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Extreme Management

We have extreme sports, where people take a sport and push it to the limits for the sake of a 'rush'. I remember seeing a group of hang-gliders launching off the top of Mount Kilimanjaro once. There was a basic skill - flying a hang glider - pushed to extremes by the situation.

Something similar can take place with basic management skills, skills like delegation and meetings management. These are so basic that they are assumed skills. But put managers into extreme situations, then these skills are often found to be pretty weak.

Consider a project. with all the challenges required to manage a cross-functional group of strangers working together sometimes on a one-time-only basis. This is an extreme management situation even thoygh 'project' may be quite a normal mode of execution. Strength in basic management skills such as delegation and meetings management are crucial here. And yet they so often fail.

In the PRINCE2 project management method, management by exception is one of the key principles. It presupposes the ability of senior managers to delegate effectively. When that fails, the principle is not lived and the project itself is likely to flounder.

This week I was with a client where there was a distinct absence of any evidence that senior management could delegate well. In ordinary operational circumstances this would not have been exposed quite so vividly, but here it neutralised the effectiveness of a good project manager. A project requires good delegation skills. To some it can seem like extreme management.

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