It Doesn't Always Go Right

Many years ago I ran the software division of a consultancy I helped to start. We had about 30 engineers, some working on customer sites and some working on projects at our office. I was relatively inexperienced and, looking back, was probably out of my depth. Despite this, I did my best and we were relatively successful.

Most projects went smoothly but occasionally something unexpected would happen.

The largest project we ever worked on was to deliver an early online game. It was very ambitious, using 3d graphics where others barely had 2d, and we did succeed in developing the game; unfortunately, for various reasons, the customer never took it live.

However, towards the end of the project the customer asked an external engineer to come in and review the code and what we were delivering. Again, this went relatively well … until one of our engineers took exception to something that was said and I was faced with the external engineer and our engineer nose to nose shouting at each other; it looked like it was going to end in blows!

I had to literally step in-between them to separate them and calm things down.

After about 10 minutes of separation and some careful diplomacy they were able to carry on their discussion, agreeing to disagree about something.

I’m not sure there is any text book that prepares you for a situation like that but it is good to not always assume things will go smoothly and to expect the unexpected.

That’s part of the challenge of a leader’s adventure.