I'm sure you've heard the old saying, "No Pain, No Gain". Actually, it's not true. You can experience a lot of gain with no pain at all, if you know how to leverage the right tools and expertise - but that's for a different time. Pain is an unfortunate but necessary part of growth - both personal and business.
Tony Dungy, head coach for the Indianapolis Colts, gave a speech in 2006 to a Christian group called Athletes in Action, entitled Super Bowl Breakfast 2006 ( be aware, this has a very strong religious undertone ). In his speech, he he tells the story of his young boy, Jordan who has an extremely rare disease called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis ( CIPA ). In a nutshell, young Jordan cannot feel any pain. In this quite remarkable story, he tells the group how his son, behind his mother's back, would open up a hot oven, grab the hot rack of cookies inside, and proceed to put scalding hot cookies in his mouth to eat! He can taste the cookies, but he can't feel the burns on his hands or tongue.
Although this super-heroic quality may sound appealing to some people, it is actually quite damaging. Jordan's wounds do not heal, because his brain does not recognize them on his body, so it doesn't send the necessary healing agents to cure them.
Although I spend my life devoted to helping companies avoid pain, I know how important it is for real growth, and so when it needs to happen, my advice is to just let it happen.
When does it need to happen? When your common sense advice gets overruled.
I'm an adviser, not an enforcer. If you choose not to take my advice, that's certainly your option. However when projects start going down the wrong path, as people committed to the solution, we often tend to do everything in our power to help our stakeholders avoid the pain, even though they deserve it. This may involve constant personal sacrifices, such as unpaid overtime and missed personal engagements.
I was on a project one time where my entire project team basically killed ourselves to meet an unrealistic deadline. We did a 6 month project in about 2 months. At the end of the 2 months, the key stakeholder came to us and said, "Well if you can do that in 2 months, then why can't you do about the same in the next 2 months?"
It's not worth it. Without being able to feel the pain, the right signals aren't transmitted up ( the channels ) , and the brain ( upper management ) doesn't respond correctly.
CIPA may be a rare human disease, however it feels like a corporate epidemic. As much as you may not like it, make sure your superiors; whether they be directors, VPs, C-Level staff, or the Board of Directors feel the pain of their bad decisions. It's for their own good.
Comments