If you’ve ever worked on, managed or sponsored a project you know that project plans, schedules and budgets are great planning tools at the beginning but then something seems to happen in the middle.
We have status reports that measure if our project is over or under (don’t laugh too hard at that one) budget, on or behind schedule but one such measure rarely shows up – level of engagement or support.
As a former project manager I’ve experienced the highs of a project kick off and then some months later wonder who’s more motivated about the project – the contractors or the client? It seems like energy wanes, everyone has moved on to the next new shiny ball, or the business stakeholders are spread so thin you rarely see them anymore … unless something really breaks.
When “things” break we can look at those events from two different perspectives. The event might represent a breaking apart, or breaking up like when snow or a mountain side sheers off from the ridge and rumbles down to the earth’s floor taking with it all the trees, homes and debris in its path. Another way to look at this is a great breaking open (see link to Alan Seale’s video for more on this). When something breaks open we can’t help but see what was hidden deep inside, that has actually been there all along. What we find inside might be beautiful or it might be deeply troubling. Since all change has a positive and negative aspect, in the great breaking open, I believe we find both. And yet, at first glance we only see the negative of being over budget or behind schedule.
If you just felt a jolt or shock to that statement then join Trace Hobson and I to explore how the unplanned even unwanted events in your change initiatives might have more insights and information to offer – how they might be part of a great breaking open – that you can use to make the greater changes your people and projects need to get re-energized.
Feel free to share this link to a free webinar on Leading in a Complex World. https://goo.gl/YiX9Zd
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