I love setbacks.
Garth Nowland-Foreman
Last year working in in Fiji we used a case-study to unpack the six steps of successful project planning (more on that in another time). But it also struck me how this story told us a lot about making the best use of setbacks. There will always be setbacks. Sometimes they are big, sometimes they are small, sometimes they are many, sometimes they are few. So lets learn how to reframe them, and make the most from them.
Here’s more on the case study: The students at Abbasaya School were frustrated. The lunch period was the only time they had for exercise during the school day, but with no sports equipment, there was little they could do in the dusty school yard. A few older students wanted to know what could be done. They asked as many students as they could what sports they liked to play, and went to the principal with their results.
The principal, while impressed with their initiative, had no hesitation refusing their request for the school to buy the equipment they wanted. This had happened before, he explained, and the students didn’t look after the equipment. It was all too soon in such a bad state of repair as to be useless, and the school had wasted its precious cash.
Setback number one: the students had expected if they clearly expressed a reasonable need, the school would meet their request. But not so. Undeterred, these students took this setback in their stride and incorporated its lessons for them into improving their planning. First , if the school wouldn’t help, the determined senior students decided to enlist the junior students and others in a school-wide fund-raising campaign. They set targets, made up a plan and allocated out tasks. They also asked the school’s technical education teacher to run sessions for all the students on how to patch a deflated football, how to maintain an air pump, and how to construct basketball hoops and goal posts.
The second setback was they soon found the tickets were selling no where near as well as they needed for their major fund-raising dance. A few businesses had donated money, but not much. The grocery store owner would not give any money, but agreed to donate food. Once people heard there would also be food at the dance, the students were able to sell more tickets. If they hadn’t taken into account the feedback from the setback, and changed their approach, their fund-raising efforts would have fallen disappointingly short of their goal.
Sixty-five years ago in landmark research on resistance when implementing change on the factory floor, Lawrence (1954) uncovered an important lesson we still need to learn: resistance to change is not a barrier to overcome by pushing harder, its an early warning signal to be welcomed. It’s a useful reminder that we forgot to take something into account in planning the change process. The same lesson the boys of Abbasaya School found out, many years later and half a world away.
Yes, its true that some project setbacks are just a nuisance, but more often than we realise they still have important lessons to teach us. Our plans will be stronger, and more effective if we listen carefully to the set-backs and take their lessons into account. It’s still not exactly true to say that I love setbacks. But I am teaching myself to get over it and appreciate what they have to offer. This may not be our immediate natural instinct, but it certainly helps to be on the look-out for the hidden truths and treasures buried inside most setbacks.
If you’d like to explore these and many other issues we are offering our very first Strategy Masterclass: Managing Change in Complexity in Christchurch on Tuesday 7 April 2020. Check out our events pages. If you are keen to see this new Masterclass come to Auckland or Wellington later in 2020, register your interest with info@lead.org.nz and we’ll make sure you don’t miss out.
(Thanks to the Barefoot Collective for the Abbasaya School case-study.)