Recently in a project review meeting, we discovered we were behind schedule and over our budget hours. When this was brought to the attention of the team, the response and attitude was “Oh well, we tried”. This apparent lack of concern did not sit well with me.

While I know our team has a strong desire to succeed and perform well, I was not convinced they understood what it really takes to get there and what we each need to do to make it happen.

So, having a strong desire for us to get to the next level coupled with a passion for believing we can make it happen, I took the opportunity to make a point.

The moment of truth came for me when one of our team members said, “We are working hard and trying our best to complete these projects on time and under budget.” Another chimed in with, “This is tough and we are all doing our best. What more can we do?” Yet another comment was, “Are you sure this is realistic? Maybe this is the best we can do.”

This was one of those moments where you may be torn. You want to have compassion for all the effort, but something in your gut is screaming, “This is not right!” At that moment I blurted out, “Look guys, we can get poor playing volleyball!” They all just looked at me as if I was out of my mind. I said it again, “We can get poor playing volleyball!“ One responded with, “What are you talking about?”

So I explained we are beating our heads against the wall and losing money. If we are going to beat our heads against the wall, there should be a pay off. If not, then let’s at least have fun.

So here’s the point: focus on whatever it takes to help us get these projects done on time and under budget. Stop the excuses and get to work or let’s all just go play volleyball.

Regardless of the business, the issue, or the circumstances, sometimes it’s gut check time and you may need to determine if your team is ready to do what it takes to make money for your business or maybe you should all just go play volleyball.

So what’s the take away from all this talk about volleyball and how can you use it?

Reinforce why your organization exists. Whatever the purpose or ambition of your organization, you can use this concept to reinforce that purpose. You can discuss the key criteria it takes to make sure you are achieving the purpose from the way you take care of customers, provide solutions, develop pricing, or finish projects. If you get into a tough discussion about how difficult it is to achieve the purpose, you can go right back to the thoughts of volleyball.

Motivate and reenergize your team to develop ideas to meet targets such as utilization, meetings with customers, project budgets, schedules, etc. Sometimes it is easy to fall into the trap of making excuses as to why it can’t be done. Some people start to point to outside influences and things they can’t control as a means of making themselves feel better, but it is a false sense of better. Once again, you can quickly revert back to the volleyball philosophy.

Finally, it can be used in conversations with customers or vendors when the value you provide is being challenged. Typically, the value isn’t really being challenged as much as people sometimes want to negotiate. When faced with a customer challenging the price of what you are providing, this can be used, with some softening, to help the customer understand you are in the business of creating profit. If not, let’s go play volleyball!




By: Jeff Murphy