What does Muhammad Ali have in common with road tunnels?
If you read the newspapers in Sydney at all, you’ll know there has been an awful lot of talk about mulch recently. Yes, mulch. Garden variety mulch!
Mulch containing asbestos has been found in the brand-new parklands that are located above the giant underground spaghetti junction that forms a critical part of an enormous WestConnex road tunnel network.
Imagine being the project managers on the WestConnex project. They had a budget of $16.8B and employed a total of 65,000 highly skilled people over the life of the construction.
And now all they can talk about is mulch.
Muhammad Ali said: “It isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out; it’s the mulch in your shoe”.
Actually, he said ‘pebble’ not ‘mulch’ but humour me.
Seemingly minor issues can have a cumulative effect on the overall success of activities like negotiation and conflict management.
In negotiations, minor obstacles can take on a life of their own and have an impact far more significant than other larger challenges. I have seen countless times, when working through conflict with individuals and teams, that the root causes of disagreements are often quite minor things that have festered.
To conquer the mountains, leaders should be addressing the mulch in the shoes of their people.