PMcrunch

Most of us have heard the acronym “stepping up to the plate“. But in the United States this past weekend, the victory of the New York Giants over the Green Bay Packers in the National Football Conference championship game gave some real hands-on meaning to it.

The Giants’ kicker, Lawrence Tynes, had previously missed field goals of 43 and 36 yards, respectively. In fact, the 36 yard attempt had just occurred a few minutes earlier – with 4 seconds remaining in regulation time. His miss had thrown the tied game into overtime.

That’s quite a bit of pressure: a. knowing that you have missed 2 already, and b. knowing that if your team is to win the game, you may be called upon to try again. Add to that the many thousands of fans present in the stands, and millions more watching on television – not to mention the reporters standing ready to publicize the whole story for the news AND for the archives!

With the Giants getting the ball barely into field goal range, it would take a super effort and super kick to get the field goal – so a decision had to be made whether to a. go for the field goal, or b. punt and hopefully get the chance to try again. Management’s decision – to be made by Coach Coughlin – was just about made by Tynes himself when he confidently and purposefully took the field to go for the field goal. Now that’s STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE! And, of course, he made the field goal, and the Giants won and will go to the Super Bowl.

There are many interesting aspects to this, but the most interesting was the decisiveness that Tynes demonstrated, and the mental control that he showed. While we could say that he displayed confidence, he must he have felt some degree of trepidation after missing those prior field goals. I can only say that he exercised great control over his thoughts – not an easy thing to do – and got out there in spite of what could have been a loss of confidence.

Lessons Learned are all around us. We need not only refer to past projects! Every day there are acts of courage, decisiveness, and mental control. This was a great one in the public eye. But often, in the process of building project plans, presenting to stakeholders, managing teams, and more…, we can get into a rut in our thinking about what is and is not possible. The profession of project management is often about being a realist, bringing things back down to earth, to a practical level. But we must not lose sight of the fact that “stepping up to the plate” is really what makes great things happen, and advances us, our teams, and our organizations to the next level.

What have you failed at in the past that you are going to take on and overcome today – to bring yourself, your project team, and others around you to the next level?

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John Reiling, PMP

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