By John Foppe

Unfortunately, having a big vision is simply not enough to set a company in motion. Nor is the way for employees and managers to achieve a specific outcome just to align their initiative with the vision. If only it were that simple. Even when the vision is stated clearly, employee initiative doesn’t always materialize. Instead, they believe there is nothing they can do that is new or innovative. As a result, they just step back and watch as things happen or don’t happen around them. At the same time, people can often identify countless things coworkers and team members can say or do differently. When this occurs, they begin to shift responsibility onto others. Leaders point the finger at employees and vice versa. Management then claims employees simply won’t take the initiative, while employees believe management doesn’t truly support their efforts. Ultimately, progress stagnates. What’s happening here is, people are surrendering to an overwhelming sense of exasperation.

The Code of Exasperation

For many reasons including lack of vacation time, increasingly longer workdays and the need to take work home, for example, workers are being stretched. Their exasperation manifests itself in the form of anxiety, depression, burnout, frustration and turnover. We have all experienced these types of emotions on the job at one time or another, and we have seen it in others as well. Think of the harried customer-service worker who is overwhelmed and curt, suggesting we take our business elsewhere if we don’t care to wait in line. Or consider the employee who tells us to, “Write to the company president” if we don’t like the service we receive.

Adding fuel to the fire, this exasperation is accompanied by certain ways of seeing, doing and being. In other words, once someone feels that sense of exasperation, it becomes a lens through which they perceive what is happening around them (the “seeing”). Then, their perceptions influence the actions they take (the “doing”). Finally, they develop a set of practices (a way of “being”) that helps them cope with what is happening around them. Once they embody the exasperation, they perceive everything through that same distorted lens, which further reinforces their interpretation of what is happening as justification for being exasperated.

About the Author:   John Foppe Born without arms, John Foppe has had to break down and re-engineer every aspect of day-to-day life.  He learned that the inability to do something didn’t rest on the lack of resources or vision. Instead, it has more to do with one’s subconscious perception to meeting a challenge head on.  In the field as part of his master’s degree in social work, John saw this scenario play out repeatedly. To his surprise, he discovered that many people subconsciously substitute personal improvement with systems to support their perceived limitations. As a speaker, John also witnessed this resistant mindset operate in all sort of companies.  He repeatedly heard leaders complain about how difficult it is to motivate their people.  John has addressed this common challenge through years of research, clinical study and field testing, which ultimately led to the discovery of the primary cause of failed vision execution. In light of this important, personally-significant discovery, he has developed a variety of solutions to help individuals and leaders overcome their exasperation and translate their visions into outcomes. His compelling story and methods caught the attention of the legendary Zig Ziglar, who broke his long-standing rule of promoting from within and recruited and mentored John.  In 1995, John launched a successful training business that has taken him to 15 different countries, pro-football organizations like the Miami Dolphins, and to Fortune 500 clients such as Boeing, GE, and State Farm. John’s insights on how the biggest vision can be derailed by the smallest bit of resistance are now being used to orchestrate the missions of visionaries and change agents around the world.  John Foppe speaks, coaches and trains on how to maintain momentum when executing initiatives and translate visions into outcomes. He is the CEO of Visionary Velocity Worldwide, based near St. Louis, MO.  For further information, visit www.visionaryvelocity.com or call 1.618.526.5500.

By Tim Bergmann, PMP, ABCP

This is the fourth article in a series about the Seven Deadly Project Sins.

In this narrative, I will continue to focus on some of the “soft-elements” of the project, some temptations that the project manager needs to be on the lookout for in order to foster success on the project.

The Seven Deadly Project Sins as I have defined them are:

• Elitism

• Project Envy

• Resource Gluttony

• Project Lust

• Personalization

• Over-allocation of Resources

• Best Practice Sloth

The fourth Deadly Project Sin – Project Lust can affect your ability to accomplish projects as a project manager.  Lust can literally take your focus away from important project issues and events and cause you to focus your attentions and efforts in the wrong way.

On the Internet at www.wikipedia.com you can view this definition of lust:

“Lust is any intense desire or craving for self gratification.”

Simply stated, project lust involves focusing your attentions on some element of the project that is self-satisfying instead of focusing on the project as a whole; or, more simply put – focusing on the wrong things.

About the Author:   Tim Bergmann Mr. Timothy S. Bergmann, PMP, ABCP is a highly qualified project manager with three decades of experience managing a wide variety of information technology projects. Mr. Bergmann's experience includes project management, operations management, infrastructure planning and implementation, business continuity planning, customer service and business development.  In 2006 he co-authored the best selling “CISA Study Guide” marketed by Sybex. Mr. Bergmann currently manages training development and delivery as Director of Education for True Solutions, Inc. in Dallas, Texas.  He can be contacted at tim.bergmann@true-solution.com.