When I took this picture I was immediately reminded of an old joke popularized by Ronald Reagan. The story varies, but typically ends up with a little boy receiving a giant pile of horse manure as a gift. Confronting the smelly pile, the boy dives in, scratching and digging about. When asked to explain his illogical behavior, he exclaims, “With all this horse manure, there surely must be a pony in here.”
Some view this as a metaphor for optimism. Others, including myself, view this as a characteristic of leadership. To me, this story is analogous to receiving an ugly status report. Murphy’s law struck and the prototype just stopped working. Or the repair for the memorial isn’t strong enough. The simple fact is that bad things happen to good projects. The key learning from the pile of manure story is that great leaders are those that provide a safe environment for the inevitable “ah, crap” project update.
I think this is a true tipping point for leaders. When confronted with bad news, it’s common to fly off the handle, look for blame and express dissatisfaction. None of these behaviors will undo what’s happened. Good leadership will take stock of what’s happened, file it away, and pivot the team’s focus to the future. “Where should we go from here?” “What are we going to need to dig out?” “Thanks for sharing the bad news early — we still have time to do something about it.” Those are quotes from the great project leaders I’ve worked with over the years. They are indeed a minority. If you’re a project leader that faces a disastrous project update, remember the manure story and know that teams whose leaders create a safe environment for truth to speak to power are the ones that are finding the pony
