I had a wry smile on the way to work the other day. I was passing a crossing, the lights were changing to green. A motorbike that had been crawling past the cars had reached the front, but people were straggling across. He blipped the throttle a few times. Nice aftermarket pipes – lovely tone, but probably not road legal. Anyway, the stragglers looked across with annoyed expressions and one of them blurted a few rude words. I carried on past the junction smiling.
It wasn’t that I was enjoying those melodic pipes. Nor was it that I missed my biking days. I had insight into the situation that others may not have. I knew that the biker had slowly controlled the bike past the line of traffic. So that he could make a nice smooth move away from the lights when they turned, he had timed it nicely to be still slowly moving as he reached the front and the lights changed. Trailing the rear brake to keep it nicely controlled so the forks wouldn’t dive from using the front brakes and make him wobble. Proper forward planning and control. What he hadn’t planned for were people crossing as the lights were going green for the traffic. As a result he was nearly at a standstill when he should have been moving away. His throttle blipping was to keep the bike balanced for a little longer so he did not have to put his feet down and for it to end up being a clumsy affair. Blipping the throttle gives the motorbike a little bit of angular momentum which stops the bike toppling over so readily – just enough to let the stragglers to clear the way. You know the trick with the big spinning disk in a briefcase that people struggle to turn? Or the plain spinning top that only falls over when it loses enough of its angular momentum.
So where the guilty stragglers saw an act of aggression I saw an act of very fine low speed handling and forward planning – hence my smile.
I saw parallels with consulting and presales. The frustrating scenarios where your skill and experience are misunderstood by clients who sometimes see time, budget and resources as excessive. Sometimes all you need is a bit of time to explain the low speed riding, forward planning and angular momentum so they can see it for the very desirable excellence and not an act of aggression, or in consulting terms: greedy profiteering. Sometimes you don’t get that chance and the client selects a supplier who doesn’t either and you just have to keep walking. Sometimes that is my job – to help my future clients really understand how we couple innovation with the rhythm and quality of manufacturing whilst building their awareness of the risks and complexity where it exists. All of this we do so that we can engage with a complete understanding – eyes wide open. Not just a proposal to win the work. A proposal to work together with understanding and transparency and empowered to succeed.