Dismount

I attended an event recently where the keynote speaker told us of an old saying I’d like to share with you. It went like this, “when your horse dies, dismount.”It got a lot of laughs. Who wants to ride a dead horse? But how many times in our role as project manager do we continue to ride a dead horse of a project all the way to the ground? I know, I know, it’s a Catch-22. We want to please our customers and we want to deliver results so we’ll keep riding in the hopes a miracle occurs along the way. I’d like to offer that we should be the first to dismount and declare the horse, err, project, dead! We should be the first to recognize the signs and then have the difficult, but frank, discussion with the project sponsor. I know this isn’t an easy thing to do, but is riding a dead horse easy?

Dead projects aren’t the only reason to dismount. How often as leaders do we hold onto ideas, processes, and structures declaring them good, only because we thought them up and want others to be impressed? We refuse to let the ideas go and don’t want anyone reporting problems to us about how bad the processes or ideas are because, after all, we know what we’re doing and don’t need input from anyone. (Hmm, that’s rather arrogant isn’t it?)

When leaders push their ideas onto their team members without getting input from the ground up, they can often create fear in the organization. Instead of gaining momentum and synergy, they create exhaustion. For example, let’s say our company has decided they need to make some cuts. The proclamation comes down from the ivory tower that 200 people will now do the work that 350 used to do. They don’t ask the 250 for any ideas on how to make this work, the ivory tower just expects that all work will continue as usual. We all know it’s not physically possible for 200 people to do the work of 350, nor can those 200 create the synergy that 350 people created. But wait, I take that back. It is possible–for a while. And here’s what happens. Team members start operating in fear, perhaps thinking they’ll lose their jobs if they don’t pick up the extra work. So they hold the horse up from underneath while their co-workers push the horse from behind and pull it from the front to give the illusion that the horse is alive and well. All the while, productivity decreases, personal lives are impacted because of the increased work loads and stress, and momentum and synergy slowly erode.

Surely a good leader would be able to read the exhaustion and dismay on their faces! But wait, leaders who push ideas down from the top and don’t bother with input from the ground up don’t know their workers are exhausted. So they keep enforcing the processes and keep ignoring the recommendations the weary workers are making.

Don’t let this happen to your teams! If you’re under the horse, speak up. If you’re the one riding, dismount and talk to the people holding up the horse and scooping up the poop. You might find some seeds of inspiration and solid ideas to carry your project, or organization, to the next level without killing your staff (and the horse).

This entry was posted on September 24, 2011 at 06:56 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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