Welcome
Welcome to the Foresight Newsletter, a free monthly publication of Prevoyance Group Inc. This newsletter shares project management tips and observations that I hope will prove informative and enjoyable.
Contents
Foresight is a monthly newsletter published by the Prevoyance Group, and this month contains four sections:
Project: Suicide Missions
Life: Relax with Unbridled Zeal
Heard in the Hallways: Sweat the Small Stuff
Travels with Patrick
Project
No one ever fully survives a "suicide mission." Like the kamikaze pilots of WWII, a corporate suicide mission often involves some degree of pomp and circumstance, and other smoke and mirrors to convince the pilot he was doing a noble service to his country. In corporate life, we tell a subordinate or colleague the import of the assigned task, and the wonders that will result in successful completion, when we are really just strapping a otherwise capable brain to a flying bomb.
Suicide missions come in two general guises. First, the task that we send someone on knowing that they will fail since it is impossible to complete, to the detriment of their reputation and possibly their career. The other, more routine "suicide mission" is that task that someone, somewhere has requested be completed that adds absolutely no value to the organization. The first type is often triggered by spite or malice, and the result of a truly vindictive person that should be avoided at all costs. The latter, far more common suicide mission is symptom of a less dramatic, yet perhaps more costly organizational malaise.
While the kamikaze had little time to consider his options as he pushed the control stick of his airplane forward and tilted the nose towards his target, corporate workers certainly have far less than their lives at stake, and are rarely fooled twice when sent on suicide missions. These tasks engender a basic suspicion in the minds of most people. Years of corporate PR about the importance of "human capital" and trite phrases like "the best and the brightest" are washed away in an instant as the young and enthusiastic are turned into the old and jaded through repeated assignments to complete useless tasks.
Projects with little support from the larger organization, mind numbing status reports and corporate bureaucracy turn an up and coming ace into a jaded veteran completing the minimum level of work required to get by.
There are two potential remedies to these situations. The most common approach is the faux-sympathy of the manager assigning these tasks. A wink and a nudge accompany the request for the unreasonable, coupled with shifting the blame to those faceless folks in "upper management" or "the board" that would have the gall to demand such senseless labors. While perhaps lessening the sting of the suicide mission at hand, showering someone with platitudes does little to help the organization in the long run. If you encounter a task that truly appears to be worthless, no matter the position of those who have asked for it, the superior approach is to question the task. Rather than letting the proverbial "stuff" flow downhill, questioning the task will either result in a more complete understanding of its value to the organization in the minds of all parties, or perhaps cause some reflection on why the task was deemed important in the first place.
Balancing between questioning everything to the point of becoming an annoyance, and encouraging some critical reflection on where an organization or project is headed can be a fine line to walk. The trend as of late however seems to be to error on the side of keeping silent, encouraging mediocrity in both directions of the chain of command, and dulling the minds and enthusiasm of those on the ultimate receiving end at the bottom of the proverbial hill. Train your "pilots" to be aces, not bombs.
Life
We frequently hear the hackneyed expression to "work hard, play hard," but few of us are able to truly play well. Too often, work hard, play hard is used as an excuse for an unbridled night of hedonism at a local pub, with the return on investment being a workday spent suffering and hiding from anything vaguely resembling human interaction. Global competition is stiffening, the pace of life is increasing and there are myriad reasons to take some quality time out.
Many of us force stress upon ourselves. Encouraging those at the office to provide status reports, or conference you in for meetings while on vacation creates a feel of dependence for staff left back at the office. Setting up a rigorous vacation regimen that has you stressed just trying to remember where you, your spouse and children all have to be at exactly 11:38 AM only turns "vacation" into yet another pressure cooker. Put the same zeal you apply to work into your relaxation time. Check in with the office if you must, but only respond to absolutely critical items. Not only will you save your sanity, but encourage your colleagues to become more self sufficient.
There is a price to pay for time away from the office, both monetary and in terms of work piling up in your absence. It would be foolish to waste your "investment" in relaxation time but not savoring every moment.
Heard in the Hallways
A large company had a number of very large IT and reengineering projects occurring within the organization. On a seemingly random basis it would gather the various teams for a cross team "pep rally," filling a room of over 300 seats with all manner of employees, officers and consultants. Rarely would the meetings start on time, and on multiple occasions, problems with projectors, microphones or communication technology would delay the start of the meetings in excess of 45 minutes. Some quick multiplication estimated that each thirty minute delay wasted over $15,000 in salary and consulting fees alone. Complex systems implementations and painful cost cutting programs are often cited as the only ways to reduce corporate expenditures. Perhaps something as simple as a literal and figurative "microphone check" before the big show could do just as much.
Travels with Patrick
While flying back from a marvelous dive vacation in the Cayman Islands, I pondered my week's interaction with our dive boat operators. The two captains were some of the most interesting folks I've ever encountered. Generally you do two dives each morning, with an hour pause between dives to allow the body to literally decompress and vent off accumulated Nitrogen gas. I almost regretted the start of the second dive since it would mark the end of some tale by our dive guides. Picture six adults sitting in a semi-circle in the bow of a small boat, in rapt attention as the man at the helm tells stories of hurricanes, shark dives in South Africa or salvage operations off the coast of the UK at 350 ft depths.
After our last dive, I was struck with a sense not unlike that of seeing a good friend depart, who you know you will not see again for quite some time. I relayed this to my wife and she commented that we were probably seen just as customers, two faces in a sea of many that pass across the decks of their boats.
While parting may have been felt far more strongly by one party than the other, I do know that they have created lifetime customers whenever we return to the Caymans (which I hope will be soon). Perhaps by letting down some of our daily guard, and allowing the interesting and storied people that are trapped under a veneer of "corporateisisms" shine through, we too can make lifetime customers just by being ourselves.