So I work from a home office. Most of the time. And most of the time it’s the perfect arrangement for me. It’s comfortable, easy, good internet, zero commute. And my colleagues like it too… together we can face up to almost any challenge 🙂
Occasionally though, there are distractions. Big ones. Like when the entire neighbourhood seems to choose the exact same day to get their gardeners in with their mowers and blowers and trimmers. It’s quieter working from the airport on those days so any coaching sessions are conducted on the run, away from the hullabaloo.
And then there’s days like yesterday when the entire footpath was being ripped up to repair the warped and rippled concrete, mangled by an invisible network of tree roots the strength of which would only revealed once the surface had been chipped away.
The noise of concrete drills and jackhammers was inescapable. Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeen. Doop doop doop doop doop. And then everything went silent.
Mid-teleconference the doorbell rang and alerted me to the sound of gushing water. The water mains had been severed and a tsunami of water was now washing away the remains of the freshly dug footpath.
The look on the contractor’s face at my door reminded me of my project management days. It was that “I-really-don’t-want-to-have-this-conversation” look. That “I’d-rather-be-anywhere-than-here-right-now” look. It was hard to make out through his thick Irish brogue what he actually said, but I think it was something like “we’ve-got-a-bit-of-a-problem-here”. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
Ours was (of course) the last house for the day and now they had to resolve this issue and get my water back in service before hometime. The emergency plumber was stuck in Sydney gridlock and the mess was growing more irretractable by the minute.
Fortunately for me, the new river was flowing out onto the street and not through my house. You can be lucky sometimes.
Over many years of managing large and complex projects, in large and complex organisations, there’s one thing I know for sure: it’s impossible to know what’s beneath the surface until you get there.
Whether you’re building a new system interface, relocating a business, managing a transaction or acquisition – or in this case digging up and replacing a footpath – you can make all sorts of plans and assumptions and scenarios around what you think is going to be the case.
Planning is important. Planning is necessary. And planning just isn’t enough. What matters more is what you do when things don’t go to plan.
Even when it’s not YOU who caused the problem, what matters most is:
- How YOU assess and evaluate the situation, to gain an understanding of the impact, implications and likely outcomes;
- How YOU respond to any immediate emergencies, to minimize the hazzards and impact to people, timelines and cost;
- How YOU direct effort to getting the remedy under way; and (most importantly)
- How YOU support other people involved in the process.
You might not have a job title with the words “project manager” in it. But all of us have important things in our lives that go pear-shaped (at frequency, if your life looks like mine).
I’ve lost tolerance for individuals who go looking for blame, looking everywhere around them for someone to fix the problems, everywhere BUT at themselves. We are all in this together. And we can all choose to responding with empowerment, empathy, attention and effort.
THIS is Living. Real. Leadership.
Yours (from a very quiet office today!),
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