Beating Murphy down

“If anything can go wrong, it will” - If there was ever a series of rules to live by, the the Laws of Murphy come close to fitting the bill. What better way to plan our lives, than to defend ourselves from the attacks of a malevolent universe?

Thing is? The Universe is neither malevolent nor benevolent - It’s not only that it doesn’t care, it’s that the machinations of the world are oblivious to our existence. The world we live in, is the world we choose to prepare for. Events, like the nefarious plans of Murphy and his ilk, assume meaning only according to the habitations we provide them.

Applause doesn’t cost a Dime

A teacher once inadvertently taught me, that the world I was growing into was going to be a strange and peculiar place. At the age of 12 or so I’d received back a test of some sort, most likely Math, but while the lesson taught is bright, the memories of the details are dim. My score was 97% and curiosity demanded I know where I’d lost the sliver of accuracy. That evening I pored over the test, but could find no fault.

The next day after class, I humbly asked where I’d made an error, but was simply told - “You made no error, but nobody deserves 100%” - forty years later, that statement still echoes loudly in my mind, and sadly resonates with much of my experience with people, both management and staff.

The Top 7 Management Incompetencies

Forget the title on our business cards. We’re not “Store” managers, “Operations” managers, “IT” managers or “HR” managers. All those prefixes are gross typos, they should all spell out “People”, because that’s the primary responsibility of any management role. Yes, we might have responsibility for the Store, Operations, IT or HR and more besides, but we can only discharge that responsibility through our ability to manage people.

Management isn’t a form of Magic. There are no secrets here. How can there be secrets? Management is about working with people, therefore it is a transparent activity. You can’t ‘manage’ without being seen by someone.

The Mechanics of Tasking 5/5 — Honesty = Accuracy = better Delegation (Project Management)

In an earlier posting I touched on this topic but it’s worthwhile returning to it in some detail, because I believe it’s one of the primary causes of Delegation failure… (but maybe I’m just lying to you. How would you know?)

Consider this: If our ability to estimate how long a particular delegated task should take, with the resources on hand, was as good as it could be; and if we had all the project management tools we could afford and were perfectly competent in their usage; but… if the data relating to our progress towards completion was inaccurate - then we’re driving blind. In spite of our accurate estimation skills, and the best tools on the market, without accurate data - we’re going to fail.

Our ability to manage a project is directly proportional to the accuracy of the data we have at our disposal.

The Mechanics of Tasking 4/5 — Let them Fail

If you can afford to… let them fail

The very best employees are those who not only can think for themselves, but those who insist on thinking for themselves.

Now let’s be honest here. If you’ve been a manager for any length of time, you cringed, perhaps even whimpered, when you read that statement. The easy folks to manage, are those at the far opposite end of the spectrum, those without a thought in their heads, who do exactly what you tell them. The ones filled with ideas and a burning desire to prove themselves are, shall we say (to be polite?) a ‘challenge’?

But they’re important. Why? Because if there’s one thing all organizations need is a constant flow of ideas. Management must not only treasure these people, they must encourage the free-range thinking they offer. This can cause ‘problems’ when delegating work to these free spirits.

Fact. We delegate work with the intention of getting it done correctly. Sometimes, the person to whom we delegate the task has their own idea about how to get it accomplished. When that idea will work? There isn’t a problem. Just leave them to their own devices, get out of their way, clear obstacles for them if you have to, but essentially your job as manager is over. Move onto something else, that particular task is off your plate.

So far so good, but what if…

Their approach to the problem/task is doomed to failure from the start. You know, without doubt, from painful personal experience, that the approach they’re proposing will fail. What do you do?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way shall we? The goal of delegating is to get tasks successfully completed and put to bed. If a proposed solution isn’t going to do that, then we need to change the solution, otherwise we won’t meet our original goal. Fair enough. This is a given. No surprises here.

But… that doesn’t preclude accomplishing all this a little bit later, so that some serious learning can take place first.

There’s a qualifier here. An important one. If you can’t afford a failure at this time… then we have to use the very best solution we’re aware of, and do that now, not later.

But if we can afford a failure… then let the employee try out their idea. Let them fail. They’ll learn far more by having a pet idea fail, that you’ll ever be able to teach them. It’s called ‘the learning moment’ and they’re as rare as hens teeth and worth their weight in gold.

Here’s what happens if you ‘force’ them (persuade/convince/cajole etc.) not to use their idea, but to use yours instead. They’ll succeed (maybe), but their idea will still exist in the back of their head. They won’t truly believe that their idea was wrong, all they’ll have learnt is that your idea didn’t fail… this time.

Affordable failures are priceless opportunities.

The Top 7 Reasons Projects Fail

We’re cowards, we lie, we cheat, we don’t plan, we’re too optimistic, we steal and we make it all up as we go along – but other than that? We’re well intentioned.

1) We’re Cowards
A project is only as good as the accuracy of the last status report – which means that most projects are doomed from the very first status meeting. Why? Because we’re afraid to provide accurate assessments of project progress.

We could try to argue that it’s not fear that prompts us to lie (we’d prefer the words ’spin’ or ’shade’) about where we are on the project, about how badly we’ve missed a deadline, or how hopelessly clueless we are about the problem that’s delaying us. If it’s not ‘fear of consequences’ that prevents accurate reporting then what is it? The version of the Project Management tool we’re using?