Managing Leadership^®

There is plenty of evidence that, for all the fancy MBAs and trendy management theories behind their initiatives, managers don’t always get things quite right. Indeed, they may not get most things right. According to a survey quoted by Joann Lublin in a recent installment of her WSJ column, nearly 80% of managers and professionals are convinced that a project they are currently working on will fail.

So the question is, when you have such concerns about a project you’ve been assigned to, what do you do?

According to commentators quoted in the column, the first thing to do is to find out if you were assigned to a sinking ship as a punishment. Or, alternatively, you may be so highly thought of that your bosses believe you will be able to save the venture. Both of these suggestions seem implausible, given the vast number of faulty projects the survey indicates are out there. Are we really to believe that top management is so benighted that it doesn’t realize the scope of the folly it is generating, or that, having created that mess, it decides to recover something from it by using it as a management development tool?

And yet, getting such an assignment is a real concern, one that virtually every manager confronts at some point. So, again, when it happens to you, as it inevitably will, what do you do? You can take the gamble and dive in, hoping against hope that the thing will succeed and you’ll be a hero. You can simply submit silently, do what you’re told, try to keep a low profile, and hope you emerge sufficiently unscathed to make it to retirement. Or, you can scramble for a lifeboat, concocting whatever reasons you can create that the assignment isn’t a good match, and that you should be given another. Even more drastically, you can begin looking for new employment.

But you can also ask yourself how sure you are that you’ve pegged the situation correctly. How do you know the project is a loser? Maybe it’s a brilliant idea that you just don’t sufficiently understand. Who would have thought that franchising a coffee shop, after all, would turn out to be a world-beater? But I wrote last Friday’s post in a Starbucks in Istanbul. We all know that the overnight delivery concept was ruthlessly panned by the experts, but “Fed-ex” is now a verb that we can hardly go a day without using. Commercial, diplomatic, and military history abound with examples far more striking - even dramatic - than these. Such breakthroughs are often depicted as signs of the genius of their originators. But the truth is they are more often the fruit of the relentless toil and sweat of those assigned to make them happen.

The thing to do in such a situation is to put your doubts aside and put your skills to work. Begin by asking your assigning boss questions. What is the purpose of the project? How does it fit within larger corporate aims? How is the company supposed to look/perform on conclusion of the work? On the basis of these, ask others: What managerial, financial, material, organizational support will be made available? What are the potential consequences for the project or the potential for support if this or that problem (insert some of your and your peers’ concerns about the project) occurs, and how much organizational will might there be to surmount such events?

Before actually beginning, push hard not only to understand the intent, motivation, and organizational weight behind the project, but to integrate the organization in as many ways as possible in its fate. Then, go for it. And communicate like crazy. Bring your assigning manager and his or her manager, as well as other interested parties, in for periodic briefings at key phase transitions, decision thresholds, resource commitment points, for briefings. End these by asking for affirmation that the project as they envision it is on track, and confirmation that their support continues.

Whatever happens to the project (and, again, you may be surprised how it proceeds, or even transforms into something better), you will surely benefit by being recognized as a competent and determined professional - if not actually as a hero.

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Technorati Tags: Project Management, Professional, Communication, Teamwork

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