Colombia is a country full of high qualified developers, designers and in general, great web builder experts. However something is going wrong with those lucky guys that work for companies who have offshore contracts. After few months or even years of great work, people start feeling comfortable as well-paid workers and then suddenly and without notice, quality sense of work and care about details fade away. Why? I’m not sure, but I will do my best trying to discover the reasons through this post -and this is because I’m one of those lucky guys working for great company, but I REALLY do not want to start feeling comfortable, and I REALLY REALLY do not want to start losing my tiny sense of quality and responsibility.
Feeling comfortable about having a job is not bad at all, even more these days during this crisis time, but is it really enough? Dedicated workers stand out from others because they do not feel comfortable, they are always looking for opportunities of doing great and better things. When this comfortable feeling grows more than it should, workers start forgetting that they are in Colombia, and start asking for foreign benefits and privileges, and they even believe that they deserve them. And that’s wrong, that’s totally wrong. It is not bad at all to get few additional benefits, however, it doesn’ t mean we should take them for granted, we are still working in Colombia.
One of the amazing transformations of Colombian workers is: once we get used to a job, we believe we can decide our own duties and decide what to do and when. Well my friends, most of the time and all around the world, bosses decides what must be done and when. So WTF! I really can’t deal with that, it piss me off. Job is responsibility, it is not about doing “favors” to the managers, it is about to do what it is supposed because you are getting paid for that. It is not because you want, it is because you have to -and I’m talking about legal, non-extra activities of course, but just to point that out.
Another endemic attitude is to look for responsible when there is no other guy doing the job. I will no get into this because… do I need to? A variance of this behaviour: people start doing EXACTLY what they were asked, even if managers are expecting a little support. They perform as machines, they do not evaluate and therefore there is no added value. If there is a misspelled word on their assignment description, they do not fix it, if there is something that requires some additional work or a little of analysis, they will try to delegate it. But, hey! keep in mind they are great developers, keep in mind we are not talking about junior resources. So why they decide to do that? Maybe I just pointed it out, it is because they do not want to assume their responsibility.
This comfortable behaviour is surrounding me for a little while, and I will say NO. I do not want to become one of those lazy but great workers that decide to keep their jobs by giving up their abilities. I will do my best tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. Not sure what it means but probably I have an idea.
– but are you sure that by Lazy you really mean lazy? It seems to me that you are using Lazy but you really mean “Relaxed”.
By advocating being a ‘lazy’ project manager I do not intend that we should all do absolutely nothing. I am not saying we should all sit around drinking coffee, reading the good book and engaging in idle gossip whilst watching the project hours go by and the non-delivered project milestones disappear over the horizon. That would obviously be plain stupid and would result in an extremely short career in project management, in fact probably a very short career full stop!
Lazy does not mean Stupid.
No I really mean that we should all adopt a more focused approach to project management and to exercise our efforts where it really matters, rather than rushing around like busy, busy bees involving ourselves in unimportant, non-critical activities that others can better address, or indeed that do not need addressing at all in some cases.
Welcome to the home of ‘Productive Laziness’
On the following web pages you can read more about what I mean about productive laziness and how you can apply these simple techniques and approaches in your own projects. The major project topics will be covered but from a ‘Productive Lazy’ point of view. I am not, by nature, a lazy person but I do have many other things to do in life, beyond the projects and programs that I manage, and therefore I have learnt the manner in which to balance life, projects and work.
Lazy does not mean Unsuccessful.
I am a Lazy Project Manager. You can carry on as you are or you can join me in the comfy chair of life and still get the project results you and your sponsors demand.