A tale to rival any contemporary corporate blunder…

In Stockholm, Sweden is the impressive Vasa Museum with a wonderfully preserved ship from the Swedish Age of Empire. In the 17th and 18th century, Sweden dominated the entire Baltic Sea, and controlled much of Norway, Finland, as well as parts of Estonia and Germany.

The Vasa was finished in 1628 and was to be the Flagship of the Swedish Navy. For a brief moment, it was one of the most heavily armed vessels in the world. On August 10, 1628 she began her maiden voyage in front of many onlookers in Stockholm harbour.

Within a few minutes of her first voyage, she sank when a gust of wind slightly more than a breeze hit her sails.

It was a disaster. Rightfully, an inquiry was launched and it all came out… The Vasa’s centre of balance was entirely off. Given the vessel’s height and armament, it required more depth and width in the hull. Though the ship builders followed the plans given to them when building the Vasa – approved by the King of course – they could easily see it looked too thin and too high and raised concerns to the Navy. A stability test performed in front of one Admiral showed the ship was improperly balanced, top heavy, and prone to tipping.

But a demanding King (Gustavus Adolphus) wanted his new and impressive Flagship sent to the theatre of conflict (Poland-Lithuania) where he was waging war. So, everyone kept on working to finish the ship despite the obvious problems. Nobody wanted to tell the King that the ship wasn’t seaworthy or that her maiden voyage should be delayed until something could be done to solve its balance problems. By the end of the inquest, nobody was found guilty, though it was implied the problems were really the fault of the Master Shipwright who had died midway through the construction of the ship.

I find myself reflecting on all the little “Vasas” I have witnessed (even been a part of) in my life. Anyone that has worked on creative marketing or software projects knows what a Vasa is! There’s always a King Adolphus around that doesn’t want to hear about some big problems – just get it done.

And in corporate land, we have our own version of inquiries: in corporate parlance they are referred to as “post mortems.” They usually result in vague “lessons learned” on how to avoid such missteps in the future. These post mortems are usually filed away into some obscure folder on SharePoint once complete and nobody looks at them again. Why? It’s not because people don’t want to improve or learn. But, rather, it’s because everyone that was working on the project raised concerns and saw the ship would sink, but nobody wanted to listen. A commitment was made to a client, to the President, or to some stakeholder and there was no getting out of it…

So, I offer you a new word for these misadventures – Vasa. Possible usage: “this project is going Vasa on us” or “we’ve really Vasad this up.”

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