The constant buzz of my blackberry told me that teams were working through the weekend. Normally I do not look, however I could sense something suggesting that I needed to take a quick look. As I scanned through the titles, one series caught my eye. At the heart of the thread, it was not about work, it was all about people and relationships.
It was easy to see that many are struggling with uncertainty. What do you do when your job future seems uncertain? How long do you wait until your questions are answered? Is there a point where one’s faith cannot be sustained?
The emails suggested that everything was not working for a key individual. People were concerned. Key leaders wanted to do the right thing. Everything seemed to be pointing to a solution. In fact, many thought we had reached a satisfactory outcome several weeks ago. Now, it was over.
I thought back through the email chain, conversations, and different views of what was going on. In hindsight, the different perspectives were easy to see. Internally, we understood the reasons for our collective slowness. From my perspective, and others, we were doing the right thing in the right time. However, when I looked through another’s lens everything changed.
We were slow. Our story was confusing. We did not use language consistent with how another saw life.
Critically, we were playing the game the way we thought it needed to be played. As I looked through another’s lens, I could see a very different perspective. It was almost as if we were playing the role of Festus in an old story. “Festus, though, wanted to get on the good side of the Jews and so said, “How would you like to go up to Jerusalem, and let me conduct your trial there?”” (Acts 25.9)
We wanted to get on the candidate’s good side. We knew we were offering more, but did s/he see it? We understood that process approvals take time. I am not sure we managed expectations. We could see the potential. Did they?
