Lucky you! Today you get to read about one of my big fails. Every October I head back to the east coast to speak at the Earned Value Management Practitioners Forum*. Now while, the title tells you that it’s a conference about EVM, I have been speaking there annually since 2015 and never once have I actually presented on earned value management. For me, and this won’t be a surprise to those who know me, I have always felt that while it’s important to know your cost and schedule metrics and to use them to make data driven decisions, the key to project success is the people.
Ultimately it doens’t matter how good your tools and processes are, if the culture isn’t there, if the communication is not up to par, if the trust is lacking, if the people aren’t aligned, then the project will struggle. And so over the years, I have presented at EVMP Forum about: internal monitoring and setting up feedback loops; coaching; creating buy-in through mission statements; communication styles and tailoring your messaging to the audience for impact; business intelligence for decision making; becoming a trusted resource for your leadership; team dynamics and more. And then it came time to chose a topic for this year…
What do the people want to hear?
2024 has been a year of change (for many of us!), and in July I had just finished a multiyear project helping a CEO/Founder get his company ready to sell. The project had been billed as an “Agile Transformation” with the goals of:
- Efficiency,
- Quality,
- Repeatability, and
- Continuous Improvement.
As you can imagine seeing those four keys – none of this was going to happen without some serious change management.
- We created repeatable processes so the organization could scale.
- We implemented reflective processes so teams could continuously improve.
- We identified and started measuring some of the key indicators of quality for their work.
- We scoured their values streams for waste to create more efficiency.
- Most importantly, we made all of this transparent to everyone. Anyone could see the data and the results at any point in time through a series of dashboards.
It worked; employee happiness scores increased and a buyer for the organization was found. It was a huge success! This was the story I wanted to tell on stage BUT in reflecting on the triumph of this project, I realized I wouldn’t have had the skills to lead the team through of all this, if I hadn’t learned some hard lessons long the way about leading organizations through change. And so I reluctantly decided to talk about learning through failure. It was going to be about Change Management and, with the suggestion of Amanda Hennessy at San Deigo Public Speaking, I opened with a story. This one about a time when I really messed up.
A real mess up
This story begins nearly 15 years ago… The team was at a crossroads. We had to make a change. Our existing process wasn’t working. It was causing errors and creating too much rework. We were worried how it might impact the client’s perception of us. We had two choices to go forward. The team has discussed them both in a series of meetings over a series of weeks. We understood the pros and cons to each. A decision needed to be made. Half of the team didn’t care and just wanted to get on with it. A few felt strongly for option 1 and gave convincing arguments. A few felt option 2 was best.
The manager called a meeting; she announced the decision; it was option 1. A choice had been made.
It was at this point, that one person in the room stood up. They leant forward. They planted their hands on the table. And they yelled in a venomous tone:
“You’re wrong. YOU ARE WRONG! And in 5 years from now when you realize you’re wrong, I’m going to rub your face in it”.
Angry Team Member
That was me. That was my change. I was not the one yelling. I was the lead being yelled at.
So let’s do a poll;
- Yes or No: Do you think I handled that change well? NO!
- Yes or No; Do you think I learned from that? Heck YES!
After my presentation, someone came up to me asking for the end of the story. Had I made the right choice? This is the craziest part of the story. My decision was the right one but it didn’t matter. Now I haven’t worked for that company since 2017 but coincidentally, we had a first time conference attendee at the conference who had been in the room the day the story above occurred, and they confirmed the team was still doing it the way I had decided all the way back then BUT THAT DID NOT MATTER ONE IOTA.
It wasn’t that the decision was wrong. It was that I hadn’t done enough to gain buy-in. Crazy, right? It was the right thing to do but it still pissed people off because I hadn’t done the work needed for the change to be effective. And so that’s what I proceeded to do as soon as that meeting ended. I did all the things I should have done before the announcement.
And now?
Since that time, I approach pretty much every day at work as a change management project, because what is life if it’s not about change and growth (and avoiding being yelled at!). I now know how to assess a team’s readiness for change. I’ve got all the tricks for both communicating and checking for understanding. I can engage and incentivize a reluctant team. I know how to identify and create alignment with ALL the stakeholders. (Message me for a free printable cheat sheet with my best change management tips)
And that’s what I get to do everyday at The Transformation Playbook – I help corporations and teams navigate change. Whether it’s complex process improvement projects or seemingly simple leadership decisions, I get to share my best tips for leading programs through change, so you don’t have to be the one being yelled at.
So who’s willing to get real and share with me their failures? I’d love to hear your story about a work mess up and what you learned from it? Surely someone out there can empathize?
*FWIW EVMP Forum is an excellent conference focussed on real life EVM, rather than just policy and theory. Highly recommend it, and a massive thank you to Dave Scott for leading it for all these years.
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