Chuck Jones’ Looney Tunes’ guide, dictating all interactions between Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner1, consists of the following rules:
Rule 1: The Road Runner cannot harm the coyote except by going “Beep-Beep”.
Rule 2: No outside force can harm the coyote – only his own ineptitude or the failure of the ACME products.
Rule 3: The coyote could stop anytime – If he were not a fanatic
(Repeat: “A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim)Rule 4: No dialogue ever, except “Beep-Beep!”
Rule 5: The Road Runner must stay on the road –
Otherwise, logically, he would not be called a road runner.Rule 6: All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters – the Southwest American Desert.
Rule 7: All materials, tools, weapons or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the ACME corporation.
Rule 8: Whenever possible, make gravity the coyote’s greatest enemy.
Rule 9: The coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.
Rule 3 might resonate familiarly with many frustrated managers who witness unuseful (or harmful) operations repeatedly attempted2. In fact, this notion of incessant repetition, assuming the same futile actions regardless of effectivity or outcome, is one of the most common management considerations “everyone” knows.
And yet…
Coming to think of it—all rules may be applied (with minor, necessary modifications) to the interactions of a Project Manager and the Project Schedule:
#1: The Project Schedule cannot harm the Project Manager except by going “Beep-Beep”.
👀 “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”3
#2: No outside force can harm the Project Manager – only his own ineptitude or the failure of the ACME4 products5.
👀 “I tried to use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail, but all I ended up with was a very angry screwdriver and a very bent nail."
#3: The Project Manager could stop anytime – If he were not a fanatic.6
👀 “I'm like a moth to a flame, except instead of a flame, it's a terrible decision, and I keep flying towards it despite knowing it will hurt."
#4: No dialogue ever, except “Beep-Beep!”
👀 “Monologue is one person talking to himself, dialogue is two persons talking to themselves.”7
#5: The Project Schedule must stay on the road…8
👀 “The project schedule is like a diet—easy to plan, hard to stick to, and always tempting to cheat on."
#6: All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two…
👀 “Just the two of us / We can make it if we try / … / Building castles in the sky / Just the two of us…”
#7: All materials, tools, […] or […] conveniences must be obtained from the ACME corporation.
👀 “No one was ever fired for choosing IBM.”9
#8: Whenever possible, make gravity the Project Manager’s greatest enemy.
👀 “Gravity: The ultimate party pooper. Always bringing you back down to Earth, literally."10
#9: The Project Manager is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.11
👀 “There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. … Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.”12
Related posts:
On fixations:
On leadership:
On breaking the limiting frameworks:
Origin, from Chuck Jones’ 1999 autobiography, Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist.
I deliberately refrain from reusing the clicheic "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”, which is often attributed to Albert Einstein—yet, not sure he said this at all…
Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time.
I will resist the temptation to refer to certain tools or providers.
Acme Corporation “…manufactures outlandish products that fail or backfire catastrophically at the worst possible times…”.
However, it was often the misuse or uneducated utilization that brought havoc upon Wile E. Coyote.
…or lacking awareness…or not tuned to this blog…
English Teacher sketch by Shaike Ophir.
The Road Runner is a poignant reminder that time and events keep moving and rolling on whether you are part of them or not.
Sometimes, the Road Runner stops and looks somewhat puzzled at Wile E. Coyote; baffled or lost project managers might find themselves in similar situations…
So it used to be for yestermillennials. Current parallels—see †4.
Here comes #9 to complete the picture…!
This was a hard one for me, as I don’t like to see anyone humiliated under any circumstances, much less—harmed.
Yet, this is a strong observation: Many managers are not “harmed” by their failures, and they will continue assuming management positions despite their poor performance. If they do not feel [at least] ashamed of themselves, or have some sense of self-inspection, they fall into a sequence ‘governed’ by #3…
Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything.