Excerpt from Chapter 4. Avoiding Death March Assignments
A Death March Assignment is one that is destined to fail but not until after great expense and psychic wear and tear has been inflicted on anyone associated with it.
Determining whether you have a Death March Assignment
The Death March assignment:
· Requires a great deal of extra time and effort.
· Makes little realistic sense within the way your company actually operates
· Is imposed from the top of the company downward, with little support from middle management
· Will have strong political resistance within the company
· Requires cooperation/resources from those over whom you have no control and who see the assignment as a threat.
· Is unlikely to ever be completed
Defense against Death March Assignments
Conserve Your Energy
Don’t ignore the project but do as little as necessary on it. Write an initial draft and send it to someone for review. Think of the assignment as a volleyball with an explosive attached. Your goal is to hit it over the net to others so it is on their side of the net when it explodes.
Keep Your Cool
Donít invest your emotions in something doomed to failure. Donít be angry about being given this assignment. Just look at it as an advanced game of Hot Potato.
Use the Tom Sawyer approach
Get someone else to take it. Approach an ambitious colleague or a hotshot from a competing department and casually mention this project. Be quietly excited about it. Unintentionally let it slip that an important executive is pushing this project and is very interested in its success. Pretend to be bitter when the project is taken away from you.
Bend Donít Break
If the project runs into resistance, donít push. Stay friendly with the opposition but let your boss or the project sponsor know whatís happening. Let them run interference. While the project is on hold, work on other things
Dont Forget Your Roots
Stay in touch with your old friends and colleagues. Keep abreast of whatís happening in your old department and learn what opportunities might present themselves.If you play your cards right, time will take care of the project, it will be put on hold, it will fail under someone else, and you will be seen as a team player.
The Company Initiative
An interesting variant of the Death March Assignment is the Company Initiative. The Initiative comes from top management, usually has an objective sounding scientific title, such as Re-Engineering, Six Sigma, Total Quality Management. It has been sold to top management by big consulting firms as an objective system that will offer huge ROI (Return On Investment) by eliminating duplication, waste, and empowering employees to increase efficiency.
Black Belt
Often the Initiative is seen as a place for up-and-comers to make their mark and assignment to the Initiative is highly sought. Impressive offices and titles are procured for the Initiative team. They are called Black Belts, Change Leaders, Quality Champions. They begin to take on the trappings of a cult with their own terminology and culture. They exude an air of superiority and a sense of Noblesse Oblige towards their old groups.
The Initiative begins in a blaze of drum rolls, high sounding pronouncements and promises. In a few months the pilot group implementing the initiative claims to have saved the company $10 million.
Gradually as the months pass and the Initiative reaches middle level management reality sets in. The Initiative processes turn out to be unwieldy, time consuming, and incompatible with the existing corporate culture.
The initiative then becomes subverted in many tiny ways by the existing bureaucracy. New senior management takes over, and discovers that the Initiative spent $60 million to save $10 million, and quietly lays the initiative to rest or discards it in favor of the latest hot Initiative.
Sometimes, as the US did in Vietnam, the company declares victory and moves on. The initiative troops are demobilized, scattered like the ancient tribes of Israel. They try to return to their old department but find that their positions are gone or occupied by someone else. They are left twisting in the wind, forced to find their own way in the company with the mark of “failed initiative” emblazoned on their foreheads.
A Death March Assignment is one that is destined to fail but not until after great expense and psychic wear and tear has been inflicted on anyone associated with it.
Determining whether you have a Death March Assignment
The Death March assignment:
· Requires a great deal of extra time and effort.
· Makes little realistic sense within the way your company actually operates
· Is imposed from the top of the company downward, with little support from middle management
· Will have strong political resistance within the company
· Requires cooperation/resources from those over whom you have no control and who see the assignment as a threat.
· Is unlikely to ever be completed
Defense against Death March Assignments
Conserve Your Energy
Don’t ignore the project but do as little as necessary on it. Write an initial draft and send it to someone for review. Think of the assignment as a volleyball with an explosive attached. Your goal is to hit it over the net to others so it is on their side of the net when it explodes.
Keep Your Cool
Donít invest your emotions in something doomed to failure. Donít be angry about being given this assignment. Just look at it as an advanced game of Hot Potato.
Use the Tom Sawyer approach
Get someone else to take it. Approach an ambitious colleague or a hotshot from a competing department and casually mention this project. Be quietly excited about it. Unintentionally let it slip that an important executive is pushing this project and is very interested in its success. Pretend to be bitter when the project is taken away from you.
Bend Donít Break
If the project runs into resistance, donít push. Stay friendly with the opposition but let your boss or the project sponsor know whatís happening. Let them run interference. While the project is on hold, work on other things
Dont Forget Your Roots
Stay in touch with your old friends and colleagues. Keep abreast of whatís happening in your old department and learn what opportunities might present themselves.If you play your cards right, time will take care of the project, it will be put on hold, it will fail under someone else, and you will be seen as a team player.
The Company Initiative
An interesting variant of the Death March Assignment is the Company Initiative. The Initiative comes from top management, usually has an objective sounding scientific title, such as Re-Engineering, Six Sigma, Total Quality Management. It has been sold to top management by big consulting firms as an objective system that will offer huge ROI (Return On Investment) by eliminating duplication, waste, and empowering employees to increase efficiency.
Black Belt
Often the Initiative is seen as a place for up-and-comers to make their mark and assignment to the Initiative is highly sought. Impressive offices and titles are procured for the Initiative team. They are called Black Belts, Change Leaders, Quality Champions. They begin to take on the trappings of a cult with their own terminology and culture. They exude an air of superiority and a sense of Noblesse Oblige towards their old groups.
The Initiative begins in a blaze of drum rolls, high sounding pronouncements and promises. In a few months the pilot group implementing the initiative claims to have saved the company $10 million.
Gradually as the months pass and the Initiative reaches middle level management reality sets in. The Initiative processes turn out to be unwieldy, time consuming, and incompatible with the existing corporate culture.
The initiative then becomes subverted in many tiny ways by the existing bureaucracy. New senior management takes over, and discovers that the Initiative spent $60 million to save $10 million, and quietly lays the initiative to rest or discards it in favor of the latest hot Initiative.
Sometimes, as the US did in Vietnam, the company declares victory and moves on. The initiative troops are demobilized, scattered like the ancient tribes of Israel. They try to return to their old department but find that their positions are gone or occupied by someone else. They are left twisting in the wind, forced to find their own way in the company with the mark of “failed initiative” emblazoned on their foreheads.