This article first appeared in Little Black Book written by, Ozie Foster, Executive Digital Producer from our New York studio.
There’s a piece of advice that’s stuck with me throughout my career: don’t let the big issues distract you from everything else.
I first learned this lesson early in my career when I was working as a production assistant on an event delivery. Things had gone a bit sideways. We had major bugs and hardware issues in some of our interactive applications just before launch, and I remember watching five developers huddled together, desperately trying to fix it. Meanwhile, a pile of smaller tasks were being ignored, and the production team was caught up in a chain of delays. As opening time crept closer, the site looked chaotic with cables, flight cases and rubbish everywhere, the software wasn’t behaving, and everyone was running on stress and caffeine.
Then our department head arrived. He took one look at the scene, completely calm, and started rallying the team. Instead of diving straight into the big technical issue, he delegated smaller jobs to the wider crew, tidying the space, setting up signage, and prepping guest areas. The more complex problems were split up and assigned to senior team members, and anything that couldn’t be fixed right away, he familiarised himself with so he could manage client expectations.
Within a few hours, the site went from disaster zone to launch-ready. The software still had issues, but we were operational and, crucially, we’d regained control.
A few years later, I brought that moment up with him. He told me that part of the reason he could stay so composed was that he hadn’t been caught up in the chaos. “When you’re in a crisis,” he said, “it’s hard to see the wood for the trees. The trick is to get everyone moving again. Start with the small things that make visible progress. By dealing with some of the smaller things, you gain more headspace to deal with the big stuff properly.”
That conversation hit me. I remember being in awe of how simple, yet powerful, that mindset was. It wasn’t about ignoring the big issue; it was about not letting everything suffer because of it.
Since then, it’s shaped how I lead and how I problem-solve. I’ve always been fairly calm under pressure, but this experience taught me to keep a wider view when everything feels like it’s falling apart.
Now, when a project hits a rough patch, I pass that same advice on to my teams. Sometimes, momentum is the most important thing, so getting things moving again can change everything.
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