The Fly-By-Day Approach to “Who Needs to Know?”
Today tens of thousands of New Yorkers were thoroughly frightened as two Air Force jets and Air Force One flew as low as 150 feet over Lower Manhattan. Frightened calls from residents clogged the emergency lines, many office buildings were evacuated as panicked workers with memories of 9/11 scrambled downstairs.
But this was an authorized photo shoot, not a military response. The FAA had approved the plan and informed certain government authorities, but not the public. The New York City Police Department said they were asked not to disclose information about the flyover. While I don’t have all the details, it seems that making the plans public a half-hour before the event would have quelled the fears without risking security.
The broader question we all must answer in our daily, non-routine work is: “Who needs to know what? and when?” If you are contemplating an organization change, or launching a new project, what is your strategy for bringing people aboard?
Here are some guidelines in the form of questions:
- Whose cooperation will you need to execute your plan?
- Whose guidance would help enrich the quality of your thinking beforehand?
- Who is it—that if you don’t inform—will become unnecessarily stressed, angry, or block your project?
- Which human ducks would it be wise to line up?
- How can you minimize the risk of possible downsides of sharing the information?
Addressing these questions will help avoid a fly-by-night or –day approach and minimize the frenzied reactions from stakeholders that cloud your project.
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