It doesn’t seem to matter how much experience we have, each day we can find ourselves faced with issues that can make us wonder “How could I possibly have gotten this so wrong?”
I recall once hearing the saying “Every day is a school day”, and that has resonated with me ever since.
In this article we’ll tackle a true story. Note, names and specifics have been changed to protect anyone involved.
The General Manager is the Client, and we’ll call him ‘Donald’, as in the duck that tries so hard to get it right. ‘Nephews’ Huey, Dewey and Louie are the capable Service Providers and ‘Scrooge’ McDuck will be the client’s Marketing Manager in this case.
Donald asked the Nephews to put on a family picnic to get all the family together with the plan to make this an annual event. It was important to get everyone there for this first one. Now, there was sign of occasional showers for the day, so they decided on a fun theme where everyone brings the most colourful umbrella they can find. Everyone agreed this would be the plan. In a rare turn of character, Scrooge even offered to pay for the picnic, so things started out so well. Then things started to change. Scrooge started to tell people to wear costumes too. Then he thought it would be cool if people had matching picnic blankets, so he paid for these too. On the day the family was so caught up with the selection of ideas that most forgot to bring an umbrella at all, and it did rain. Afterwards some of the conversations were along the lines of “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea to come along, and maybe wouldn’t next picnic.” Such a shame as the purpose was to get everyone together and make this an annual event. And there would have been more chance of that if people just sticked to the agreed plan.
The Nephews love putting on picnics so here’s the question… “How do they have the conversation with Scrooge and Donald about what went wrong so that future picnics go well?”
The actual true scenario was a business one, so the following are ideas we would like to share about how to approach this conversation in a professional setting:
1. Debrief – Get everyone together as a reset, and ask the questions: “How do we think this went? Did we follow the plan? Could we have done this differently for a better outcome?”
2. Keep emotions out of it – Don’t challenge, ask questions instead like the ones above. Also you may want to work together going forward, so you could add non-confrontational persuasion like “Let’s concentrate on the goal. What was your motivation to go the way you did? What could we change about the brief next time? Do we think we could do better? Are we all on the same page? “
3. Be empathetic – Ask questions where Scrooge in this case comes up with the conclusion it was his actions that may have sent the event off-plan.
4. Ask someone independent – Hearing from someone independent is harder to challenge.
5. Be modest – Keep your eye on the big picture as the right people will see this for what it really is. You could fall on the sword and ask “Did I misunderstand the brief here? Did I get this wrong?” You never know, you may have. Not a bad place to start sometimes.
6. Focus on the goal – Don’t get distracted by ego or emotions. Your motivation to discuss should be in their best interest and if things get difficult you can always come back to the shared goal.
7. Listen – Let people talk, people need to be heard so make sure you listen because you are focussed on the goal.
…And a final word
8. Plan for success
– Create a written brief, and clear guidelines everyone can follow.
– Appoint a project champion so all decisions then go through an expert who is across the whole project.
– Set some key milestones where you can check in through the project to make sure we’re all working to plan.
– Have a project debrief regardless of the outcome as there are always ways to improve.