Do you hold yourself accountable to achieving results for your interpretive center, your visitors, your staff, your board, and your foundation? How do you assess how well you are doing in your role? Are you willing to look in the mirror and do the hard work of self-assessment? Do you criticize leadership elsewhere without looking at your own? If you blame, criticize, or play the victim, that might be a signal it is time to look at how you lead.

Through this blog, we have encouraged you to set goals and objectives. However, when we check back with clients years later, most have not assessed whether or not they achieved their objectives. The majority of our clients can speak to whether visitation is up or down, but the rest of the objectives seem to go by the wayside. Is it healthy leadership when there is no accountability to your exhibit objectives? Are you measuring whether you are achieving the mission of your organization?

Five Temptations

I recently reread the Five Temptations of the CEO by Patrick Lencioni. Even though CEO is in the title, I believe anyone can fall prey to these temptations. Here is a summary of the temptations (you can find more details on the website):

1. Choosing status over results

2. Choosing popularity over accountability

3. Choosing certainty over clarity

4. Choosing harmony over productive conflict

5. Choosing invulnerability over trust

Within the last several months, we had a relationship with a client in which many of these temptations came into play. Ultimately, we mutually terminated the contract. Living up to good leadership can at times be heartbreaking.

Full Disclosure

We may have fallen prey to Rule #4 – Choosing harmony over productive conflict. Early in the project, we had a gut feeling that certain members of the client’s team were not fully satisfied with aspects of the exhibit. There may have been the urge to minimize this feeling in order to maintain team harmony. In hindsight, immediate productive conflict may have gone a long way toward repairing teamwork.

Difficult Situation

In the beginning, this project was very exciting. The story was incredible, we had worked at the site before (which was a great experience), and everyone was enthusiastic. However, the enthusiasm began to wane when many of the above temptations reared their ugly head.

As usual, both of our teams assigned a project manager as a central point of communication flow and contract management. Early on, I began to hear of signs of distress in the project when this structure seemed to breakdown. Conflicting communication became a trend rather than a one-time issue. For instance, after one submittal we received comments like “on point” and “great job.” In subsequent submittals, however, previous decisions which had received praise were completely turned around and we were told we had to redo work they had previously approved.

We felt blindsided and puzzled. In follow up phone conferences with the client’s team, we received conflicting information from their leadership vs. their project manager. Was their project manager intimidated by the higher-ups and did that filter down into a lack of clarity in communication?

I eventually had to get involved with their project manager and his boss. With them, I attempted to clarify the scope of work, the contract, and the schedule. Interestingly enough, they did not want to talk about details in the contract, the very document that sets concrete milestones in clear and concise language.

When it was clear that approach wasn’t going to work, I went a step above – to the director. He was willing to discuss the contract, take notes, and follow the contracted scope of work. He concurred that his team was not following protocol and I agreed to provide the scope adjustments they were requesting. I received a thorough and pleasant email recapping the conversation with action items for both parties in which he clearly stated “I am confident that we can and will move forward from this point…producing an excellent project.” That made us feel pretty good, however, two months later, I received an email stating they wanted to cancel the contract, and once again, we felt blindsided and confused.

In the end…

Given that mutual trust and accountability had been lost and the fact that the clarity provided by the contract was disregarded, we realized the path forward was curtailed by serious roadblocks. That being said, the improvements the client was asking for could have led to a better exhibit. However, their approach to getting those improvements was not lead in a manner in which we could achieve that outcome as a team.

Which of the above temptations do you think you fall prey to? If you are unsure, you might ask your colleagues for input.  Leadership starts with you.