I’ve spent the past week in Fairfax, Virginia, on a course to qualify in something that I thought I knew how to do before. Turns out I didn’t, but that’s another story. I do now, so that’s OK.

I was the sole Brit in the class and – in the face of the unknown – feeling very true to type (INFJ for those in the know). Anyway, we were there to learn about personality type, how to test for it and how to facilitate groups and individuals in understanding themselves and others in a more enlightened way. As you might imagine, in this, as in all such things, self-discovery comes first.

On day 2 I met Janet. Well, I say met. Technically we’d met the previous day (the class numbered but 17 in total) but had been sitting apart. I’m trying to pinpoint the part where I just ‘knew’ we were destined to be friends. It might well have been a exchanged glance at the comment of someone else. Very likely, in fact. There were a few of those throughout the week and a shared wavelength is almost irresistible, particularly when it feels like conspiracy. Get to the back of the class!!

We spent the latter part of the week sitting together after being paired for some activity or other. There seemed no need to change the arrangement after that. On the last day we connected online having shared stories of friends and relationships, politics and values, children (hers – I have none) and grandchildren (hers again – I have none of those either. Obviously).

Now, going home, I know without doubt that regardless of how often we see each other, she is one of my People.

The rest of you select and special ones know who exactly you are and I love you.

To my old mate Tom:

“I was researching something I had to write the other day, when I came across an article.  It was about a six year old Croatian boy, who claimed to be magnetic.  His claim was based on his ability to adhere cutlery to his upper body, but alas, the reporter from the Telegraph was unconvinced.  They ran the story the next day with the headline:

“Magnetic Boy” probably just “Fat and Sticky Boy”.

It made me laugh so much, and for some reason I suddenly thought of you and how funny you would have found it too.  I could hear you reading it out in your odd, distinctive accent, part antipodean, part very properly English.  I could see your face, a wide grin, with eyebrows wiggling up and down as you push your glasses up your nose and giggle hopelessly at the unkind, but very funny, mocking of this ridiculous child.

I sent it to you; you don’t need to reply. I know we are both already laughing. Tell the others. They will laugh too.”

I wrote this in two years ago – how quickly time passes. RIP darling:

“The city is as loud and as ever it was, filled with traffic and footsteps, the chaos and hurry of the early morning commute to offices in skyscrapers and desks behind glass walls.

Strong sunshine bounces off the glass of her building, as she opens one of its windows, steps off the ledge, and releases herself into the air outside. She falls, arms whirring like a mechanical doll, flailing and clawing at the sky. The air rushes through her ears, still ringing from the sound of sirens and screams. She feels the adrenaline, the panic, the responsibility of her life slip away, and then, mercifully, silence. She is limp. An old toy, flung from a car window.

The only child of Serbian immigrant parents, my beautiful friend was born on 10th November 1968. She died in Brisbane on a sunny day in April, 2011.

Scholar, Lawyer, Daughter, Author. Friend.

I miss her, so very much.”

Sometimes
the only way to love is to cut your heart
into sections,
like the slices of celebration cake you hand out each year,
straining to hear whether the time has finally come,
and so many have asked,
that you are left with only
fragments
with which to feed yourself.

This is a blog post I wrote for the b2b relationship experts, Promis – more at http://www.promis-it.com. Let us know your thoughts!

I remember a time, back in the old days, when project management was done by project managers whilst the rest of us looked on, or not, as the case may be, with varying degree of interest. Today’s landscape is different. It’s now not so much a distinct discipline or function. In many organisations, project management is thought of as a core skill or ‘competency’ – a fundamental way of working.

For sure, the reasoning is noble: after all, who would argue with the logic of trying to make all work across an organisation more structured and organised, with defined outcomes and clear plans by which to navigate? Unfortunately, the reality is somewhat less rosy with our best laid plans often at risk of going horribly awry.

An obvious cause is that it’s unrealistic to expect to make project managers of us all – it takes a particular set of skills and, one might argue, character. Beyond this, there are a number of reasons why many organisations end up in rescue mode with an over-budget, over-time, nightmare of a project or programme -

Take, for example, the technology company whose profit forecasts relied on the design of bespoke software, shaped to the specification of a key client. You can bet your bottom dollar that the planning was meticulous, the Gantt chart enormous and the detail teased out to the nth degree. Unfortunately for them, they hadn’t truly understood the needs and expectations of their client, nor realised that different expectations existed within the client stakeholder group and which had been neither surfaced nor aligned. The result? A huge investment in something that didn’t meet the (hidden) key needs of their client organisation, thus leaving them with months of expensive rework and a fractured, vulnerable client relationship.

Another emerging school of thought is to do with the perils of over-planning. The Kurt Lewin model of change, dating back some 70+ years talked about ‘unfreezing’ the organisation, doing the change (or project) then re-freezing. Seriously though: in this day and age how relevant can this be? Organisations are evolving all the time with the internal and external parameters shifting before our very eyes. The 2-year detailed project plan is all very well and yes, we might put it together on the basis that it will change, but the psychological impact of constant planning and re-planning is pretty negative –

One hospital, faced with the need for longitudinal change, recognised this issue and developed a true collaboration between the project team and its complex web of internal and external customers. By agreeing together the key measures of success and a flexible timeframe for delivery, they were able to ensure that everyone’s needs were met on an on-going basis without becoming slaves to a 4ft x 8ft Gantt chart on the wall.

Of course, sometimes it can all go wrong even when you think you’ve got it right. Any change expert will have a tale to tell about the amount of time and energy a client will spend on absolutely anything but addressing the real issues – if doing so means having a Difficult Conversation. Unfortunately the same laws apply to customer-supplier project relationships –

Take the web hosting firm who thought that their million-pound contract with a price comparison company was all sewn up ready to renew, only to find that the business was being taken elsewhere. Cue furious pants-dropping in the price department, only after which did the hosting firm realise that it was in fact their complacency towards the relationship that caused the problem. Key stakeholders had changed, requirements had shifted and relationships had not been rebuilt. This was one of the 70% of non-renewals across the board that happened because of a service issue, not because of price or anything else in the original contract terms.

Probably the most important point in all of this is that problems and glitches don’t have to mean loss of business. In fact, handled right, such issues can provide the opportunity to shine in an increasingly commoditised world. What if you and your client acknowledged and discussed the issues openly and without blame? What if together you could agree what ‘good’ looks like and a workable way ahead? What if you were able to not only deliver on ‘good’, but go above and beyond to ‘excellent’? With the right approach this is more than possible and the net result is a delighted and emotionally committed client who not only stays but comes back for more.

Bottom line – in every sense – is that it’s all about understanding and managing the relationships with those who are working on, influencing, or impacted by the project.

It’s looking at project management through a lens of human dynamics. After all, what else is a project other than a finite piece of coordinated work, requiring the input and/or cooperation of a number of different people?

Here’s the rub though: human beings are complex creatures. They can say one thing and do another. They may have drivers and agendas that are not obvious and which you’d never guess. They may share their ideas or keep things close.

Getting underneath all of this is essential and that, I would argue, is the role of the project manager who has to have the skills and tools to do this well.

Understanding and surfacing the true drivers, expectations and – crucially – intent of the people who matter to the work, be they internal colleagues or external clients, is the key to getting it right whilst your graphs, charts and measurements sit in the background monitoring the mechanics.

Successful projects need to ask their customers the RIGHT questions, in order to get the right success factors in the first place, and sit that firmly on a bedrock of commitment, communication and engagement.

I wrote this for In The Powder Room.  Often my columns for them are lighthearted fun, but this one I think is important.  So often we pay little attention to the underlying attitude that our everyday language gives away, if only we were listening.  Were she my child, were this my life, I would never forgive the ease with which she is dismissed.  The next time you hear a news report, listen carefully.  Did they say: ” A woman was raped?” or “A man raped a woman”.  Did they remove the aggression, the perpetrator, the motive from the headline?  What does that tell you about our underlying attitude to victims of crime?

None illustrates the point better than the murder of this woman:

http://www.inthepowderroom.com/read/the-edge/2013-03-reeva-steenkamp-killed-by-boyfriend.html

I first saw her a short while after they moved in.  She was playing at the bottom of the garden, chattering quietly, lost in a world of play.  She is such a beautiful child: light brown hair, a rosebud mouth, and pale, glacier-blue eyes.  Her face holds an expression I cannot read, but she seems distant, disconnected.

She plays alone every afternoon, absorbed in her thoughts.  Once or twice I’ve found an excuse to wander into the garden, in the hope of catching her eye and saying hello.  She sees me every time, but my smiles don’t seem to reach her, and I feel unable to follow them with words.  She looks at me, forehead pulled into a frown, soft lips pursed in thought.  And then she turns away to continue her journey.

For some reason she provokes in me a surprising melancholy.  Despite my comfortable grandmotherly appearance, I am not given to the adoration of every passing minor; in fact it’s fair to say that, although I love my son, I don’t really like children.  And so it is a mystery why I should become so quickly fascinated by this girl.  She is an odd little thing.  So self-contained.  So indifferent.  When I was a child, deference to adults was expected.  In turn, I raised my son to be quiet and respectful and he was.  I assumed the child next door would introduce herself, respond politely to questions; at least reply.  But she does not, yet despite this rudeness, I cannot be annoyed.  I ought to be offended that these people have not taken the time to talk to me and I am irritated at myself for trying to initiate a conversation so many times.  But I am compelled to keep trying.  I tell myself that it’s in the name of good neighbourly relations, but this is not true.  It is not the lack of manners that makes me ache; a life spent in London has taught me that courtesy is rare.  It is something else.

I cannot escape the feeling that I need this child to acknowledge me.   And all the while that nagging thought in the back of my mind….. is this it?  Is this the start of what it means to feel lonely?

One hand in her pocket

James was a successful and wealthy industrial chemist.  He met Sarah shortly after she was ordered back from her studies at the Sorbonne by her father, who had heard rumours of friendships with jazz musicians in Paris, and was aggressively displeased.

They were a beautiful couple. She was petite and pale, with blue eyes and white blonde hair.  He was dark-eyed, handsome and charming.  They married, and just under a year later their daughter was born, with the signature red hair that ran through her father’s line. They named her Amelia.

Sarah was a small and furious woman who did not intend to have children.  Contraception was not widely available in the 1950’s, so she faced the simple choice of abstinence or enjoyment and chose the latter. Children were an unfortunate by-product. She did not like them and she did not hide the fact.  By contrast, James was an affectionate and playful father, but old fashioned. His children were much loved toys, but the serious job of parenting was not for him.

In August 1959, when Amelia was two years old, James and Sarah had another child, a boy, who they called Christopher.

The young family rented a wing of Skutterskelfe Hall, a grand old house in the North Riding of Yorkshire. It had balustrades and terraces, a sunken garden and parapets, a grand drive and a carriage turning circle. It was the perfect playground. Wealth allowed James to indulge both his wife’s hostility and his own laziness, and so he hired a nanny.

Christopher was a few weeks old when the family decided to enjoy the August sunshine, and take a trip out for the day.  As they packed the car, Christopher was put on the driveway in his crib. The milkman arrived. The family paid him no attention, and he in turn did not notice very much about them. The milk float stopped, delivered its order, and began to drive away.  And as it did so, in one brief and irreparable moment, it rode over Christopher’s crib, crushing its precious cargo.

It’s difficult now for Amelia to remember exactly what happened next. She does not recall her father fainting.  She has no memory of her mother and the milkman collapsing into noisy hysterics. She has been told that the family somehow drove to Middlesborough Hospital, her mother cradling the tiny convulsing child, but her brain shows only a blank space where that memory ought to be. What Amelia does see, as plainly as if it were yesterday, is arriving at the hospital.

Her description has a vivid and painful clarity.  I wonder now whether it captures not just this moment, but the essence of her relationship with her mother, in the terrible months that followed:

“I stuck one thumb in my mother’s jeans pocket and the other in my mouth.  And where she ran, I ran.” 

‎To him, she is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel. His only child. “My beautiful, beautiful girl” he calls her. And as he cuddles and coos I see her face over his shoulder. Her smug expression, the glint, the knowing look that belongs on a face far older than hers.

Every afternoon she scrunches herself up in the corner of her room, scribbling and doodling, giggling to herself. She wants us to see that she is recording secrets.

And then one afternoon, they go out. We are all supposed to be going out for the day together but she has been working on him again, and the tears, the pleading, the sulking, have lead to the usual: “I think she needs some time alone with her dad, you don’t mind do you honey?” And as always I shake my head, and fake my smile.

As I shut the door, I see it now, poking out from under the mattress. The notebook, worn and grubby, with “Privite” misspelled in angry letters across the front. It is her favorite possession. Her weapon. Her secret.

The letters are poorly formed and scrawl across the pages with furious speed. It’s punctuated with exclamation marks and underlinings and in the margins she’s drawn tiny people with oversized heads, each pair of eyes showing how she felt while writing each entry. Almost all of them are crying.

Page after page. Of how much she hates me. Of how angry she is. Of an intense and childish jealousy that is at once disarming and infuriating. I see my quirks, my flaws, my mannerisms recorded and scorned and criticised.

And now I know. I put the diary back, but in a different place. I want her to know too.