The Unbelievable Madlen Rathmann and the Incredible Alexandra Hackett-Jones 

What do we lack the most when working on virtually any project or change initiative? In my experience – it is the time to genuinely conduct the “lessons learned” exercises, to reflect on the underlying reasons, to put things into perspective and to observe situations within a broader context. If things go according to the plan, we swiftly shift our attention to the next most pressing issue or to a new project. If things go awry, we try to get them back on track as quickly as possible and move on. Understanding the root cause in the heat of an implementation phase is seldomly our priority, so we rarely ask the question “But why did it happen this way?” (Unless the real question being asked is “Whose fault is this?” – but this is a totally different story, already in the pipeline to be told). Instead, we integrate the new status quo – “it is what it is!” – and take things from there. While this might be the right thing to do and at times the only sensible one, this approach seriously slows down a fundamental change and even undermines the chances for it.

This is why the purpose of this blog is no less than the creation of a time-space continuum for all things “Change and Project management”, i.e., this is the space where I would like to deliberately take time (and a step back) and look at a broader and bigger picture. The absence of the “rush hour” of a project feeling and having to “reach goals in a timely manner” as a measure of success, allows to make the understanding of phenomena the real priority and we have all time in the world to ask the questions.

How do certain patterns fit into a more global context? Where do the particular behaviours stem from? Is the situation at hand familiar, but from a different context? Being a big fan of transfer knowledge, fusion in general and post-modern eclecticism in particular, I consciously look for different angles and, even more so, seemingly unrelated fields. This can be particularly useful as sometimes behaviours and situations seen within different context and different light become much more clear and evident: it is easier to study the water and objects in an aquarium next to yours rather than in your own one.

At the same time, we want to reap the fruit of our thought-sowing at some point. Once “But why is it this way?” has flowered out with our attention, our next question will be “So what can we do about it?”. Thus, it remains the point and the second priority to identify a couple of practical approaches on how to address the issues in real life situations. And, of course, little anecdotes from actual projects and case studies should not come too short either.

My commitment is to deliver one entry every fortnight on a Friday afternoon – not chasing quantity, I would like to assure continuity and the best quality I can provide. And while on that matter – the first blog entry is also a great place to thank the incredible Alexandra Hackett-Jones, an Associate Professor at the Department of Foreign Languages at the Herzen University of St Petersburg (to learn about the unbelievable Madlen, switch to the German version). Having bilingualism and polylingualism as the focal point of her research, Alexandra knows and feels the English language in all its richness and beauty. Alexandra is proof-reading the English version of my articles and is providing amazing feedback in the most endearing and fun way fathomable. If there is a t missing a cross or an i missing a dot or something sounds generally clumsy and weird – this is me, acting against her better judgement and kind advice.