The art of creating a Wow Project involves four key stages and a multiplicity of tasks, tactics, and tricks. To help you in your efforts to create a Wow Project, we've identified three people, each of whom epitomizes a key aspect of the new world of project work. Geoffrey Canada, the CEO of Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families, teaches a central lesson about the art of Wow Projects: Every project is an exercise in community organizing. For Canada, community organizing isn't a metaphor -- it's his life. Working in Central Harlem in New York City, Canada's project work consists of marshaling resources to help poor families and children, and of energizing that community to help itself. Irene Etzkorn's projects offer a critical corollary to Canada's work: Any project can be transformed into a Wow Project -- if you inject it with the right energy, enthusiasm, and creativity. From her position as executive vice president at Siegel & Gale Inc., Etzkorn often executes projects that others might dismiss as boring: redesigning everyday office forms, for example. But, by looking at the "project behind the project," Etzkorn and her colleagues take the seemingly mundane and transform it into the compellingly Wow. Finally, Rick Smolan leads a production company, Against All Odds Inc., which tackles enormous photographic projects on a global scale. Smolan's projects are massive, complex, challenging -- and invariably rewarding. They serve as an important reminder that the first test of a Wow Project is, Is it worth doing?
For Geoffrey Canada, 47, the notion of "life in the projects" isn't a metaphor. Canada grew up poor in the South Bronx, left home to attend Bowdoin College and Harvard University, and, in 1990, returned to New York, where he later became CEO of Rheedlen Centers, an organization that brings opportunity and hope to residents of Central Harlem. In 1994, Canada received the prestigious Heinz Award for his work on behalf of poor families and young children -- a $250,000 prize that recognized him as a leader of social change. Also in 1994, he published a book, Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America (Beacon Press), that chronicles the despair and violence that he saw while growing up. Today Canada devotes his energy to eradicating that kind of despair and violence.
What can a community activist teach an advertising executive, a software engineer, a management consultant, or a manufacturing manager about the world of projects? According to Canada, the work of community organizing and the work of business have a great deal in common: Success in both depends on passion and vision -- and on your ability to communicate your purpose to others. Here are Canada's strategies for gaining support and loyalty for any project.
Admit that you have ulterior motives. Before people will believe in you and in what you have to say, you must overcome their cynicism. In my work, I deal with underprivileged people who have seen plenty of programs come and go, leaving behind unfulfilled promises. So, naturally, there's a lot of suspicion. Why should anyone believe that you and your ideas will be any different?
You have to put your interests on the table. Say what it is that you're getting out of the project. And it can't be about your being great and wonderful -- that's not a sufficient reason for you to commit the amount of time and energy that it takes to make a project work. Doing a project is not about being a nice person.
We're very clear with people about what we're doing: We will help you, but we're doing it because we're on a mission. We hope that you'll succeed, and that America will notice. People will realize that if you can do it, so can people in Chicago or Detroit or Flint, Michigan. We get folks to see that they're involved in groundbreaking, exciting work. We want them to see themselves as partners with us and with each other. Then it's not about what we'll do to or for them. It's about what we can achieve together.
Listen -- don't debate. It's almost impossible to change someone's mind through confrontation. It makes far more sense to listen to your opponents and to let them develop their arguments fully. That's hard. Typically we listen to the first half of an opposing idea, and then we rebut it. The result: Our opponents feel antagonized. They turn us off, and we never get to address the other half of their thinking.
I try to keep asking questions. Learning is the only way that you'll discover what might move your opponents away from their position and toward yours. By asking questions, you create an opening to explain how your project is different from what they think it is, or why you're approaching your project in a particular way.
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