Breaking Bad (news)— A lesson in timely communication from Adele
Just as I like to give daily lessons in how not to sing, Adele recently gave a lesson in how not to manage a project…or more specifically, a lesson in how blind hope and silence can be pretty damaging when plans don’t come off.
Continuing my trend of commentating on news stories from weeks/months ago, this week I want to talk about Adele. For those who missed it, or have short term memory issues, English singer-songwriter Adele was in the news at the end of January after cancelling her Las Vegas residency. I know — “Popstar cancels concerts” — on the surface, this doesn’t seem like a big deal. Plans change, shows get rescheduled, and after the last two years in which the cancellation of any kind of organised entertainment has been common place — so what? But it was the nature and timing of the cancellation that caught my eye, and the more I read, the more I couldn’t believe how it was handled.
First and foremost, it was the last minute nature of the cancellation. Less than 30 hours before the first of 24 live shows, the ‘communication’ was sent. I say ‘communication’ — it was a sobbing video from the star herself which seems to be the primary method chosen. Not a method I have used myself when communicating delays, but if I was set to miss out on $500k a night, I might be crying too.
Last minute issues do happen. As anyone who works in a project environment can attest to, there are those times where you feel utterly helpless and just have to throw up your hands, take your medicine and communicate the delay. However, this wasn’t an understandable last minute illness that left the performer unable to perform. It wasn’t one big, unforeseen issue that you could shake off as bad luck, could happen to anyone, even someone like you. It wasn’t even just a cancellation of the first night or two of the 12 weeks of shows. They postponed the whole thing because “it just ain’t ready”. How unready could it be, one day before the first night? How unready would it have to be to cancel the whole 12 weeks? And if the answer to that second question is that it was nowhere near ready, then why on earth was it only communicated the day before, presumably after a large number of people had started travelling to Las Vegas to see it? Luckily, I’ve heard that there are a few things to keep you entertained in Vegas, but still, it’s got to be pretty irritating to have your plans wrecked because of poor risk management, escalation, communication and quite frankly, leadership.
It wasn’t difficult to find a parallel in my working life as a Project Manager, and the thought of doing something similar on one of my projects got me imagining the kind of reactions I would get if I tried pulling something like this:
“Hi Sponsor/end users of product, you know that deliverable due tomorrow? Well it isn’t going to happen, it isn’t ready. I feel really bad about it, so go easy on me, ok?”
“When will it be ready? Funny you should ask that…I don’t know. Definitely later this year though, so no worries.”
“Why didn’t I tell you sooner? That is an excellent question!”
I know, Adele is not a Project Manager, she’s an artist, a hugely successful one at that (my Dad loves her, what else could she want?). Although I’m sure she had creative input into the show, I’d be surprised and concerned if she was responsible for setting the schedule. Let alone everything else that goes in to managing that schedule to ensure the show gets delivered on time and within budget. Even if she was wheeled out to take responsibility for it and apologise (take note, Mr Johnson).
When preparing a huge event, there must be hundreds and hundreds of moving parts, countless places for things to go wrong and this has to be accounted for. But like you, preparing for a Las Vegas residency is not something I have experience with. So let’s take this outside of a project setting and walk through an example we can hopefully all relate to.
Imagine this: You’ve arranged to meet me for a drink. (Don’t worry, it’s 100% platonic.) It’s an hour before you need to be there and you haven’t started getting ready, in fact you still need a shower, get dressed and you haven’t eaten yet. You have a quick think about all the steps you need to take in order to be ready to set-off and meet me for the (90% platonic) drink. A quick mental estimate and you know it’s going to be tight, very tight, but you’re pretty sure if you do everything quickly you’ll probably be able to make it on time…especially if you stop thinking about it and just get on and do it. After all, productivity is one of your strengths…ruthless efficiency, that’s all you need. Could you send me a quick warning text, lay the groundwork in case you are a couple of minutes late? Sure you could! But that takes time, and you’re busy getting ready!
First thing’s first, you smell, you need that shower. You’ve just finished watching a documentary on climate change so know it’s best to keep those showers short. 5 minutes max. You make your way to the bathroom and your phone rings. It’s your mum/favourite elderly aunt/best friend — someone you can’t just send to voicemail. This is bad luck. What are the chances?! Oh right, yes, they always phone on this day of the week. You hadn’t thought of that in your mental schedule. In fact, you hadn’t even thought to think about possible things that could go wrong (risks)…you didn’t have time for that, you were busy getting ready to get ready!
You decide to answer the phone, you’re pretty sure you can have a quick chat and shorten the shower by a couple of minutes…
…A couple of minutes in to the conversation (I say conversation, this is completely one way traffic, all you’ve said so far is ‘Hello’) you realise you’ve underestimated how quickly you can politely exit the phone call. When they finally pause for breath, you make your excuses (explaining that you are off to meet that lovely chap you’re always telling them about) and with a ‘send my love’ to dad/favourite elderly uncle/best friend’s partner, you’re off the phone and into the bathroom. You take a quick glance at the clock and realise the 5 minute slot you had allotted for the shower should have finished 10 minutes ago. As you are lathering up you think of me sitting alone at a table in the bar, supping my overpriced beer (I drink wine, but prefer beer) and glancing at my watch wondering where you are. Chances are you are going to be at least a little late. How about that message to warn me? Nah, there’s still 40 minutes until you need to be there, that’s loads of time and even though the first job of showering took 3 times longer than you had planned, you can make that up, right? Probably. A few corners might need to be cut. Maybe you won’t do your hair properly, it’s only a (75% platonic) drink in a hipster bar after all.
You go to get dressed, and find that all your clothes are a crumpled mess, so you have to run an iron over them (rumour has it this is something people do…I prefer the crumpled mess look). You know you’re going to be late now. Quite late in fact. I won’t have left for the bar yet, you could call me now to rearrange the (50% platonic) drink for another night. You could admit you planned poorly, commit to planning better next time. No hard feelings, no time wasted. But no…you decide to press on, maybe time will magically slow down. And who needs food? If you skip that, you can set off straight away and still only be 20 or so minutes late. That’s acceptable, it’s not as if the skyfalls if you are a few minutes late, I’m a very understanding person after all.
You walk briskly to the bus stop, it’s due any second, but you’ll be ok, when is the bus ever on time? Today, apparently! You set off on a run, waving your arms frantically behind the number 19 bus you are chasing. Pavements pounding beneath your feet. You’re sure you see the driver look in their mirror and smirk as they drive away. What bad luck! With the next bus not due for an hour (this isn’t London, ok?!) you have to bite the bullet. You give me a call and let me know that you did everything you could but you’re going to have to cancel. Not just this date (yes, who were you kidding?), but every possible date for the next year. After all, you just ain’t ready. By this time I am already in a taxi, a little miffed that my evening plans are ruined, that I’ve wasted money and that your communication wasn’t accompanied by floods of apologetic tears.
Maybe I reacted so strongly to this because based on my professional experience I found it hard to believe that one or two days before the first show was the first time anyone realised there was a problem. Unlike in the “relatable” example above, there must have been contingency planned into the schedule. There must have been risks that were identified and triggered that used up this contingency. There must have been a plan in place in the event that this happened. Surely, there must have been more than blind hope that the obstacles could be overcome and that lost time in the schedule could be made up. In short, there must have been times when a tough decision could have been made and a delay communicated, long before it actually was.
If the schedule and risks were managed properly, the fans could have changed their plans. I could have saved a taxi fee. Dates could have been rearranged. No damage to reputation. No hard feelings.
That’s all I’ve got.
Not quite! — Bonus Challenge: You may have noticed a few Adele song and album titles subtly hidden/crowbarred in this post. See how many you can find!
