Saturday, August 28, 2010

awaiting acceptance

six months ago i had my boss’ boss in my office. we were discussing our ability to be agile and to work on things that mattered. i threw out an idea that was almost immediately shot down. the idea went against the main thrust of where we were going and could not be “monetized”. it was considered fringe and a distraction; but i was given the opening to write a proposal for later consideration. this was the beginning of the real work, which has consumed too much of my time for the past six months.

during my review this year i agreed with my boss that when i have too much time on my hands i tend to find things to keep myself interested. the downside to this is that those things can be outside of the main stream. doing the same thing everyone else is doing is comfortable for many, but when you go out looking for a challenge finding a new path to take is much more interesting. making it an uphill climb may not be the goal, but finding new trails on the flat ground is what leads people into swamps. malaria, leeches and condor-sized mosquitoes all take away from the enjoyment of the trip for me, so i have become conditioned to head for the hills.

i didn’t do this trip alone. the original catalyst came from two of my staff who came to me and said they were bored. when we decided to really push forward i asked for volunteers and ended up with those same two and one other willing to come along on the ride. the departure was marked by a commitment ceremony of sorts. i told them it was going to be hard, and that no one was going to be able to quit half way, they all agreed but i was sure they had no idea what they were signing up for. the trouble with age and history is that you know just how hard things can be, you know the trail will be rough and that accidents will happen. you know just how painful success can be.

americans have the donner party tragedy as part of our shared memory. pilgrims set out on a journey and mistakes happen along the trial. they are slowed by events which could have been controlled and are trapped in the mountains by winter snow drifts. as the days pass and the realization that survival is not a guarantee takes hold they resort to cannibalism to survive. human nature held true, survival wins out, even if sacrifices need to be made. people who do not push the boundaries, who do not take risks or attempt things which scare others, may never find the need to confront this, but those that do are stronger for it because they know how far they will go to survive or succeed.

we are not winning a war or bringing astronauts on a crippled spacecraft home. this effort will not result in medals or a ron howard movie about us, but what we did matters. soon after starting this, it transitioned from something that was okay if we worked on it in our own time, to something that needed to be done in 60 days. attention had been focused and a goal was set, even it the goal was unachievable. another team was assigned the mission, but we decided as a team to keep going on our own path. as we had discussed things can happen along the way.

to cut a long story short, things did and the pressure to succeed became ours. we had all the focus and needed to hit the dates and deliver. which is what we did, we hit every single date agreed to. the team pushed while i disconnected to take care of a project i started 11 years ago; one that needed to come first. they got us there, and together we stabilized with a hard push at the end. it was not easy, try to picture the scene at the end of “black hawk down” soldiers running through chaos and smoke, exhausted and bruised. that was how we finished, on our feet because that was all we had left. we crossed the line together, no one was left behind, no one broke and left his or her post, and no one was eaten. it was not easy, but its over and now we can regroup.

almost. this project is a new format for us. normally when we finish testing, it gets signed off, and it goes into production. but this time we have a new hurdle, the application needs to be approved by others. while that approval is pending we sit and wait. we have no control, and we cannot influence the decision, we simply need to wait for others to accept us or not. but this is one more lesson for the team:

even when you are hit your goals, you still need the acceptance of others.