I've recently been involved with the project of bringing in quite a large intake of new customers. Although one's first reaction to this would be all the benefits which come from new clients, the process can often be long and tricky. For in the world of business, one deals with people, not just money. And people can often be complicated.

Starting out, I was very excited. Writing up the contracts, building charts to monitor developments, having neatly defined folders to store all relevant and important documents. My work was crisp, clean and organised and I felt on top of it. But as the days progressed, my grasp on the project became less and less tight. My worksheets became intricate and confusing, and an attempt to colour coordinate activities and stages just made my work resemble my old colouring in books from primary school! The deadline in which I wanted the deal to close was drawn out, lengthened, and soon became undefinable. People went away, new people were brought in, processes were changed, tasks were stalled, complications arose...

Is it crazy to think that events weren't progressing in a nice, neat, straight line?! Not really...

What I have learnt throughout this process is that business, not matter how much you try to define it, it is very much a play by ear game. Yes regularity is needed but you must remain flexible, because people are flexible. Every business contact will be different, will require something different, will need to be approached, managed and communicated with differently. But it is these differences that define the interactions and thus strengthen your businesses abilities.

The main lesson I came out of this experience with is that you have to enjoy the interactions you get with individual people. You have to enjoy those differences. For it is precisely those differences that give meaning to your work- the comments, the reactions, and the interactions that make you realise how much you are affecting someone else, how much you are helping them (or sometimes not helping them!).

But you have to see the fun in both the good and the bad, because without that, all you have left is a messy sheet with a whole lot of colours on the page that don’t have much meaning attached.

For information on how to best approach projects, How to Manage a project is a handy article outlining some steps which can help with your processes.