Fuck the Problem........................Fix the People
AKA: It’s who you are, and how you do it!.........not what you do or what you’ve done! 
Providing a great fix is rarely sufficient to restore harmony. BUT!.............................
“it shouldn’t have gone wrong in the first place!!!”
An old mentor of mine used to say “F*** the problem, fix the people” a sentiment that is as true today as it was 35 years ago.
FACT: The relationship between individuals and how they perceive each-other has a profound impact on the outcome of any interaction between them.
To illustrate the point:
Two people buy a similar bunch of flowers as a gift for the same person.
Buyer 1: Has gift is rejected out of hand, thrown on the floor and stamped on.
Buyer 2: Is profusely thanked and the flowers immediately put in a vase and placed in a prominent position for all to see.
WHY? The gifts were identical and both givers had the same intention & motivations for giving.
The Difference? The recipient likes buyer 2 but dislikes buyer 1
This is what is known as: Affinity Bias!..
Affinity bias can be witnessed in most walks of commercial life.
Put simply, it is not sufficient to do a good job
you need people to like you too.
Rather than railing against affinity bias, it is far more productive and efficient to embrace it and take advantage of it……Which leads me to the obligatory anecdote.
As the manager of a tech support team I used to attend monthly service delivery meetings with my major clients. In the most part, these meetings were, for me and my team, pleasant and cordial affairs. However, with several customers my peers were roasted on a regular basis, it was painful to witness. What was more surprising was that my team's performance was rarely significantly better than theirs, and sometimes worse. So why the disparity in treatment?
The major difference between my team and the others? We were brutally honest with our stats (no green washing). We admitted when we’d messed up, as soon as we messed up. Never waiting for mistakes to be discovered (hoping they wouldn’t) nor burying the confessions in the small print of our monthly service report. As a last line tech support team most of the incidents we dealt with were nasty, new and high impact – as a result the team had to use their judgement as to the correct course of action, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. we had two rules.
1. Before making a 50:50 call, consult with the customer explain the options, risks, potential outcome and always get their approval to proceed. If the impact of the issue was not so big, they may choose to wait until trading was quieter – other times they’d take the risk of things getting temporarily worse.
2. If it did go bad – inform the customer immediately and work with them to minimise the impact.
As a result, I rarely had a complaint against any of my team members – In the most part our customers respected their knowledge, professionalism and integrity. Consequently, our part of the meetings were smooth with few surprises - the customers respected the job my team did and trusted, stats and didn’t use them as a stick to beat us with. If a hard conversation was needed, it would have been had at the time and not allowed to fester for the month.
Many of my peers in other teams did not take this approach – believing the problem resolutions spoke for themselves. The result near equivalent performance was subject to significant scrutiny, questioning and significantly harder won approval.
We fixed the people first – my peers just fixed the faults
How does this work in the context of projects and programmes?
Quite simply: Affinity Bias (or the lack of it) can kill a project. Every project, can be broken down into a series of binary approvals every one of which should be considered as the power of veto. Some of the most important are:
“Do we need it?”
“Can we start it?”
“Have we finished it?” (Can I get paid now?); and
“Can I have more time/budget?”
The bigger the project, the decision points there will be. Many will be informal, covert and made outside of the immediate governance hierarchy. Moreover, these decisions may be made by people who have little or no knowledge of the project itself. Worse, the decision may be one of “project a” vs “project b”. The only common factor in these decisions being that they are made by humans, all of whom suffer from multiple biases (both conscious and unconscious).
These people are not always obvious, frequently they are not those who commissioned and pay for the project. They may not even be people for whom there is a direct, indirect or even perceived impact. They include, auditors, the “users”, the customers, people who’s jobs will become redundant as a consequence, opposing departments, competitors who just want you to fail, people who’s views will be obscured by the new building you’re putting up, people who are offended on behalf of others, people who have a “cause”…. people who will protest, overtly, covertly or just vote with their feet. Regardless of who or what they are, if their interference will have an impact on the success of the project. Be that distraction of key resource or a dead-stop!
Veto-by-Proxy
People with the power of approval or with influence over those who do frequently veto-by-proxy. i.e. although they never actually say no or withhold approval, they make it so hard to succeed the project will fail, leaving them innocent in any part of the failure.
It is these people who need “fixing” (It’s called stakeholder management in the text books)
So how do you “fix” all the stakeholders.
Firstly, it is impossible to keep all of the people happy all of the time. So focus on those stakeholders who have the most potential to veto or veto-by-proxy and generate an affinity bias among them. There are four simple steps Assimilate, Empathise, Educate and Communicate
ASSIMILATE: Take your time, get to know them, let them get to know you or at least of your existence, the goal is to turn their view from “one of them” to “one of us”
EMPATHISE: Make it clear you are looking at things from their perspective, not that of the project – in that way, common ground and compromise is easier to achieve.
EDUCATE: Inform them about the project, focussing on the areas of common ground, being sensitive (but honest) about areas of potential conflict.
COMMUNICATE: Strike up a continuous dialogue of progress, highlighting changes, issues, delays etc. provide as much transparency as is possible/appropriate and avoid accusations of secrecy, conspiracy or cover ups
In Summary
Get people to understand and like you (and the project). Give information to understand, accept and prepare for the impact of the changes the project will, inevitably bring about as soon as possible. Do not leave them to guess or assume. Give it to them as early as you can.
In a vacuum of knowledge, they will make it up, rely on assumption, gossip and rumour. They will get it wrong and will end up vetoing the project for entirely spurious reasons. The more they “like and accept” the project the quicker, easier and smoother the path to delivery will be.
DO NOT LEAVE IT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO ENGAGE!
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