What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger

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“Therapy 80%?  In Poland? This cannot be right. Is this definitely the right data?” Joseph stares at the screen with disbelief when a quiet voice emerges from the back of the room:

“Microsoft has done some updates, and it broke the whole thing. I think we will have to build it from scratch but from what I can remember the top ones were depression, addiction, bottling up was really high in this geographical area, but a move was somewhere there too.”  Bart – the guy from the data team explains.  

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A spacious boardroom with a large oval table in the middle, thirteen chairs around it, twelve occupied. The room is overlooking an unidentified city sunk in milky clouds. The wall on the left covered with tinted glass. All decorated in earthy natural colours with a hint of baby blue here and there. Everyone in the room is facing Joseph standing at the front. Long wavy hair, a navy-blue suit and brown sandals – a leather reflection of his recent fascination with natural medicine. Apparently covering your feet all the time stops the energy flowing. And a golden cross bouncing off his snow-white T-shirt – a reminder of his difficult journey to the top.

“Good morning, everyone. For those of you who haven’t had a chance to meet me in person, my name is Joseph Christian Risenberg and this is my assistant Holly Spirit.”

Holly straightens up on a chair as if to make sure that everyone in the room can see her – unnecessary really considering she’s the only person wearing white from head to toe.

“I am going to start straight away as we have a lot of planning to do and limited time. We also have Judy who is joining us online today. Can you hear us ok Judy?”

Joseph is being answered with a thumb up on a JI icon on the screen.

“Holly - first slide please. The main point of today’s agenda is Project What Doesn’t Kill You, Makes You Stronger. Please keep this title in mind as it really identifies our goal here – to build resilience by exposure to life challenges. The subject of the project - a 30-year-old female, in a stable long-term relationship, a teacher. KPIs are on an average level for this age and geographical area. Peter has already done a deep dive to estimate the subject’s mental strength and support network, so I think we have a clear understanding of what we are dealing with. The report is attached to this slide deck. Holly next slide please. Let me remind everyone on the framework we will be using: You Think You Knew But You Had No Idea - defined over few thousand years and across multiple projects, works really well with this particular type of subject.

Suddenly the room fills with a very audible and tired sigh. It seems like quitting is no longer silent.

“Judy could you please mute yourself?”

And here we go again, Joseph thinks. Judy’s performance dropped suddenly when she was refused a raise.  He can feel it in his bones that she will move shortly to their biggest competitor Eternal Flames and Partners.

 “Holly next slide please. The project is starting in a month and by then we need a plan on a page with the main milestones, risks and dependencies, mitigating actions and the impact assessment. The life of this project is 10 years so we have to be really smart here to be able to achieve as much as we can but not overwhelm the subject at the same time. I suggest we work together to incorporate all the expertise we have in the room. Holly has kindly created a Miro board so we can gather all our ideas there.”

The screen suddenly changes into something that resembles a sick dream of a unicorn on steroids. Holly smiles with pride seeing her carefully selected collection of digital sticky notes, not quite grasping that her colour coding technique could probably trigger epilepsy.

Jospeh, standing right next to the screen, really wishes he had his Ray Bans on right now, but he decides to ignore this rainbow party for now and continues:  

“It’s an agile project so we should probably start with something smooth and then intensify gradually. How are we going to start this beautiful journey?”

Phase 1 - Genesis

John takes the lead, “I am not going to say anything revolutionary but The What The Hell Has Just Happened effect worked really well in the past. Data clearly shows that the changes for improving resilience are much higher if the challenge is unexpected.”

“You are right,” Jospeh agrees. “Let’s start smoothly with something positive so we can intensify the surprise later. John could you give us a high-level overview of the situation as is?”

“Let me just share my screen so that Judy can see as well. Bear with me, it’s loading, here we go. So a lot seems to be going well – a stable job, great friends, supportive family and a great relationship so I am not sure how we can improve the subject’s life.”

“How about a bigger place to live and then a wedding as the first milestone?” Judy suddenly speaks up knowing that this will be probably her only contribution to this meeting and she will disappear in the oblivion of Teams for another 40 mins.

“That’s a good plan,” nice try Judy, I know your game. “What timeline are we thinking? The first year, two years into the project?”

“Let’s do two years to let her guard down a bit,” John suggests.

“Do we want to hit with the main success accelerator event straight after that? Would that not be too early? What do we have in mind?” Joseph asks.

“I think we should – remember that the subject will have had 32 years of happy life by then so it will be really high time for some challenges,” Peter adds.

“Unpopular opinion but shall we include some teasers before that? I skipped through the raw data yesterday and the subject thinks that there’s always a bill to pay for happiness which indicates that she might be expecting something. If we hit her with the main event now, I don’t think it will be as unexpected as we would like.”

“That’s a very good shout Thomas,” Joseph comments. “How can we counterbalance that then?”

“Maybe something smaller but significant so the subject thinks that’s it, that’s the bill.”

“Good strategic thinking Matt. Holly could you please bring the slides with Typical Life Disasters Framework – maybe we can get some ideas from there. Which path offers the best scalability? Job loss? Cancer? Car accident?”

“Oh, I like the sound of that last one. We can easily control the level of seriousness here,” John gets excited. “And maybe we can add some issues with getting pregnant – not uncommon, fits in the timeline perfectly and will add a nice level of stress daily.”

“Perfect!” This is going really well, Joseph thinks. All this preaching is finally paying off.  “Ok, let’s summarise what we have so far – starting on a very positive note with a happy relationship, a move, a small, nice wedding; then we are slowly increasing the tension – partner’s car accident and some conception issues. Holly can you make sure this is all captured on the Miro board please.”

He doesn’t really have to ask. Holly has already put all the ideas in a bulleted list and marked it with a dove icon – her favourite – to indicate that ideation for Phase 1 of the project is complete.

Phase 2 – The Apocalypse

“Now onto the main event,” Joseph continues. “We’ve already had a brainstorming session about this a couple of weeks ago and a short Mentimeter to measure the sentiment against each of the proposals. Holly could you please bring up the slide with the results? 5% for a tornado, 15% for a house fire, 25% for cancer and 55% for a stroke. It seems we have a clear winner here. Do we all agree?”

“Just think about it,” John is absolutely thrilled. “So many maximization opportunities – super unexpected at this age, we could put him in a coma for a few months – can you imagine the level of impact seeing someone die over time?”

“Stroke it is then, Holly can you just make a note to schedule a meeting with Logistics so we plan how it actually happens – we need to align a few details here. Let’s agree on timelines – I suggest stroke, then 8 to 9 months of comma and death at the end.”

“Sounds good to me,” Peters nods his head while a floating heart icon appears on the screen. “But what about KPIs?”

“We should probably define them once we have the whole plan but I think for this phase of the project it should probably be something like not killing herself?”

“A bit cliché I think?”

Thomas and his as always constructive feedback, Joseph rolls his eyes internally.

“Let’s circle back on that later and focus on key activities for now,” he suggests.  “What’s next - we could just leave it at that and see what happens?”

“The subject can definitely take more,” John says.  

“What if we throw some more death into the mix? Maybe father-in-law?”, Joseph proposes.

“Are we not getting a bit too monotonous here with all this death?”

Why do you always have to doubt me, Thomas? Why? Jospeh tries his best not to sigh.

“Maybe a bit but that would also create a lot of value for the other project we are running Mother-in-Law - How Not To Get Absolutely Mental When Life Is Throwing All The Possible Shit At You.”

“Great insight Peter – could you please send me a one pager with some data to recap how this project is going?”

“Sure thing.”

Phase 3 - The Exodus

“Right, so a stroke, 8 months of coma, death of the husband followed by the death of father-in-law – this will probably push her over the edge and we can expect some radical moves in the right direction. Holly can we dig out the dashboard with possible scenarios for crisis management?”

A glittery pie chart appears on the screen.

“Therapy 80%?  In Poland? This cannot be right. Is this definitely the right data?” Joseph stares at the screen with disbelief when a quiet voice emerges from the back of the room:

“Microsoft has done some updates, and it broke the whole thing. I think we will have to build it from scratch but from what I can remember the top ones were depression, addiction, bottling up was really high in this geographical area, but a move was somewhere there too.”  Bart – the guy from the data team explains.  

“A move? Not a bad idea. The subject’s parents live in the UK, don’t they?” Joseph asks.

“Yes, that’s correct.” Peter confirms. “And immigration is one of my favourite challenges. Nice level of stress on a daily basis on the one hand but huge potential for growth on the other. You never know how it’s going to go, love it.”

“Again, we should probably use the same strategy here – start smoothly on a positive note and then increase the challenge gradually.” Joseph comments.

“Agreed.” John slaps his knees. “Finding a job in a foreign country will probably take a bit of time so this can be a transitional part of the project – a bit of rest, blowing some steam of and maybe a  positive element to keep her going and encourage further development. Like you know – an emotional stabiliser.”

“Peter can you think of any other projects that we could integrate here?” Jospeh asks

“Let me have a quick look at end of the year report. I think Jess – The Sarcastic Legend would be the best fit – high emotional intelligence and satisfactory level of dark humour.”

“Excellent and then in terms of the challenges - which line are we taking?” Jospeh tries to re-establish the focus.  “Are we prioritising problems at work or personal life? What’s your opinion?”

“Definitely personal life - online dating is the low-hanging fruit here. It has so much to offer - ghosting, undisclosed partners, dick pics, fish pics, pics from the gym - she will have no idea what hit her at the end,” Matt seems to have some experience in this area.

“Sounds perfect – Holly could you please search the database to find subjects who could facilitate this this?”

Holly sets herself a bright pink reminder for tomorrow: search the Pit of Despair database.

Phase 4 – The Plague

“I feel like we are missing something here, it’s not enough,” John ponders. “We need to think outside the box.”

The almost audible sound of working brains glide through the room. John is browsing old projects for some inspiration; Bart is having a mini orgasm looking at his new Power BI dashboard and Holly is trying to fix the Miroboard as someone deleted half of it again. Every. Single. Time.

“I know! Pandemic!” Peter shouts with excitement. “It could drive fantastic results for all the other projects in all the branches. It’s a win- win situation.”

“Tell me more,” Joseph is not convinced yet.

“You know – just a standard little pandemic. Starting small and easily spreading through the world as no one really believes the seriousness of it. But then more and more people die, panic grows and governments are desperately trying to find the source. Countries are not ready, people are losing jobs, and no one knows anything – beautiful ground for misinformation, polarisation of society and an extreme challenge for many. But also, an infinite potential for growth.”

“Genius! Absolute genius!” John claps his hands uncontrollably. “We haven’t had one for ages!”

A constellation of red hearts dances on the screen. Judy’s invaluable input in the meeting.

“And for the subject…,” Peter stands up and starts walking around the oval table. “She has a tendency to just get on with things. Maybe a bit of isolation and depression will finally impose a little mental breakdown, and with a bit of luck, a beautiful journey of mental rediscovery and redefinition.”

“This is fantastic!” Jospeh now totally convinced, almost jumps out of his sandals. “But we will definitely need another project team and possibly an external supplier. I am not sure if we have enough internal resources for such a broad scope and so many dependencies. Holly – please schedule another planning meeting for next week and Peter can you do some initial budgeting of suppliers? I am thinking The Red Dragon – they are probably the cheapest – but you need to do some proper market analysis.”

Phase 5 – The Pilgrimage

“We have some great progress so far,” Joseph thinks. “Smaller challenges at the beginning, a few years of widowhood, disastrous dating experience and then bang pandemic - mental breakdown at its best.”

“What if it is not enough?” John wonders. “Psychological resilience is a bit of a risk here I think.”

“You’re right,” Peter agrees. Let’s throw a teaser relationship in there - something that starts really well, makes her focus less and then a dramatic end that will send her almost over the edge.”

“Good. Therapy is almost a given at this point.” This might be it, Joseph thinks. “And we can’t forget that this is really the pivotal moment in the project which can lead to high optimisation of the subject given the right tools and proportionate amount of work. Do we need to think about a contingency plan in case there is not enough input from the subject?”

“I think we’re fine. She worked as a teacher for 9 years – what we consider work is a side hustle for her,” John says.

“Shall we move to the closure then? The Board was pushing for a happy ending. I know, I know it’s not our usual move, especially in the Polish branch, but remember – it’s all about balance and I strongly believe that with this number of challenges on the way we can easily achieve the main deliverables of the project – resilience, personal growth and mental stability.”

The heads in the room are all nodding and an icon of clapping hand appears on the screen.

“A bit of a shocker,” John pauses for a second. “But what if we make online dating actually work? The benefit realisation for this area is below the average so this could be a good opportunity for some progress.”

“A quite bold idea but we are called The Sky is The Limit Consulting for a reason. Is there anyone who we could utilise for this function?” Jospeh turns to Peter.

“Yes, we have just successfully finished the Project Ginger Miracle. I think there’s a huge potential there, no major risks and a good stable environment for continuous improvement. 

“Excellent - I think we’ve got it. Great work everyone and finished before time so enjoy your 5 mins back. Holly will send the minutes and the slides after the meeting. Happy Monday everyone!”