Help Wanted: The Trials and Triumphs of Leading in Difficult Times

When things are going wrong... have you ever waited or wished for someone to come and save you?

The First Time I Asked for Help It Was Helpful

As the story goes... I was working for Keane in Halifax, Canada... and our biggest account in Toronto was in trouble. I ran naively towards the fire and was confident I could move there with my family for a year and get things back on track.

On top of being responsible for delivery...I also had a sales target to hit. My plan was to swoop in... get the team hitting the SLAs...get us on track to achieve CMMI Level 3... charm the customer to grow the account.... live happily ever after and go on to achieve great fame and fortune. Easy...Right?!

You'll be shocked to know that only a few weeks into it I was feeling defeated...despondent and unsure if I could fix it. There was no way I could do sales and turn delivery around. We were in breach of contract... the client hated us...the team hated us more. So I turned to a couple of friends back in Halifax and asked for help.

We decided the best path was for me to focus on the client...team building and selling. Sean Bishop and his family would come to Toronto for the summer (which I am forever grateful for). Sean would stabilize delivery and hire a local delivery manager while Jason Powell took the lead on CMMI Level 3 certification.

This was a great plan with people I trusted and could rely on. Things were looking up! The help was helpful!

The Second Guy That Came to Help Was Not Helpful

As the Summer ended...Sean and his family moved back to Halifax and our new delivery manager had started. I was focused on the uphill battle selling into the client as well as team building so I wasn't paying as much attention to how the delivery manager was doing.

It was the morning of our first big business review.... I get to the office and the guy (for the life of me I cannot remember his name) is no where to be found. We tried calling his cell phone and I began to panic the closer we were getting to the meeting... which I anticipated to be contentious.

I don't know if that was the infamous meeting that ended with the customer cursing us out...yelling and screaming like a lunatic... and finally storming out of the room. I guess it doesn't matter now as there were several like that. The point is we weathered it and realized several days later from finally getting a hold of the delivery guys wife that the stress of the job had driven him to drink (literally). He had fallen off his 12 step program for about 3 days and so we had to part ways with him.

The Third Guy That Came to Help Was Not Helpful

Sean and I regrouped and we agreed we needed some help with delivery from someone who had dealt with tough client situations before. Someone fresh off the street was not going to cut it until things got better. So we called the head of sales and delivery for Keane... and Loz sent us a guy named Mark. He had been with Keane for years and no doubt he would get things back on track. Mark and I agreed to meet in the hotel lobby the morning after he arrived to have breakfast and prep for the introduction with the client.

By now you can probably guess what happened. I waited and waited...then called his cell phone several times. When he finally answered he was soooo drunk and slurring his words. I was able to make out that he had been out all night and that he was not going to be able to make the meeting.

I remember crying in my car and wondering how I had been able to manage all this time with my finger in the damn and the last two people to come "save me" crumbled in record time. I then picked myself up and called Sean to make sure he could dial into the meeting so we could make excuses why the "expert from the United States" wouldn't be joining us.

I also called Loz to let him know the guy he sent was incapacitated and needed to be dealt with. Turns out Loz was in India and at a reception with the head of HR Paul Macfarlane. Both Paul and Loz were shocked and disappointed and I genuinely believe that they felt bad that things had gone from bad to worse. Paul committed to "handling" the Mark situation and Loz looked around the room and told one of the managers to get on a plane to come save me.

The Fourth Guy That Came to Help Was Not Helpful

By the time the guy from India arrived I was in full "combat" mode. I was not messing around and needed to take more control of the situation. Having said that... the guy from India (again...I can't recall his name) was full of naïve optimism and proceeded to tell me "you don't know what is in the client's heart". I very directly told him that I DID know what was in their hearts and it was not good for us. Maybe if he listened to me we might be able to navigate the situation.

You'll be shocked to know he didn't listen and was chain smoking... drinking heavily... and begging to go home within a couple of weeks.

So....one more call into Loz to see if there was ANYONE in the company who could take the heat besides me!

The Fifth Guy That Came to Help Actually Helped!

At this stage in the story I was about nine months into turning things around. The SLAs were almost back on track... we were about to be CMMI Level 3 certified and the team was not actively sabotaging us like they were in the beginning.

I did not do this alone... Sean and Jason continued to support as best they could from afar. We also had some believers in the team which deserve a lot of credit too.

Even in light of the progress... the client continued to be brutal to us... every meeting we were torn apart and that had taken it's toll on me as I stood strong to demonstrate our outcomes. My role had to be task master so we could relentlessly execute to our contractual commitments. This meant my ability to be the "good cop" and upsell had all but faded away.

When Gary Klemens... the Fifth guy... arrived I was exhausted and had very little faith he would be of help at all. Turns out I was wrong and he carried me over the finish line. What I remember about Gary is his calm... knowledgeable approach. He listened to me and he showed no signs of someone who crumbled easily. He talked about how he wanted to retire and be a school bus driver. He had found strength in his faith and had sworn off alcohol many years ago.

Thanks to him...we came up with a plan to have me transition off once my year was up and he would bring in someone to patch up the client relationship now that things were no longer in breach of contract and the team was executing. Turned out it worked...and the guy that came after me (Wayne "The Cupcake" Koepke) won leader of the year a few months later for that account at the Keane Annual Conference. No shout out or fanfare for those that lived through the crisis...but that's the way "The Cupcake Crumbles" :-)

In Closing...

I grew up a lot that year and nothing in my career will ever be that hard again. You can check out my 5 Lessons Learned from Failure which I still carry with me each and every day.

The experience also solidified one of my favorite mantras...

No One's Coming... No One Cares... I'm Coming... I Care

This doesn't mean that I don't ask for help or accept help... it means I am not naïve enough to think that someone can just magically show up on their white horse and save you. YOU have to use help wisely and know how far the help can take you. Having said that...it turns out someone CAN ride in their white sportscar and take the credit for all your hard work. There is no other way to learn that lesson other than living through it.

Leadership Questions of the Week for YOU:

• Have YOU ever faced a situation where you felt overwhelmed and unsure if you could succeed? How did YOU handle it?

• Can YOU recall a time when asking for help made a difference in your professional journey? What was the outcome?

• How do YOU balance maintaining control of a project with delegating tasks to others especially under pressure?

• What advice or lessons learned would YOU share about asking and leveraging help in difficult times?

Thanks for reading….and remember…YOU make a difference!

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