14
Chillin?
This post stemmed from numerous occasions of hearing statements like: I could use a few beers, I wish I were drunk, You’ve got to be off your rockers to work here, Just shoot me now – you get the point. So I wondered – what if you consumed those beers or wines at the office – how would the alcohol help better manage projects, teams or work in general? Here are some thoughts.
- You could have one big team party (with alcohol) for meeting project deadlines? (I hear some Ya Rights; meeting deadlines?)
Wine?
- You could muster enough courage (or shed enough inhibition) to tell stakeholders, sponsors or customers they cannot get what they want by the time they want for the price at which they want?
- You could fire an under-performing team member? Or give his supervisor a piece of your mind at his 360 degree feedback session?
- You could tell a team to buckle up, get their act together and move it – irrespective of whether or not you have direct ownership of that team?
Beer?
- You could rephrase your repeated request for a date, task completion, etc. as “What the **** is taking you this long?” hoping that the aggression in your voice and language gets you a response sooner?
- You could tell the truth at a lessons learned session or a retrospective?
- You could report realistic budget figures, KPIs and other project statuses? (or the true reasons for the figures being what they are)
- You could demand/set effort and duration for all activities minus the sandbagging?
Okay, as you can imagine, this list can go on and on. Instead it’s more fun to open this up and see what you would do. Feel free to chime in, and add more fun, imaginative, crazy stuff. After all it is Friday…! I certainly have had a long week, and am ready for my first visit to the new Yankee stadium, a couple of hot dogs and a few beers!
Btw, there is another point to this besides fun. There are many things we think we cannot do because of x, y and z. Alcohol sheds one’s inhibitions enabling one to take on bolder initiatives (such as, at a bar, asking the hottest person to go on a date). Add your thoughts, and revisit this page later to see what others would like to do in the work environ, and think through how many of those things you can actually do without the alcohol – some with just a little attitude adjustment, shift in focus or a little leadership/courage.
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…Good one!
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