I had the afternoon all planned. I have really got behind with outdoor chores this year and was facing some derogatory comments from the family about the state of the front garden. So, the weather forecast was good – no rain and not too hot, and everybody else was going out. I could finally trim the hedge and tidy the paths and collect so left-over leaves and make the front of the house look far more respectable.
However, for some reason I had to go to the back of the rear garden first, only to find that a large twenty-foot tree trunk covered in ivy had been blown over and jammed itself across a wooden arch I had installed in the spring. So all my best laid plans had to change. The tree wasn’t safe and my arch might collapse. I therefore spent 3 hours with a chain saw cutting the tree up and clearing up all the branches. The front garden remains in its current rather sorry state at least until next week.
It’s true in professional life as well. The best laid plans don’t always work out. You fly to a meeting in Scotland on a negotiation, only to find the lawyer or commercial adviser on the other side isn’t available for the meeting. This happened to a colleague of mine a few years ago. The trick is recognising that this might happen and doing something instead. I think my colleague spent some useful time with his own team finding out what was really going on in face to face meetings while he was there.
Murphy’s law says what can go wrong will go wrong. Or maybe as Spike Milligan put it We haven’t got a plan so nothing can go wrong!I think it’s how we prepare for the unexpected and react to the change of circumstances that matters. This Guardian article suggests Four ways to cope when things go wrong at work and comments that the key is resilience in the face of hardship – some weather storms with little or no effect on their efficiency or sense of wellbeing.
This Computer Weekly article Managing IT projects: when things go wrongdiscusses the unexpected events that almost inevitably disrupt many IT projects quoting Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister in the 1950s, who when asked by a journalist what he most feared replied, "Events, dear boy, events".
This article on what successful people do when things go wrong quotes Winston Churchill who summed up the challenges of dealing with the unexpected with a positive twist “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” It also comments that Bill Gates’ first company called Traf-O-Data was a failure. He was able to adapt and try again with Microsoft and we all know how successful that is.
So the real lesson is that things will go wrong and plans will have to change and we just need to react and deal with the challenges that inevitably creates – I suppose I had at least had the foresight to possess a chain saw.
And as Albert Einstein said In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. Probably won’t stop my back hurting from lifting tree trunks though!
However, for some reason I had to go to the back of the rear garden first, only to find that a large twenty-foot tree trunk covered in ivy had been blown over and jammed itself across a wooden arch I had installed in the spring. So all my best laid plans had to change. The tree wasn’t safe and my arch might collapse. I therefore spent 3 hours with a chain saw cutting the tree up and clearing up all the branches. The front garden remains in its current rather sorry state at least until next week.
It’s true in professional life as well. The best laid plans don’t always work out. You fly to a meeting in Scotland on a negotiation, only to find the lawyer or commercial adviser on the other side isn’t available for the meeting. This happened to a colleague of mine a few years ago. The trick is recognising that this might happen and doing something instead. I think my colleague spent some useful time with his own team finding out what was really going on in face to face meetings while he was there.
Murphy’s law says what can go wrong will go wrong. Or maybe as Spike Milligan put it We haven’t got a plan so nothing can go wrong!I think it’s how we prepare for the unexpected and react to the change of circumstances that matters. This Guardian article suggests Four ways to cope when things go wrong at work and comments that the key is resilience in the face of hardship – some weather storms with little or no effect on their efficiency or sense of wellbeing.
This Computer Weekly article Managing IT projects: when things go wrongdiscusses the unexpected events that almost inevitably disrupt many IT projects quoting Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister in the 1950s, who when asked by a journalist what he most feared replied, "Events, dear boy, events".
This article on what successful people do when things go wrong quotes Winston Churchill who summed up the challenges of dealing with the unexpected with a positive twist “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” It also comments that Bill Gates’ first company called Traf-O-Data was a failure. He was able to adapt and try again with Microsoft and we all know how successful that is.
So the real lesson is that things will go wrong and plans will have to change and we just need to react and deal with the challenges that inevitably creates – I suppose I had at least had the foresight to possess a chain saw.
And as Albert Einstein said In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. Probably won’t stop my back hurting from lifting tree trunks though!
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