The Person is More Important than the Project

Accounts in recent years have come down from Mount Everest of climbers determined to reach the summit and leaving struggling, hypothermic fellow climbers behind to fend for themselves. This, on top of crowded climbing routes, theft of vital supplies, and polluted base camps, testifies to the all too frequent, myopic drivenness that can take hold of an individual or a group determined to accomplish an objective.?

The situation on Everest serves as a cautionary metaphor for the choices we face in the course of our work lives. At work, we have jobs to do, projects to complete, deadlines to hit, budgets to meet.?But there is more going on than the project at hand.

There are people.?

And where there are people, there are unseen priorities that transcend project completion. You can think of each person’s life as an iceberg whose details at work we see above the ocean surface, all the while knowing that the larger portion sits unseen below. It is easy to see the project above the water line but miss the person below it.

As we interact with others at work, we are seeing only one dimension of their lives. They have kids to raise, aging parents to care for, vacations to plan, bills to pay, health issues, wounds from the past, dreams for the future.

It is the wise business leader who sees this underlying dimension to others’ lives—and who recognizes that?the person is more important than the project.[1]

The idea that the person is more important than the project rings intuitively true while also serving as a rebuke to what so often becomes a default in business and in the rest of life: of making the project more important than the person—of making the reaching the summit more important than one’s fellow climber.?

It is important, of course, to remember that the project is what brings the people together. It is the work, the planning and execution, the striving for success, the goals that make the interaction among people possible in the first place. The project is super-important. It is what builds companies, supports business growth, drives revenue, funds payroll, and brings a rewarding sense of accomplishment and teamwork. But it is also vital to see that as we engage with others on projects at work, we have within our power the ability to affirm the people we manage and work with by what we do, what we say, and how we say it.

The recent situation with millions of people working from home has cast a spotlight on this reality. We see, literally and figuratively, what is going on in the background of the lives of our associates. While WFH has blurred the lines between work life and home life for many, it has also served to reinforce the fact that we are multi-dimensional individuals.?

So how does knowing that the person is more important than the project translate into our everyday work? What can we do to impart value to others as we strive for team success and even personal advancement? Are there intentional behaviors that can make us more affirming of the person while still delivering successfully on the project?

Deep Listening

Believing that the person is more important than the project, begins with making a conscious effort to look below the surface of a project or a problem (remember the iceberg?). For managers, this means deep listening before addressing a problem. When someone comes to you with a problem, it opens the door to impart value and help them grow. Deep listening might actually suggest that the best thing you could do is?not?offer a solution to the problem. The opportunity for the individual to grow through wrestling with a challenge, perhaps even making mistakes along the way, far outweighs the quick fix of some advice to solve the problem. When the person is more important than the project, mistakes are not fatal, but rather opportunities to grow. It's even worth a small setback in the progress of the project to enable the person to grow through valuable learning experiences.

Putting the Needs of Others Ahead of One’s Own

Pressured as we all feel by time and resource constraints, it is easy to put blinders on and fail to slow down long enough to see the needs of others. But good leadership in any organization will inevitably call for putting one’s own project aside to be able to help another person. JetBlue founder David Neeleman noted in an NPR interview that the question he asks of applicants he interviews was this:

“Can you describe a time when you put your own work aside to help a coworker?”?

If unable to answer the question, the candidate was immediately rejected, regardless of qualifications.

Investing in the Future Success of Those We Manage

By investing in the personal and professional development of those we manage, we affirm that the person is more important than the project. Specifically, this means investing in knowledge growth, access to resources, skills acquisition, and increased autonomy such that the person could advance their professional market value outside the company, while at the same time making staying with the company so rewarding that there is no reason to leave. This can feel like a leap of faith. But if we truly care about the lifetime success of the person more than the projects we ask them to do, this beneficial win-win scenario is possible.

The Simple Gift and Tremendous Power of Undivided Attention

One of the greatest gifts someone can give to reinforce the importance of another person, is undivided attention. It communicates sincere interest and imparts value. It is so simple yet incredibly powerful. How many times have you heard it said admiringly of an individual that when talking to them, someone felt as if they were the only person in the room??

Regarding such undivided attention, there is science to suggest that eye-to-eye contact creates a special subconscious depth of communication that binds people together. It imparts a sense of significance to someone whose busy, distracted life yearns for a moment of true undistracted connection, whether it’s to discuss a business project or talk about the weekend. (The inability for such eye-to-eye contact to take place within a Zoom call is just one of the depersonalizing aspects of what is otherwise a highly productive technology.)

One of the great threats to undistracted listening is our smartphones. Not only is speed-glancing at one’s phone a signal of the other person’s unimportance, but the phone’s mere presence within peripheral vision is a threat. It could buzz, ring, or light up, signaling that the conversation can be blown up at any time. One small glance at the phone tells the other person they do not have your undivided attention. No one explains this dynamic better than Simon Sinek, so I’ll leave the reader with his wisdom:?Simon Sinek on Smartphone Distraction.

Fruitful Accountability

One of the greatest ways for managers to put the person above the project is to maintain healthy accountability. Few things impart value like high, but achievable expectations. That includes the chance to fail without being micromanaged. People who report the most productive relationships with their managers say they experienced autonomy to match high expectations and accountability. Too often, a manager’s desire to quickly achieve the project’s successful outcome short-circuits the person’s ability to grow and learn from mistakes and setbacks.

Perhaps the greatest personal example of fruitful accountability that I can recall comes, from of all things, my high school history class. Mr. Michowski handed out graded essays one day, and mine came back with a B. As we were being dismissed, Mr. Michowski says, “David, please see me before you leave.” Never good. He asks me what I thought of my grade. “I’m happy with a B, I guess.” He informs me that he won’t accept the B paper. Zero credit. “You’re capable of A work, so you need to do it again,” he says. While terribly irritated at the moment, I re-wrote the paper, got an A, and was imbued with a sense of self-worth and higher expectations for myself as a student.

Address Every Email Like You're Sending it to Your CEO

Before hitting send, it can be useful to review an email for the tone it is setting, and for that matter, the value that it is imparting or failing to impart to the recipient. Do we use different terms of respect based on the position of the person? The same respect and thoughtfulness used to address one’s CEO or best client could probably be used in communication with those we manage and those less highly placed in our organization. Sure, a rapid-fire email conversation doesn’t require formal address at each response, but terse demands or critiques can be unnecessarily destructive to work relationships.

Leaders Are People, Too

It is easy for people in an organization to see their leaders and managers as somehow impervious to the challenges of self-worth and validation. No doubt, their rise to leadership involved the ability to handle criticism well and to take setbacks in stride rather than viewing them as personal failures. But leaders are people too. People have the ability to impart value to those who lead their organizations by periodically acknowledging their contributions, sacrifices, and accomplishments. Many a CEO has tucked away in their desk a handwritten note that an employee sent to express gratitude or appreciation.

Back to Everest…

Having begun with a rather disturbing story of climbers on Everest leaving people to die on the mountain in order to reach the summit, I’ll close with a story of someone who understood that the person is more important than the project:

In 2012, while a mere 300 meters from the summit of Everest, a young Israeli climber, Nada Ben-Yehuda, came across an unconscious and severely injured Turkish climber, Aydin Irmak, whom he had befriended down at base camp. Other climbers heading to the summit had left Irmak to die that day. Given the same choice that others had faced, Ben-Yehuda abandoned his nearly completed climb to the top of the world, and began a one-man rescue effort, carrying Irmak down to safety. During the nine-hour descent Ben-Yehuda’s oxygen system ceased to function. The rescue ended successfully with both men alive, but the young Israeli suffered severe physical injuries as Aydin Irmak’s life was saved.

While our daily interactions with others are less dramatic than a rescue on Everest, they are still vitally important. Every day poses new opportunities to listen deeply, impart value, help another grow, or encourage someone through a hard time. It just takes slowing down long enough to remember that the person is more important than the project.

Finally…

If?you needed any final proof that the person is more important than the project, ask yourself this: As you look back at the greatest moments of your work life, what do you remember most fondly? The projects you completed or the people who touched your life and whose lives you were privileged to positively affect? At the end of our lives, we won’t wish we’d completed more projects—we will wish we had touched more lives for the better.

[1]?My wife first introduced me to this concept from her reading of?Rare Leadership?by Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder where they posit that “the person is more important than the problem.”