mistake story of wanting to write a book.
Andy Freed: Exactly. All of a sudden this becomes “Lead Like the Doobie Brothers” — would've been very different.
Mark Graban: Why is that? I mean, I know who the Doobie Brothers are, but —
Andy Freed: Just would've been different if I lost the rubric of the show that I know so well.
Mark Graban: You're just naming another band that apparently you're a big fan of. So what are some of the core leadership behaviors that we can emulate, that are observable if one of us goes to a show?
Andy Freed: I'll take a couple — one from the beginning of the show and one from the end. From the beginning, Bruce shows don't start when he steps on stage. A Bruce show starts when he's sitting backstage three hours before the show, and he takes out a simple pen and a simple blank sheet of paper and he starts writing out the set list for the show.
That set list is really his version of the think, feel, do exercise. It's: what do I want people to think, feel, and do during this? I know, for example, that Bruce loves to open his shows big. Because he has anxiety and depression, he has said that if he opens the show and the first five minutes has everybody in the audience feel that they've gotten their money's worth, then he can relax.
Mark Graban: Yeah.
Andy Freed: Then there might be a moment where he wants to quiet the audience down so he can tell a story. What's that like? And then there's a moment after the story where he needs to have people back up. What's that like? All of that is carefully scripted in his think-feel-do, which is the set list.
Contrast that to so many people when confronted with, “I need to present to our staff an update next month at a staff meeting.” The first thing they do is open PowerPoint, open last month's update, change the title to this month, and start cranking out slides. They've never thought about where they wanted to go.
Why Springsteen Shakes Every Hand at the End of the Show
Mark Graban: Yeah.
Andy Freed: On the converse — the end of the show. The way Bruce ends every show also struck me as a leader. He ends the show by retreating to the back of the stage, standing there, and shaking the hand and whispering something in the ear of everybody who was on stage with him that night. Right now these E Street Band tours have 19 musicians.
Mark Graban: Mm-hmm.
Andy Freed: When you hear them talk about it, what they say is, “For 20 seconds every night, Bruce Springsteen makes me feel like the most important musician on the face of the earth.”
Mark Graban: Yeah.
Andy Freed: Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing as leaders? That's something which, every time I watch that, I send the same note to my chief of staff: “You helped me be this good.” He's doing that with people that he started playing with on this tour and people like Garry W. Tallent that he's been playing with since 1973.
But he knows what William James once wrote: the deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.
Mark Graban: Mm-hmm.
Andy Freed: Think about that. The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated. Bigger than sex, bigger than money, bigger than fame and power. We just want to be appreciated. He understands his role of doing that as a leader. That's something every leader can emulate.
Communication Is Leadership
Mark Graban: Within the book, you make a strong claim that communication is leadership. You've shared a little bit about Bruce's one-on-one communication with people and how that makes them feel. What's behind centering the book on that idea? A lot of people would treat communication as a leadership skill, but you're saying something different.
Andy Freed: It's something which a lot of leaders look at as, “What do I do as a CEO? I set the strategy.” Well, if I set the strategy and I can't get people bought into it and I can't communicate effectively where we're going and get folks to be behind me, what good is it that I'm setting the strategy?
Understanding that communication really lies at the core of all of that. And as with anything, it's a skill that can be honed. It's a skill that leaders can learn. But I think it's undervalued by a lot of leaders because they believe, “I have positional authority. I'm the CEO, so people are going to listen to me.” To a point. They might listen to you, but they might not follow you.
What leadership is really all about is creating more leaders in an organization. But also — how do you make people ready to follow you? And that all goes to communication.
Creating Leaders, Not Just Giving Answers
Mark Graban: What are some examples from your company? I love the way you put that — leadership is about creating more leaders. What are some of the things you do and that you encourage other leaders to do?
Andy Freed: I'll say that if somebody comes to my office with a question, my first question back to them is, “Well, what do you recommend?”
It's making sure that as leaders, you're not trying to be the answer people. It's enabling others to find the answers and get there. It's also understanding that there are times as leaders that you have to be willing to deliver harder messages. Sometimes it's telling a client something they might not want to hear. But how do you do that? How do you keep them in mind as the audience as you're telling them? Because if I tell them, “You guys are doing this all wrong. I'm smarter than you. How are you doing this?” — they're not going to hear that.
Mark Graban: Right.
Andy Freed: But what's a way for me to convey bad news in a way that my audience is willing to hear it and act on it? Some of our clients are some of the biggest companies in the world. It's very easy for them to fall back on, “You're a small consulting firm. We're Microsoft. We're going to do it our way.” I've got to make a compelling case as to why a different way might be the way to go. That again comes back to communication.
How a Well-Intentioned Cafeteria Policy Drove People to Quit
Mark Graban: What are some things you've learned about making sure the message you think you're communicating is the message that was received?
Andy Freed: I love an example that Bruce once gave. He talks about pop songs. He writes two kinds of songs — big operatic songs like Jungleland or Thunder Road, and then pop songs like Hungry Heart or Waiting on a Sunny Day. One of the things Bruce said is that you know you've written a good pop song when you hear 35,000 people singing the lyric back to you. Then you know you've written a good pop song and that it works.
That's something which a lot of leaders can do better. There are times during the show when Bruce pauses and lets the audience sing it back to him. He hears the lyrics from them and he can judge whether they're singing it right — whether they're singing “Waiting on a Sunny Day” or “Waiting on Sunday” or “A Summer's Day.”
That's the same thing leaders can do. Every now and then it's important for a leader to stop communicating outward and start listening. Have people sing it back to you. Ask them — if there's three points you always make, make two of them and pause and ask if they can fill in the third. Getting your audience to participate and giving them the mic from time to time is a key part of leadership. That's how you check whether or not your messages are being received.
Mark Graban: That's a great analogy. Bruce is known for shows that are really long — three hours plus.
Andy Freed: Three hours. I've been to a four-hour show.
Leadership Is a Performance — Whether You Know It or Not
Mark Graban: And he's 76. A lot of energy throughout, even though there are big numbers, ballads, different pacing. You write about this in the book. What's the leadership equivalent of pacing, and what do we learn from a Bruce Springsteen show?
Andy Freed: Tom Peters wrote years ago that leadership is a performance, and I love that. Bruce isn't just on stage when he is at the microphone. He's on stage the minute he comes up the stairs from an interview. That's when everyone in the audience is judging. “I wonder if this 76-year-old guy is going to hobble up, or is he coming up with some energy?” You're making a judgment without even knowing it from the moment he appears in your view.
Leaders are the same way. Whether you are on stage or not, and whether you think it or not, your leadership is a performance. If I sit in a meeting and it's not a meeting where I'm presenting and I start looking at my watch, everybody in the room knows what I'm saying. And so does the presenter.
Mark Graban: Yeah.
Andy Freed: It doesn't matter if I never got up and said, “I don't agree with this.” And if at the end I do agree with what's being said, I've just undercut my own position. Understanding the idea that as a leader, you are performing no matter what — that means your body language, your tone.
If I come into the office and the first thing I do is let out a big sigh and sit down at my desk, it doesn't matter if I say to everybody in the staff meeting, “Everything's going great.” Everyone's wondering, “If everything's going great, why is he sighing as soon as he comes into the office? What's going on there?”
Understanding the complete nature of that performance. And the energy it takes. A lot of leaders forget that when you're presenting, nobody cares about what you're presenting about more than you do. If my style of presenting is reading my slides like it's business karaoke, and I'm a six on a 10-point scale of energy, I can't expect my audience to be any more than a five. They're not going to come in over the top of me and be more enthused than I am.
Recognize that as a leader, you set that pinnacle of energy in the room. You need to do that with intention. So much of what we talk about in the book is leadership and communication with intention. Intention of your energy, intention of what you're saying, understanding and being intentional in your communication.
Authenticity and Self-Awareness: The Tiger Woods Sand Saves Story
Mark Graban: How do you strike the balance of authenticity with leadership as a performance? You don't come across as somebody who's being fake.
Andy Freed: One, it's understanding you've got to believe. And you've got to believe in your own way of communicating. There are people who are great at standing in front of an audience of a thousand people and presenting. Steve Jobs was a master at being a showman. There are other folks who would much rather communicate one-on-one. That's fine. Find your lane. Be self-aware. So much of authenticity comes with being aware of yourself.
Mark Graban: Mm-hmm.
Andy Freed: Knowing what your own limitations are. If you're somebody that doesn't draw energy from presenting to a thousand people, don't do it. Find a way to do a one-on-one meeting, record it, send it out to the thousand people. There are plenty of ways you can address it, but it starts with being true. Authenticity starts with being true to yourself. Understanding what your strengths are, understanding what your weaknesses are, and leaning into them.
There's a great story from years ago when Tiger Woods was first breaking onto the PGA tour. When Woods first broke on the PGA tour, he led the league in every single category except for one. Do you remember what the category was?
Mark Graban: I don't.
Andy Freed: He was terrible at sand saves. If you asked most people, if they were then doing Tiger Woods' performance review, it would say: “Woods is a very effective golfer. He won the Masters by 16 strokes. His driving is exceptional. However, he must work on his sand saves because that's a real weakness of his game. Next year we're going to set some goals for him on sand saves.”
That is the opposite of what Tiger's coach told him to do. Tiger's coach said, “Let's work on driving accuracy.” “We're already number one on the tour in driving accuracy.” “Let's just never hit the traps.”
Mark Graban: I thought that was going to be the punchline — that he had so few sand save opportunities.
Andy Freed: And that's the goal. That's being self-aware. He knew: that's my weakness. This is my strength. I'm going to lean into it. Authenticity comes from a similar self-awareness with yourself. What's the sand trap for you, and how do you stay out of it?
Learning From Live Performances — Brandy Carlile and the Guitar Volume
Mark Graban: I wear our birds-of-a-feather connection a little bit. I like Bruce Springsteen. I was a kid when the Born in the U.S.A. album was huge — iconic music videos. I have not seen him live. I should at some point.
Andy Freed: He's touring now.
Mark Graban: I need to make that happen this year. But we are birds of a feather in that I also wrote a LinkedIn post today about a concert I saw on Friday. I don't know if you know Brandy Carlile.
Andy Freed: Sure. Go-Gos.
Mark Graban: No. That's a common mistake.
Andy Freed: Oh no.
Mark Graban: That's Belinda Carlisle.
Andy Freed: Got it. I'm messing up.
Mark Graban: It happens. You're not the only one who's made that mistake, especially of our age. And knowing the Go-Go's, of course.
Andy Freed: Go-Go's were big in the eighties.
Mark Graban: Huge in the eighties. Same time as that album from Bruce. But no relation — last name is spelled differently. Brandy Carlile, singer-songwriter from Seattle originally. Country, folk, rock. This idea of the performance. I'm a fan of her and her music. She seems like a great person. The people in the band — there's a tight connection. They're not just working together.
But there was a moment during a song where she was looking down at her electric guitar and kind of hopped up and down a little bit, which I think was the signal for somebody — a roadie — to come out. He looked like maybe he checked her microphone pack and reached down and turned up the volume on the guitar. Who knows whose job that was to set the level or if she's supposed to check it. But I didn't see anything of that diva-type performer behavior — being mad at somebody or blaming somebody. Either she wasn't angry and just kind of ran with it — “Oh, okay, I got my volume, I'm good” — or she was good at realizing she was on stage as part of her performance. We can't get inside her head. But that stood out to me. At least she didn't react badly.
Andy Freed: Yep. And she understood that person has a job to do and she's got to help them do their job.
There's another piece to that, which goes to the preparation element. Somebody was standing there watching and waiting for the signal and then knew what to do to address it.
Preparation as a Form of Respect
Andy Freed: Increasingly, as we become more reliant on technology, that's also the leader's job. We're now six years since the pandemic started, and yet we're still on calls where people have the mute button on and then can't find it. At some point we have to say as leaders that if nobody can hear you, they're definitely not listening.
The idea of, “I'm going to be on a podcast — maybe I should have lighting that's right. Maybe I should have a microphone that works.” All of those things are now part of leadership because they're part of having your message heard. I've been on so many webinars and meetings where somebody appears to be in the witness protection program because they're backlit and I can't hear them. If that's the case, that's all I took away from the meeting. And frankly, I also take away from that an element of: they didn't respect me in the meeting enough to prepare.
Mark Graban: That's not an unfair reaction. That speaks to the idea of the performance of being on an online meeting and preparing as a leader.
Leaving Nothing to Chance
Mark Graban: I'm curious about your thoughts on preparation — whether it's a concert, a webinar, or any sort of event. We plan. We do our best to try to prevent preventable errors. But at the same time, something's bound to go wrong that we didn't anticipate. What are some lessons about finding that balance of trying to plan for perfection but not freaking out when something does go wrong?
Andy Freed: We do a lot of events all over the world for our clients. Over the years we've had volcanic eruptions that disrupt air travel, a pandemic, just about everything that can happen. It really is about forethought and preparation — “What are we going to do if?”
Years ago I worked on a presidential campaign doing advance for the candidate. We used to do walkthroughs: “What happens if something goes wrong here? What if the power goes out? What if he gets sick and needs to go to a hospital, or worse?” It's asking yourself those questions in advance and making sure you're prepared for them.
Those questions can be about the physical setup of a meeting. I always ask things like — if I'm presenting to a large audience — one, I want to make sure there's water on the stage. But then I also get granular. I don't want a pitcher and a glass. I have not successfully poured a pitcher into a glass in my adult life. I don't need to do it in front of a thousand people. And if it's a bottle, I want the top to be cracked, because I don't want to spend my time on stage trying to crack the bottle.
Mark Graban: Right.
Andy Freed: Little details like that matter. But also, on how your message is received. Thinking about, “If this is what I'm saying, what might somebody say against it? How might this be misconstrued?” Asking yourself that before you deliver the message can save a lot of trouble in a lot of organizations.
Mark Graban: Being proactive and thinking about what could go wrong — either how do we prevent it, or how will we react in the event that somebody does misunderstand, regardless of how many ways we tried to prevent it.
Andy Freed: Leave nothing to chance. There's an example I use in the book of a company that years ago made the decision to have their company cafeteria open until six o'clock every night. The reason was they were in a part of the city where restaurants closed at two. Restaurants were open for lunch and that was about it. They knew that a lot of their employees were on calls at lunchtime, couldn't make it, and then had nowhere to eat. So they said, “Why don't we make our company cafeteria open until six o'clock every night?”
They did that, and they never really thought about the messaging. They just sent an announcement that the cafeteria is now open until six. Well, some employees got that message and said, “Can you believe they want us to start having dinner here now?” Or, “We can't stop until six. They want us to sit at our desks until six o'clock every night and not have dinner with our families. This firm isn't family-friendly anymore. Maybe it's time we go someplace that's family-friendly.”
Before you know it, they had some folks that left the company. That started a little bit of a downward spiral. It's not only because of that, but it didn't help. Understanding that every message you deliver has to be thought about from the audience's perspective. How are they going to perceive it? How might they perceive it wrong? It's your job to stave off those consequences.
Mark Graban: It sounds like employees just ran with the assumption, grumbled about it, and maybe took another job and left instead of speaking up. I don't blame people for not speaking up. I would say, if leaders didn't create an environment —
Andy Freed: Nobody was listening.
Mark Graban: If people are afraid to speak up, they can't be heard.
Andy Freed: Absolutely. And that's part of that “feel” part as well. People need to understand where this is coming from. They need to feel empowered to speak up. You need to give them the chance to do it. You need to understand how your message was received. There are so many checkpoints they missed along the way to what became a very preventable and non-intentional problem.
Soundcheck, Stage Safety, and the Details That Matter
Mark Graban: One other thing that jumped back to me — we were talking about prepping for different events, whether it's a presidential campaign or the tour. My wife and I were very fortunate to have seats that got us VIP access to the soundcheck before the show, which was a great opportunity.
There was a backstage tour that happened afterwards. The woman walking us around was pointing up — this was at the Rosemont Horizon near O'Hare Airport, an arena from the eighties. It's a wooden roof and it's not a particularly high roof.
She's part of the tour and part of operations. They bring in their own lighting, and there's this robotic lighting that moves around. She said they test these things, and because that roof was seven feet lower than most other arenas, they had to make adjustments to the lighting. I was watching, and at some point I realized that lighting would have totally come down and hit the drummer. Thankfully they knew that in advance. That level of detail and prep and planning avoided a kind of Spinal Tap-ish mistake.
Andy Freed: Just leaving nothing to chance. That goes to every element of communication. The less you can leave to chance, the better off you are. Just taking that preparation phase so seriously.
But again, I'll go back to — it's so easy not to. “I need to present. I'm clicking PowerPoint. Then I'm clicking Zoom. Next thing you know, there we go.” In that process, I never thought about what I want the audience to hear from the PowerPoint. I never thought about the fact that I'm Zooming from a dark room. It's so easy just to click two buttons, and next thing you know, I'm communicating. But I'm missing the chance.
The Misunderstood Message of “Born in the U.S.A.”
Mark Graban: Well, Andy Freed, the book is Lead Like the Boss: The Bruce Springsteen Framework to Elevating Your Leadership. There are a lot of fun stories and connections. I encourage people to check the book out. It's available now. There will be links in the show notes.
To wrap up a little bit here — a little bit more about Bruce and your passion for him and the music. When and where was the first concert where you saw him?
Andy Freed: My first show was actually not until 2000. I was a little older because I didn't have the money to go when I was a teenager. But in 2000 I caught the last show of the reunion tour at Madison Square Garden, July 1st, 2000. It's a show that they actually made the DVD of — Bruce live at Madison Square Garden, that tour. A great show. About three hours, 45 minutes.
Mark Graban: So you had been a massive fan for a long time and then finally got to see him live.
Andy Freed: Yep. And it lived up to it. And then I thought over time, as kids got older and things like that, “If this makes me happy, let's lean into it.” I think that's a good lesson for everybody. Find what makes you happy and lean into it, because life's too short otherwise.
Mark Graban: Favorite album?
Andy Freed: I've got to go with the classic — Born to Run. Opening with Thunder Road, which is a great invitation, as he says, to a long and earthly journey. The way the piano starts — that's the invitation to draw into the album. There's not a bad track on the whole album.
Mark Graban: I'm curious about your thoughts on something that gets brought up as a mistake among music fans or even casual listeners — people misunderstanding and not realizing that Born in the U.S.A. is a protest song.
Andy Freed: Absolutely. That's his soldier's story of somebody who comes home from Vietnam, is disenfranchised, can't find a job, and what that feels like. It's interesting though — the way music can sound very different. When he plays that on Broadway, he plays it with a 12-string guitar. That has a very different tone. It's very clear that it's a protest song.
Mark Graban: Yeah.
Andy Freed: The album version is often misconstrued as this great anthem of the United States, when in many ways it's talking about how we mistreated those veterans.
Mark Graban: And the album cover and the red, white, and blue and the flag and the all-American imagery. I'd be curious — I'd love to ask the Boss himself if he ever regretted any of those decisions, or if he's happy with the art and the different forms.
Andy Freed: What he's been saying is, look, he loves America. He loves democracy. But part of that is being willing to stand up and be a critical voice when you need to be. Force us back to our ideals. I think that's admirable. A lot of musicians have a great platform and a great following. I give him a lot of credit for being willing to risk some of his fans to stand up for what he believes is right.
Mark Graban: A lot of times leaders have to do that.
Andy Freed: That's part of leadership, and that's a great lesson.
Mark Graban: That's a great lesson to end on. Andy, congratulations on the launch of the book. Thank you. I really appreciate you being here — not only sharing stories and relatable lessons that can come from Bruce, but your experiences as a leader and a CEO. Really appreciate it.
Andy Freed: Thank you. Great to be here.