Leadership Poem: Pleasing everyone; Robert Lax

Leadership often involves deciding between conflicting desires. Billy Cosby has a quote that touches on this idea.

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." 

Robert Lax wrote a poem entitled "The Alley Violinst." In the poem the violinist has to decide between conflicting desires.

 if you were an alley violinist 

and they threw you money 
from three windows 

and the first note contained 
a nickel and said: 
when you play, we dance and 
sing, signed 
a very poor family 

nd the second one contained 
a dime and said: 
i like your playing very much, 
signed 
a sick old lady 

and the last one contained 
a dollar and said: 
beat it, 

The violinist must decide on which group to please.  Like in life, the easy path, to beat it, has the best short term compensation.

Robert Lax, "The Alley Violinist," as found in Good Poem, edited by Garrison Keillor (New York, Penguin Books, 2002).