When Perception takes over Reality..

In the middle of my series on “Perception vs Reality”, here is a story that happened in front of my eyes a couple of weeks ago, that I’d like to share, in order to receive feedback on what you would have done in a similar situation…

To give a bit of context on the story, John – a project manager who just completed a very challenging project – and Peter – the project Sponsor – receive an email on Sunday evening from the Department general manager, asking for an update on minor issues that were left after the project closing, and that are addressed by the various team members, in a best effort mode. None of the issue is critical, and each of them has a safe workaround that takes a maximum of 10 mins / day.

Here is the story –

“[General Manager email on Sunday evening]: Peter, John, I want an update on the post go-live issues. Please, update me.”

On Monday morning, John prepares an update that he gets reviewed by Peter, with the level of details expected by a senior manager, ie enough to understand the context and next steps, but not too much as expected by a senior manager who does not have time to dig into the details . All in all, the email was showing that every single issue was being followed through, with a clear responsible party, and clear next steps. Peter and John discuss together, and they agree that John, as the project manager, should send the email to the Department manager.

On Monday end of the morning, John sends the email reviewed by Peter, concluding the email by asking if the Department manager had any further question.

On Monday afternoon, the Department manager replies to another email on the same topic – the email in question was dated from the Friday before:

“[General Manager response to Friday’s email]: I want a clear update. I do NOT consider the project closed, you must close ALL the issues. Please, update me.”

The likelihood is that the Department Manager did not see the response to Monday’s email, but thought that the email sent on Friday was the response; yet this email was not providing the expected answers. As a result, the Department Manager became angry, thinking the project manager was not taking the time to provide the requested update, or was taking his role to close the issues lightly. And the ultimate and unfair perception became that the project manager did not do his job, and was not taking accountability for the remaining list of issues. Unfairly for sure, because I know John and know that nobody could care more than him to bring the project to full completion.

Then, John came to me to ask what he should do: should he re-send Monday’s email providing the details? Should he clarify with the Department manager whether he actually saw Monday’s email with all the expected details? Should he just stay low, hide in the background, and leave the sponsor deal with the situation? Or do anything else?

 

In this specific story, the option chosen was that the Sponsor responded back to the Department manager, with pretty much the same information as in the email sent by the project manager. But since the email came from the Sponsor, it was well received this time.

How unfair is such an attitude? How can a factual email be read differently when it comes from a Sponsor (ie a manager with recognition in the hierarchy) and when it comes from a mere project manager? How can the perception of the email drastically change the reality of the contents, just because of who is sending the email? And what can be the resulting demotivation and frustrations for a project manager working hard to accomplish a very, very challenging project?

 

What would you have done in this situation? Would you have tried to re-establish justice in front of the Department manager? Or would you have left the Department manager happily ignore the project manager efforts but recognize only the sponsor position instead? Would you have tried to change the Department manager’s perception, taking at the same time the risk to trigger the anger of the Department manager against you? Why is it so difficult to align Perception and Reality, as soon as you are dealing with Senior Management? Why is our goal making sure that Senior Management has a good perception of what we do, rather than concentrating on fixing the reality of the ground? Why are we so shy to speak out to Senior Management, even when it means to let unfair perceptions persist? I am really interested in getting your views…