This is an old business consulting “joke”…
and potentially a rusty job interview question.
The answer is: one bite at a time.
The elephant symbolizes a big undertaking, e.g., an outsourcing project.
Sometimes a project might be so daunting that it’s hard to know where to start.
The key is to chunk it into bite-sized activities: a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Especially earlier in your career, you might not see the forest for the trees.
In that case it is advisable to take a step back and draw a simple plan.
You might want to list the activities you believe should be completed to finish the project in a simple spreadsheet. Add timelines, owners, priorities, status, etc. Ask a peer or mentor for feedback.
What I have seen too often is colleagues embarking on a project and bumping into road blocks that could have been foreseen way ahead.
These road blocks may be shaped in the form of expert opinions, steering committee approvals, legal approvals, etc.
The analogy that might visualize such a situation is as follows.
Picture a long corridor with doors and just walls left and right of you.
At the entrance of the corridor is a key cabinet with several keys in it.
You walk through the corridor and bump into the first door. The sign on the door reads “Door number 1”. It is locked. So you go back to the entrance, open the key cabinet and choose the key to door number 1.
You go back to door number 1, use the key to open the door and walk straight ahead for some time.
You then bump into another door. The sign on the door reads “Door number 2”. It is locked. So you sigh, go back to the entrance, open the key cabinet and choose the key to door number 2.
Depending how clever you are, you might decide to take the keys to door number 3, 4 and so on with you. But hey, some colleagues might think that they don’t need to go all the way to door 5 or 6. They prefer to take a shortcut. Unfortunately, they may find out that steering committees and legal counsels don’t allow for shortcuts.
The solution here is to take a helicopter view and imagine what (approval) steps are required to get to the finish line of your project. In the analogy: fly above the corridor and see how many doors you have to pass.
Another way to deal with big tasks is to stay calm and focused.
Years ago I saw a movie about the International Space Station. An astronaut had to make a spacewalk to repair vital equipment. The repair meant he had to fix a large number of nuts and bolts within a tight deadline while hanging outside and working with a small tool. After working for a long time he still had to do quite a few of them. He started to panic, afraid he would not make the deadline. But then after some contemplation he entered into a different state of mind and started to concentrate on completing one bolt at a time. This helped him finish the job on time and accurately.
Extras
See this nice animation by Jeff Muir that explains the concept of how to eat an elephant vividly.
Here is an interesting article about how astronauts manage stress.
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