Working Wonders

Have you ever worked on something that turned out to be wildly successful? A surprising number of everyday people--people like you and me--have had this experience. Some of their stories are in my new book, Spiral Up (sorry for the plug, but I really want people who feel like they have more to contribute to read it and know what to do next).

Here's the thing. When you ask people who are working wonders how they are going about it, they tell you things you don't expect. Their approach doesn't match management "best practice" at all. Take this short true-or-false quiz, and you'll see what I mean.

1. To be successful, an initiative must be planned and scheduled carefully.

2. Important projects won't be successful unless they have explicit top management support.

3. The best way to staff an initiative is with people who have done the same type of project before.

4. Leaders of successful projects line up all the resources they need before they start work.

5. In the end, the leaders of every successful project will want to declare victory.

6. Every successful project needs a single, charismatic leader.

If you answered "true" to any of these questions, you should be proud of your mastery of good management practice. Unfortunately, wildly successful initiatives don't work this way. The answer that emerges from story after story is "false" for all six questions.

How can this be? The way we have learned to manage--to make our results more predictable than spectacular--stamps out all the upside possibilities. When we want to accomplish something wonderful, we have to choose another approach. Anyone can do it.

If you have a working wonder story--especially one that might help other people take up this way of working--please share it with us.

© Jane Linder 2007. All rights reserved.