Sometimes the world changes dramatically in the middle of your project or change program, to the point where you question what should happen next.
An excellent historical example occurred during the Lewis & Clark expedition from St. Louis as they searched for a water route to the Pacific Ocean. They were commissioned in 1804 by President Jefferson and had the best of men and supplies for the expedition. The expedition took their keelboat up the Missouri River, and then up tributary after tributary for over a year. Then they reached the Continental Divide at the Rocky Mountains. No more river route. You can’t canoe over the Rockies.
Lewis, the leader, still wanted to get to the Pacific. The native tribes told him that it was only a 3-day journey over the mountains and then there was a big river that flowed west. The expedition struggled for six weeks getting over the Bitterroot Mountains – one the most rugged areas in North America, by any measure – at the beginning of winter. They hauled all their supplies and a large boat over multiple mountains, including a 7200-foot pass. Most of their horses died from exposure. Lewis didn’t lose any men (one man had died much earlier, in what is now Iowa) and eventually they were able to make their way to the Columbia River and reach the Pacific Ocean. They endured a hard winter on the coast, then made the return journey to St. Louis.
(The L&C expedition is a remarkable study in leadership. Their diaries are detailed but I recommend Stephen Ambrose’s more readable account, “Undaunted Courage.”)
So what do you do when the world changes affect your mission or project? Three options:
- Simply stop. Thank people for their time and effort, wrap it up professionally, and move on. This is far better than driving a project forward without changes.
- If the mission is intact, figure out how to adapt the tactics and program methods. Find successes in the interim work.
- Pivot to a new direction for a [re]new[ed] purpose. Lewis retained the mission of getting to the Pacific and exploring the lands between, even as he let go of the water route objective.
All three require skilled leadership – clear thinking, aligning work to priority, and constant communication with stakeholder up, down, right, and left.
