One thing I hear a lot of, is people saying “why do things have to be so complicated?”
What this tends to translate into, is “why won’t people just do what I want them to do?”
Well, there’s a bunch of reasons for it … from personal agendas [yours and theirs] to personal stupidity [yours and theirs] to egomania [yours and theirs] to commercial requirements and realities and pretty much anything and everything in-between.
The reality is that while you can definitely influence how people around you behave, collaborate and align, the raw reality is somethings going to happen, the issue is how much are you going to let it screw everything up.
In my experience, there’s a bunch of ways you can try to manage this:
The Dictator:
It doesn’t matter what the feedback or situation is … you act like a child full of caffeine and e-numbers the moment there is the slightest change of plan. This might work once, but even if it does, you have started a reputation where people won’t want to work/help you in the future.
The Pleaser:
It doesn’t matter what the feedback or situation is … you agree with whatever the client says or wants before you have even aligned with your broader team. This might make some clients like you, but it starts the a chain reaction where by the end of it, the relationship between client and agency is doomed to failure. [Either creatively, commercially, culturally or all 3]
The Professional:
It doesn’t matter what the feedback or situation is … you assess and discuss the implications and impact of any feedback against the bigger goal and then make the most appropriate decision – even if it means pushing back or pulling together. This approach not only keeps people focused on the real/bigger prize [rather than let meaningless details throw you off course] it creates better work, results and relationships. Honest.
Anyway, the reason I say all this is because I recently saw this timezone map …
Now I am sure there are a bunch of reasons for it, but how complicated is it!!!
Almost every line has some kink along the way.
I know I am probably wildly wrong, but something tells me there was a large amount of lobbying along the way.
Maybe farmers wanted to have more light during harvest?
Or fisherman wanted the ability to be out in the seas for longer?
Or maybe airlines just preferred to land at a more reasonable time?
Or maybe the people behind it were just pissed out their heads and actually thought they were drawing straight lines all the way through it?
Who knows what the real reasons behind it are … but I wonder if it had anything to do with the person in charge being a dictator, a pleaser or – god forbid – a professional. Anyway, have another look at it and be grateful that you don’t have to deal with that much [potentially pointless] political bullshit in your job.
See, your Monday suddenly got miles better.
You can thank me later … though if this sort of thing does resemble your average 9am-5pm, then I apologise and suggest you either visit here or here.
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PS: Dear NSA … or CIA … or HR … please don’t fire me for promoting that 2nd link in the last line of the above post. It was just done for humours sake and in no way am I advocating murder. Nor am I guaranteeing success in getting away with it. Thank you. Ahem.