Leading Change - Don't Forecast Heroism
The biggest problem I see is when otherwise good leaders and managers reach out and forecast what I call 'heroism'. With the war in Iraq right now we read daily of the exploits of some of our soldiers and Marines. They do some extraordinary things. They are heroes but heroism can't be forecast, it just happens.
I wrote a book called Dead Center about the exploits of a Marine sniper team in Vietnam. A couple of years after it came out I was traveling on a consulting job in Ohio when one night in a motel I saw this PBS special on Medals of Honor winners. There before me was none other than one of my Drill Instructors from boot camp in Parris Island. I remembered the event, I was actually nearby when it happened and this great Marine was later awarded the Medal of Honor. So I sent him one of my books.
A few months later I happened to be home one Friday morning and the phone rang and it was Sergeant McGuinty as I knew him. We had a great talk and he was relating to me the experiences of that day in what was later known as Helicopter Valley. He was trapped with his men when four helicopters went down in the landing zone. There were fifty or so who survived the crash and they were surrounded and fought off 1500 enemy for three days. I was amazed by his exploits and said so. Then he said something I will never forget. He said, "Kugler, always remember when somebody gets a medal like this it is because somebody else screwed up".
He explained that when the Recon teams selected the landing zone it was for one type of smaller chopper and three weeks later when the assault came the Marine Corp had rolled out a new twin blade chopper and the rest is history as they say, they crashed blades together. The point being is that Sergeant McGuinty is a true hero, but he didn't plan it. He was a great leader who reacted to the events around him.
On three different occasions in the past eight years I have been called in to 'bail out' a change project going under. To many I was a hero for coming in and fixing the project. But that isn't the problem. The problem is that the prior planning placed the project right in the path of a train wreck because the leaders wouldn't stand their ground on what they knew to be true.
When you start a project you start with the scope. Based on the scope, the work to be done, you will need a certain amount of resources to complete the work in a certain amount of time. If someone wants to speed up the work then the scope must come down or the resources must go up. It's that simple.
Now I know it is often difficult if not impossible to get the Big Kahuna's to understand this, I get it. But … if you proceed with 'their' plans and fail, which can be predicted, then your career is going blub, blub, blub, not your bosses. So speak up. Don't forecast heroism because the hero will be the guy like me who is called in to clean up the wreck.
It's as common as the morning breeze to forecast heroism on change projects. Don't let it be you. In one major company I worked for they called it 'the Spirit'. If it was Acme, they'd say we have the Acme Spirit and we can do anything. At another it was called their 'magic'. We have the Acme Magic! In both instances colossal change projects were ran right down the tracks and crashed because of over commitments.
If you're smart you will fight the good fight in the beginning, not after the wreck when your name is placed as the cause of the debacle.
Related Tags: leadership, change, change management, lead, managing change, leading change, change leadership
Ed Kugler has been living change since the jungles of Vietnam where he was a Marine Sniper for two-years in the Vietnam War. He came home to a country he hadn't left and began work as a mechanic and truck driver. Since then he has worked his way into the executive suite of Frito Lay, Pepsi Cola and Compaq Computer where he was Vice President of Worldwide Logistics, a position he achieved with no college degree. Ed left in 1997 to consult and write. He is the author of Dead Center - A Marine Sniper's Two Year Odyssey in the Vietnam War and five other books and counting. He regularly consults with some o the nations leading companies on organizational change and coaches individuals to make the most of their lives.
Ed is the father of three, grandfather to three and has been married to the same woman for 38 years and counting. http://www.nomorebs.com
http://www.edkugler.com
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