The gunshot you heard last Tuesday was the starter's pistol marking the official kick-off press conference of Just For Laughs, 2011. (Click here, too for more.)
The next one you hear may be me plugging one into my head.
All kidding aside (and in no way making light of suicide), the advent of May coincides with, for lack of a better term, the shit hitting the fan at the Festival. Picture a three-dimensional chess game--where
every little move spawns a seismic domino effect--played out at 500 miles-per-hour and you can get an inkling of my daily existence.So, when copious amounts of shit hits fan at warp speed, a thing or two might tend to fall through the cracks. Or to keep the fecal theme going, shit will happen.
What I learned this week is how best to deal with this inevitability.
Two things went very wrong on Friday. One had to do with a non-approval by a major sponsor of a TV ad campaign as we were ready to deliver the spots to the networks. The other was a collapse of a very important part of our infrastructure.
In one case--and to protect both the innocent and guilty, I wont say which is which--hours were spent searching for who's responsible; in the other, time was used to find a way out of the problem.
The former case is still active; the latter was put to bed Friday afternoon. So, the lesson?
Look For The Answer...
Not The Guilty Party
Somehow, sometime, in every company, in every project, the walls will come tumbling down.
Dealing with it depends on what you look for.
Look for the culprit, and you'll always be blind. Finding the guilt party wastes time, energy and worst of all, takes your eye off the ball.
Look for the solution, and you'll see forever. Finding the answer, while far from easy, is time well-spent. It's the focal point. Culpability should not be ignored, but dealt with later...once you've solved the problem.
In business, you're not in a court.
Your immediate response to a problem should not be trying to establish guilt or innocence.
You should be trying to establish a way out of a shitstorm.
Because the next one's waiting for you around the corner.
And with that jolly thought, have you checked out our new line-up?
Buy a few tickets and at least make this all worth my while ;)