War Stories - Our Filters, Judgements and Expectations

Image by SplitShire from Pixabay

Early in my career, I was staffed on a project with a senior consultant who had developed a stellar reputation as a “real people person”. Someone who was focused entirely on the individual and their needs and, as someone who could blend that perfect balance between what was needed for the client, the project, the firm and the individual. 

I had never met this consultant, but given the ‘word on the street’, I was looking forward to it. I was told I was “in for the experience of my career”, and so looked forward to being able to learn from and absorb the work of a real consulting master.

Spoiler alert: that didn’t happen. My actual experience wasn’t quite the utopian experience I expected. 

There were pockets where that balance was great but many where it just wasn’t achieved. There were plenty of instances where the client was managed well, and others where there were material difficulties that were entirely avoidable. And there were plenty of situations where I felt the “collective” best interests just wasn’t the priority.  The project got done, but it wasn’t one of the more memorable experiences of my career.

I came away with the view that the consultant was good but not great - not quite “as advertised”. My judgement then was that this consultant just wasn’t as perfect as everyone suggested. That there were issues in the individual’s approach and process. Hardly the “perfect” consultant. How could everyone have been so wrong?

In retrospect, of course, no one was wrong, and no one was right. Not in any absolute sense, anyway. 

We each applied our own filters, our own interpretations, and we did so based on the situations we were in at the time. Choose your filter, which is influenced by your world view at any given point in time, and you get your interpretation of the situation at that time. My judgement didn’t make everyone else’s wrong, just as it shouldn’t necessarily deter those after me who subsequently worked with this consultant. (Note - if the issues were ones of core values, that’s a different situation.)

I also realized that I needed to temper my expectations and my definition of perfection. That my idea of perfection as persistent and perpetual and absolute was, perhaps, a bit naive. That that wasn’t how life actually works. 

That doesn’t mean, of course, that we shouldn’t strive for it, or that we shouldn’t expect of others. We absolutely need to strive for quality and value - we have to expect that of each other. We have to also expect an excellent work ethic and commitment. These are non-negotiables.

But perfection in an absolute sense? No one’s perfect. We will experience periods of what we might consider perfection, but constantly and in perpetuity? It doesn’t happen. We need to accept that we cannot expect it at all times. Not from ourselves, nor from others. 

Again, that doesn’t mean we mustn’t strive for it. But we need to be understanding that even when we do, we will fall short, and when we do, we need to be kind and generous with ourselves. It doesn’t mean the entire character of the individual - ourselves or others - should be called into question. 

Because that’s life. None of us are perfect and none of us get it right all the time. You win some, you lose some.

With consistent, persistent effort and focus, we’ll win far more than we lose.