Negative outcomes, just like negative emotions stories, can teach us important lessons. In our next story, we describe the unfortunate outcome when a project manager ignored his feelings about a decision and went along with his team, despite his initial reluctance.
The Story: Jeff
Jeff was smiling. His teammates thought that was as it should be. After all, the board had just appropriated $6 million for his new product development team’s efforts. Some of his fellow team members were openly shocked, believing that the project never had a chance. It would be the company’s largest expenditure of this sort—ever. In addition, the project development schedule was aggressive, and the market for the product was quite different from the company’s traditional core market.
Actually, Jeff was both thrilled and shocked. His smile was fixed on his face. His goal was to get the plan as far as the board, and if they approved the plan, he had expected that they would have provided only a small amount of funding. Now Jeff had to deliver, and he was worried.
Jeff was worried for an extremely good reason. The development team needed to find an original equipment manufacturer for the main component of the new product. After months of searching for a product to meet the market requirements, engineering and purchasing had presented the options to the team. “It does it all. In fact, it’s also twice as fast as what you were looking for,” purchasing claimed. Jeff looked at his product specification document and asked questions about other features. Engineering said there was no way to meet all of the requirements. Jeff was very uncomfortable about the decision, as one key feature appeared not to meet his product specification, and this specification was part of the proposal to the board. But everyone else on the team thought it was great and, ultimately, product manager Jeff got caught up in the excitement. After all, it was just one feature out of many, and the team had significantly upgraded the spec in other areas. And time was running out. He agreed to support the team, and negotiations with the vendor began.
The next few months were anxious ones, as the team raced to meet the aggressive deadline for the product launch There was a strong sense of excitement, and the team met the deadline. It was the fastest development project in the history of the company.
The team forgot Jeff’s concerns regarding the missing product feature, although Jeff had lingering doubts. He did not allow these doubts to surface, however, and never discussed them. After all, he was one of the guys and part of the team. Everyone seemed so happy with the product that he thought it would be okay. He ignored his emotions and got caught up in the excitement of others.
But the product did not sell. At first, the team blamed sales. Sales blamed service. Service blamed the product.
The Emotionally Intelligent Manager Analysis
What happened? Our emotionally intelligent analysis lets us get at the root cause of the problem.
The development team was in love with the product. Most wanted it more than anything in the world. Such optimism and passion were what fueled their drive and motivation. They logged hundreds of hours on the project. It was these feelings that motivated their plan and was the source of the enthusiasm that helped to sell the board. These emotions also motivated them to roll the product out in record time. In fact, the team was honored by the division president for their work.
But Jeff also had negative feelings about the product plan. His emotions should have been a signal to him that something was amiss, but he ignored the signal. It was his undoing. Had he attended to his feeling more closely, Jeff would have realized that the missing feature was much too important to disregard. He would have not participated in the irrational exuberance of the group, and he would have become more neutral or negative and focused on the details, when such a focus was necessary.
Jeff’s failure as a product manager in this instance appears to be due to his neglecting to manage his emotions and minimizing his negative feelings.
A Plan for the Emotionally Intelligent Manager
Many organizations have an unstated policy that they will “shoot the messenger” or the bearer of bad news, and Jeff’s company was probably no exception. The news was not good, but by using the Emotional Blueprint, Jeff had a chance to make a bad situation a little better.
Identifying the source of his discomfort could have allowed Jeff to focus his attention on the core of the issue: the fact that the product would not meet customer needs. Rather than panic, Jeff could have attempted to generate a sense of concern among his engineering team to get them to focus on the problem. He could have enlisted them to sign up to try to save their new baby and done the same with the sales managers. He could have generated emotional scenarios to tell him that, as the situation unraveled relationships would deteriorate, along with any sense of team.
Perhaps the team feeling could have been maintained and strengthened by having the group recognize that they faced a common enemy and concern. Perhaps a team spirit would have gotten the group to accept their problems but stay committed to the concept and to each other.
Guiding the group through the uncomfortable realization would not have been enjoyable and might have engendered some bad feelings. No matter what happened, there would have been conflict and negativity. But Jeff could have chosen between the experience of negative conflict leading to disaster and the experience of negative conflict leading to a partial success. Unfortunately, Jeff chose the first route.
The Outcome and Lessons Learned
The initial product plan called for 20,000 units to be sold over the first phase of the product life cycle. This phase was estimated to be about three years. But the product was pulled from the market twenty-two months after its much-celebrated launch. The company had sold just over 1,200 units.
There was a reorganization of Jeff’s division soon after the demise of the “revolutionary” new product. It was at this time that Jeff found himself without a position in the company, after having served faithfully and quite rationally for almost nine years.
Every situation is complex, and the abilities of emotional intelligence can explain part of the complexity. But perhaps no case from our vast casebook illustrates the disastrous consequences that can result when the wisdom of our feelings is ignored, as this case does.