Garth Drabinsky, pictured here in August 1998.The New York Times
In our eighth annual Executive Survival Guide, we show you how to do business with an egomaniac, build a brand like Drake, climb the corporate ladder (without stepping on anyone), avoid Snapchat snafus and ditch underperformers—gently. If you're looking for a slightly more formal education experience, we'll also help you find the right EMBA or MBA program.
Marketing whiz and filmmaker Barry Avrich has been lauded and yelled at—sometimes in rapid succession—by some of the biggest egos in show business. In his new book, Moguls, Monsters and Madmen, Avrich, 53, recounts three decades of dealings with titans in Toronto, New York, Hollywood and beyond. Some, like Garth Drabinsky, are as volatile as you'd expect. Others, like Quincy Jones, are inspiringly humble. Avrich explains how to work with big egos, without getting singed too badly.
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I divide big egos into three categories: The first are the entitled. They have the vision and intellect. Then there are the inheritors, often with daddy issues. Third are the psychopaths, and there's a range—Napoleon complexes, the insane and so on. If that's all they are, you should get out of there, but sometimes categories overlap.
A big ego isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's how they use it to propel themselves. The key to dealing with them is to figure out what they're looking for, then become indispensable.
I ran the ad agency Garth Drabinsky relied on when he ran Livent in the 1990s. He held three-hour marketing meetings every Tuesday morning. Three agencies each presented a dozen pieces of creative. If he was unhappy with you, you were targeted the whole meeting. When he laughed, everyone else laughed. It was tough to watch.
The people who worked for him also developed egos, because they were angry and frustrated themselves. But that's the environment Garth thrived in. I thrived in it, too, because it pushed you to new levels of creativity. And you can't warn people like him that things are getting out of hand. To them, any problem is just a setback. It's like being in a Ferrari that someone is driving at 200 miles an hour—you either hit the wall, or you run out of gas.
The last time I met Garth, he was in jail. He was furious at me for making my documentary about him (Show Stopper: The Theatrical Life of Garth Drabinsky, 2012). He wanted me to delay it. He's convinced he hasn't had a third act yet.
When I told Harvey Weinstein I was making a documentary about him, he tried to convince me to stop. Then a company owned by friends of his bought the distribution rights, and they got to make the final cut. But they released it (Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project, 2011). Harvey's rants are legendary, but he knows how to turn on the charm. He told me he loved my new book, and he threw a party for me in New York.
If you're in a dispute with one of these guys and you're wrong, just assume the position. If you're right, go back at him like a jaguar.
My next documentary is probably going to be about the Bronfmans. Edgar was a rare inheritor: a true visionary who took a company to the next level. I covered Edgar Jr. in my Lew Wasserman documentary, The Last Mogul. After Edgar Jr. took over Universal in the '90s, he told Wasserman and the other old pros, "We own the studio now. We can do what we want."
You also get big egos whom I call "the quiet storm." They understand an entire business equation in their head. Michael Cohl is one. He reinvented the concert business. He hooked up with Bill Ballard in the 1970s, and Bill's father, Harold, gave them access to Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. But Michael saw how big the tour business could be, and that you could bypass record companies and local promoters and go straight to the artists. When he signed the Rolling Stones by guaranteeing them $65-million up front for the Steel Wheels tour in 1989, it was unheard of.
Cohl doesn't care about being quoted or being on the cover of magazines. He figured out how to build a better mousetrap, and he's kept doing it.
Others in the entitled group, I just sit at their feet. Take Quincy Jones. If you go to see him in L.A., he remembers your wife's name, your kids' names. You spend more time going through your story than going through his, and you're sitting there in his house full of Grammys and Oscars.