Inspire, Improvise & Initiate

"You get the best efforts from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within." - Bob Nelson

Inspire:

When you (and your team) have a crazy job to do, an unexpected project to complete (the task given today was supposed to be completed yesterday), or an impossible task that has never been done before, we should be able to see these obstacles positively as a new challenge, though our first (rational) thoughts would be to find the million and one reason on why we cannot do it, that one reason why we need to do it is "..because nobody else could or wanted to."

Managers today have to do more with less, and get better results from limited resources, more than ever before.

Brian Tracy

In my experience with handling a total lab renovation project in a short turnaround time back in 2018 in the event of a major audit, there was a feeling of inadequacy and hopelessness but we kept on the corrections and our positive thoughts that gave us good results in the long run.

Improvise:

So we start with a positive attitude towards the job at hand, by brainstorming and understanding the difficulties and solutions in getting the job done as said by Michael Caine in his interview "Use the Difficulty", Improvise.

It is also important to note that though we improvise with limited resources and manpower we do not push for something that's not achievable by physical or psychological stress, we have to have ourselves and the team in a healthy environment sharing in their load and celebrating their achievements however big or small they may be.

We always have 'those projects' dropped down to us and we almost always never have enough resources to match (a common story for all), but we still continue to improvise and are astonished at how much we were able to complete within the limited time.

Initiate:

Most things don't get started due to the extremely detailed planning and discussions by 'experts', the layman starts to build one brick at a time.

Once you get started you see other opportunities and ways to get things done, even the most impossible projects can be broken down and done one step at a time to show progress and as you show progress there will be more clarity all because you started it!