Try this little experiment:
Pick one of your most intelligent,
trustworthy, responsive associates. Time yourself at five minutes in describing
some function of yours that the person has never done or seen. Keep it verbal. Explain
freely in response to the person’s questions but take no more than five minutes.
Make it something of moderate complexity.
Then remain silent and uninvolved as the
person carries out the function. Neither person speaks and there is no other
kind of communication. Do not set a hard-and-fast time limit for this phase.
Take notes on what happens, especially at
points where the person forgets or ignores your instructions, or adds/changes
parts of the process.
At a suitable point, stop the experiment
and discuss with the other person what happened, and why. Perhaps the
instruction was at fault, leaving out elements that were so second-nature to
you that you never thought to include them. Ones your partner had no way to know
exist.
There is no limit
to the varieties of Project Management methodologies out there, but they all
share a couple of characteristics: Assurance in the presentation that this is
the approach that accounts for everything, and that it works.
Some of the books
and programs also tell you further that this is the only design that really
works. And there are some that ascribe inherent flaws to competing formulations,
thereby highlighting the claimed superiority of their own.
None of this is
true.
Attitude. It’s
what makes the difference.
Skill can take
you a good ways, at times. So can persistence. And assistance from powerful
friends. Sometimes far enough, but nothing is assured.
And there’s
confidence.
Confidence is the
expectation of a positive outcome in whatever you’re doing. It is the driver of
a winning attitude.
Attitude and
confidence. Confidence and attitude. No question, expectation of success can
fuel a winning attitude. If you are sure you’re going to make it, then you act
that way – and you succeed, often.
But what happens
when you don’t feel all that confident? When you’re missing that surge of
confidence to drive you over the finish line, can you do it on attitude?
You bet you can,
and the people who live and work that way are the ones we admire the most.
