Ego vs execution war story

Published 12 months ago • 1 min read

Dear project managers and executives
You are not paid to referee ego wars.
You are paid to protect outcomes.

I have seen this many times.

And doubts and concerns freeze you like a bunny looking at the two lights of the car moving to you.

Look.

If you're witnessing a standoff between two inflated egos, do everyone a favor:
Remove them both—or at least the one you can control.

Will it feel disruptive? Yes.
Expensive? Maybe.
Unfair? Possibly.

But trust me... it’s a bargain compared to the cost of keeping them around.

I've seen projects lose millions because someone had to be right.
I’ve seen teams break, timelines collapse, and reputations tank—
Not because of risk or complexity...
But because no one had the guts to pull the ego out of the room.

Leadership is about subtraction.

Sometimes, the best move is cutting the wrong person at the right time.

More wisdom? Check below.

$99.90

The 15 Top Lessons of a PPP Project Nightmare

Learn about:
The number 1 killer of Projects
Why this was not going to be just "another construction project, mate"... Read more

Get those lessons now

PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day.

PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com

PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below.

Stop being useless in the meetings that decide your career

Sometimes I’ve walked into meetings where you could smell the blood from miles away. In one of those meetings, the SPV chair looked like he had just fallen off a tree that same morning. Stuttering like crazy. Like a guy from my hometown we used to call “The Stutterer”… el Tartas de mi pueblo. Impossible to take seriously. Looking at his papers. Looking at the screen. Searching for inspiration in the PowerPoint he put together the night before. He already started badly… talking about the...

about 4 hours ago • 1 min read

Saturday night. Rain. Concrete. $100M at risk

A PPP somewhere in Canada. Mid 2010s. Saturday night. Concrete poring of a key structure in the critical path of the project. Everything looked perfect on paper. Full closure approved Concrete plant booked Pumps lined up Crew ready Weather… “acceptable” 22:00 : Go time First trucks arrive. Pumps start. Concrete flowing. Then… rain. Not heavy. Not dramatic. Just enough to start messing with the surface. The kind of rain that kills quality slowly. The dangerous one. 23:30: First tension Quality...

1 day ago • 1 min read

This is why projects get expensive (no one says it)

Unless you want a horror story. Or an “insípida” story that says nothing. You don’t put on the market an unconnected series of projects. That’s not a vision. It’s election time in New Zealand. And every time I’m invited to a forum, I repeat the same message. Infrastructure needs a long-term story. A real one. What do we want to become in 30 years? Because it cannot change every time the government changes. That’s not strategy. That’s improvisation. Or shooting yourself in your foot. If a...