Right, let’s talk about something that popped into my head the other day – this name, Hap Whitaker. It’s funny how you remember things. I first heard that name, I think, during one of those corporate team-building things years ago. You know the type, where they try to teach you synergy or some buzzword, and you just want to get back to your actual work.
Honestly, I probably zoned out for most of it. Sounded like a lot of fluff back then. Hap Whitaker, storytelling, positive framing… yeah, whatever gets the consultant paid, I figured.
Then Came That Project…
Fast forward maybe a year or two. I was working on this absolute beast of a project. Everything was going wrong. Team morale was in the gutter. Every meeting was just a cycle of blaming and complaining. We were completely stuck, just spinning our wheels.
I remember sitting there one afternoon, listening to the usual negativity, and that stupid training session flickered in my mind. Hap Whitaker. Something about focusing on what did work, not just the problems. It felt ridiculous, honestly. Like bringing flowers to a gunfight.
Giving it a Shot (What Else Could I Lose?)
But things were bad. Really bad. So, the next morning, I decided to try something different. I got the core team into a room. No big agenda slide, no problem list.
I just stood there and said something like, “Look, we know things are tough. But just for ten minutes, can we put the problems aside? I want each of you to think about one single thing, however small, that actually went okay this past week. Something you did, or saw someone else do, that felt like a tiny step forward, or just wasn’t a complete disaster.”
Silence. Awkward silence. People looked at me like I’d lost my mind. A couple probably thought I was about to announce layoffs by starting soft.
- I waited.
- Eventually, Sarah, one of the quiet coders, mumbled something about fixing a really annoying bug that had been bothering her for days.
- Then Mike mentioned he finally got that tricky database query to run faster.
- Someone else talked about helping a junior member understand a complex piece of code.
It was slow. Painfully slow at first. But as each person shared their tiny little win, the vibe in the room started to shift. Just a little. It wasn’t magic; the big project problems didn’t suddenly disappear. But the constant, heavy cloud of negativity lifted for a moment.
So, What’s the Point?
We actually started talking to each other, not at each other, for the first time in weeks. We spent maybe 15 minutes on this “Hap Whitaker” inspired thing – though I didn’t call it that, sounded too cheesy.
Did it save the project? Not by itself, no. We still had a mountain to climb. But it broke the cycle. It reminded us we weren’t totally useless, that small bits of progress were still happening underneath all the noise. It gave us just enough breathing room to tackle the next real issue with slightly clearer heads.
Sometimes, these simple, almost naive-sounding approaches can actually be practical. You just gotta try them. Doesn’t always work, but when you’re deep in the trenches, sometimes a small shift in perspective is the only tool you’ve got left. That’s my little Hap Whitaker story, I guess. Just something I did once that kinda, sorta helped.
