Chilean Miners Rescued

10/14/10

Wow – what a heartening display of human tenacity, ingenuity, and courage.  All 33 miners rescued.  Remember back in early August when the story was unfolding?  When the miners were discovered alive yet trapped – first reports of a plan to rescue them indicated they wouldn’t be out until December!!  Then, once reached (two months early!), we were told it would likely take two days to get them all to the surface.  A mere day later, all 33 were safely in the hands of loved ones and aid givers.

To be sure – this is an excellent example of superior planning and execution – but it is also a remarkable example of managing expectations.  The team responsible for this complex and spectacular rescue operation managed the expectations of the entire world to a fare-the-well.

Now let’s just think about this for a minute – in the current situation, the entire team, indeed anyone involved in the rescue operation, are being heralded as heroes of course, but also as incredibly skilled, competent experts.  For a moment, just imagine our perspective if, even with the exact same outcome, the world were initially advised that the miners would be rescued within a month, and they didn’t get to them until October 12^th.  And imagine if we were told it would take 18 hours to get them all up – yet it took 24 hours.  For sure – we would have celebrated the rescuers as heroes – but we also would have thought they could have planned better, they could have executed better – because after all, they didn’t meet their self-established timelines.

This truly is managing expectations on a grand scale.  And it is something we should all pay very close attention to for ourselves, in our drive to succeed and be seen as “One-in-a-Million”.

(see “A Million and One Ways to be One-in-a-Million”; Chapter 4 – The Art of Surprise)