There’s a useful analogy I once heard from musicians about how orchestras really work. Officially, the conductor runs the show. They set the beat, they give the cues, and everyone’s eyes are on them. To the audience, it looks as though the conductor is firmly in control.

But orchestras have their own quiet safety net. If the conductor is incompetent, unreasonable, or simply fails to lead, the orchestra doesn’t fall apart. Instead, it starts following the lead of the “first trumpet” ¹. The clever conductors will realise this, and self-aware ones take it as a sign: if the orchestra is following someone else, something has gone wrong in their leadership.

Most of the audience will never notice the shift. They’ll assume the conductor is still in charge. But the musicians know, and so do the more experienced listeners.

I think this is the best analogy I’ve ever come across for corporate projects. If you’re the project lead, the “conductor”, and you find that people are no longer coming to you with problems, or that you’re having to chase rather than being sought out for help, chances are you’ve already been quietly replaced by a “first trumpet”.

This isn’t a role that anyone really wants. It’s an extra burden on the person who has stepped up, often reluctantly, because the team still needs direction. The only real solutions are for the formal lead to:

1. Step aside.
2. Fix what’s going wrong,
3. Replace the “first trumpet”

If you suspect this has happened to you, the best thing you can do is find out who your team is actually following and ask them genuinely where you’ve gone wrong. They’ll usually tell you, because they don’t want your job; they’d much rather you were doing it properly.

Projects, like orchestras, need a conductor. The trick is to remain the one the team chooses to follow.

Update

I got some feedback on this from an old friend and it looks like the origin instrument suffered a little bit from Chinese whispers, and rather than “First Trumpet”, it should really be “Lead Violin”

“As a trumpeter, I would love to say this was true, but it’s really the Principal 1st Violin, who also has the title “Leader” for this very reason. Three reasons for that choice:1) the violinist is at the front where everyone can see them 2) it’s easier to follow their bow movements than it would be to follow any movements made with a trumpet 3) they are playing most of the time (unlike the trumpets) so there’s something to follow”

“I’ve certainly played in concerts where this happened… if you go back a few hundred years, conductors weren’t a thing, and orchestras were usually led by someone playing – often the harpsichord. Most jazz bands still run this way. I guess you don’t need to go back that far to find a dev team without a scrum master of whatever they’re called…”

1. that is the head trumpeter in an orchestra[↩]

Management and technical resources speak very different languages. We’ve all known this for ages, and I don’t just mean the acronyms and formal formats that each side uses. They genuinely see the world in slightly different ways. What feels like a perfectly clear form of communication to one side can be almost incomprehensible to the other.

This gap shows up most clearly when one side is expecting something specific from the other but only phrase it in their own terms. I see this most often in status updates.

Managers tend to approach status updates in a holistic way, covering the entire project. If you’re unlucky, this might mean multiple slide decks. More commonly, it takes the form of long, structured emails sent out at regular intervals to the technical teams. The problem is that these communications are very much TL;DR ¹ to the tech teams. Somewhere inside there may be a specific task for an individual, but the actual responsibility, timing, and relationship to other work isn’t clear to the technical teams that are doing the work.

This is where project managers need to go the extra mile. Yes, it’s important to produce that “state of the nation” overview for the project. Yes, senior stakeholders often want slide decks that show the big picture at a glance. But if you expect deliverables from technical teams, especially when there are multiple teams with separate budgets and priorities, it’s far better to follow up with individuals or team leads.

A simple, targeted email to the responsible contact in each team, spelling out exactly what you need and by when, cuts through the noise. Without this, you risk adding to the confusion. Technical staff are often bombarded with 10, even 15, different project update calls in a single day. These inevitably clash, contradict, or simply blur together.

If you want results, you can’t just carve out a block of “admin time” in people’s calendars and expect it all to be absorbed. Keep your asks small, specific, and clear. The less of people’s time you waste, the more effective the outcome will be.

1. or “Too Long Didn’t read”[↩]

My colleagues and I work as a genuine small consultancy. We’ve been that way for a long time, That means we rarely work through agents. Agencies do a lot for contractors and take a lot of the boring stuff away, but without them, much of that suddenly lands on your own desk.
Here are the biggest things you’ll need to handle financially when you’re a small business working with the giant multinationals.

1) Working at risk

“Working at risk” is big-company shorthand for starting work before a contract is fully signed, meaning you might not get paid. It happens because internal contracting and approval processes often move far slower than the need to deliver. Large consultancies accept this as normal. If you’re used to agency work, you won’t have seen it because your contract sits with the agency. As a real company, you will face it regularly.

2) Slow payments

Large organisations pay slowly, sometimes very slowly. Even with everything done correctly, you may wait months (45 or even 90 day terms are common), and practical delays can push invoices being paid out to six months. there is rarely malice in this; it’s just how the corporate machinery works. You will need enough cashflow to cover at least six months of outgoings without incoming invoices when first starting out.

3) “Bad” software (that’s actually just hideously complex)

You might run your own invoicing on tools like FreshBooks, Xero or QuickBooks. Your clients will likely use things like Coupa, Planview and other enterprise platforms. From your vantage point, they can seem dreadful or illogical. In reality, you’re seeing only a tiny slice of a system coping with huge complexity. Expect odd workflows and fields that make little sense in isolation. Be patient, ask for a short walkthrough, and build simple internal checklists so you submit things right first time.

4) Being treated like a multinational

Flattering? Yes. Fun? Not really. Many procurement teams are set up to deal with Accenture, PwC, Deloitte, and the like, so the template master services agreement you’re handed will be written with them in mind. Hire a good lawyer you get on with, and have them mark up practical adjustments for a company your size. Most procurement people are sensible; if you clearly explain what’s unreasonable, they’ll often accommodate it, provided you stay constructive rather than combative.

5) Invisible thresholds

Everything can be cruising along nicely and then, bang, You’re suddenly pulled into confrontational calls and quizzed on billing details that were fine last year, sometimes over very small amounts. What’s happened is you’ve crossed an internal threshold: end of financial year timing, a budget code boundary, or a spend level that pushes approvals to a higher tier. None of this may be visible (or shareable) to you. Don’t take it personally. Break invoices down, align to the right periods, and help them route approvals cleanly.

6) Absorbing costs and tasks

You may be asked to absorb items you’d normally pass on as expenses to a project such as, ISO certifications, bits of hardware, software licences, and so on. Big consultancies often bundle these into their rates or already hold the certifications, so the client expects “sure we’ll cover that” when asked. As a small company, you’re competing with that standard. Decide what you’ll absorb, what you’ll explicitly scope and price, and where you’ll simply say “that’s out of scope, here’s the cost”. Transparency helps, but be prepared to shoulder some admin and paper work to keep things moving.

Final thoughts

Working with huge companies is absolutely doable, and rewarding, if you plan for the realities: accept some risk (carefully), maintain strong cash reserves, get proper legal support, expect bureaucracy, and keep your documentation spotless. Do that, and you can go toe-to-toe with the big players while keeping the advantages that make small firms valuable: speed, focus, and high skill.

We can celebrate chat tools, Slack threads, and the return to in-person collaboration, but in most large, traditional organisations, email is still the system of record. Official statements, warnings, approvals, notifications, and anything that needs a defensible paper trail almost always arrive by email. If you want to stay in control of your work, you have to stay in control of your inbox.

Why email still matters

Email is the channel leaders fall back on when something must be traceable and unambiguous. “I’ve emailed you about this” is shorthand for “this is now formally on the record.” Lose grip on your email, and you lose grip on decisions, timelines, and, ultimately, credibility.

Signs you’re losing control

• Only reachable on chat. People default to pinging you because email responses lag.
• Meeting overload. When someone books meetings for everything and involves large numbers of people in these calls, it often means they can’t manage the information flow via email and so are having to get it repeated to them in person.
• And, obviously, the fact that you have thousands, if not tens of thousands, of unread emails in your inbox.

These are symptoms of the same problem: your inbox is just overflowing.

If you can’t keep up, something must move

If maintaining your inbox feels impossible, don’t just keep drowning; make a change:

• Get support. Ask for assistance with triage or admin.
• Delegate other work. Free up time to handle essential communication.
• Reduce optional involvement. Skip non-essential meetings to protect focus time, even if that triggers a little FOMO.
• Set expectations. Tell stakeholders when you process email (e.g., twice daily) so they know when to expect replies.

Practical inbox habits that work

Thankfully one of my LDC Via colleagues, Matt White, has recently done a blog post on this and provided a good set of tips and ways of dealing with a heavy inbox.

Bottom line

Managers and subject-matter specialists who lose control of their email rarely have a happy work life; they’re permanently reactive. Whatever method you choose, treat your inbox like the operational cockpit it is. Stay on top of it, and your life will be a little less stressful.

This is one of my rare posts where I’m genuinely after feedback. to discover if I’m just being daft, or is this something more people quietly recognise?

When I’m dealing with tricky client situations or work I find stressful or dull, I gravitate to an office. If the client doesn’t have one, I’ll book a workspace. Making the environment more austere seems to make it easier to knuckle down ¹. At home, when the work is unpleasant, I don’t tackle it as well; there are too many nice distractions. The difference between work I enjoy and work I don’t becomes stark, so I remove the comforts and go somewhere “all business”.

That’s my personal pattern. But is it generally true? Setting aside “people only work hard when monitored” (that’s a different debate), is difficult or unpleasant work simply more efficient to do in an office than at home?

It could explain a few things. You often hear aggressive, control-heavy managers say, “People work best in the office.” Well, if the work feels unpleasant, perhaps the lack of distractions helps you just get on with it. Conversely, inspiring leaders and organisations, where the work feels meaningful and motivating, may find remote working thrives, because people want to do the work and can benefit from less commuting and more flexibility.

Are we missing this nuance in the broader conversation? Perhaps some kinds of work , or some leadership cultures, make the office more effective precisely because the work feels less rewarding. If your only option in the office is to work, you might as well get it done.

Has anyone else seen this? Is this a conclusion you’ve come to? I’d love feedback, especially from engineers and delivery teams.

Note: I’m assuming all else is equal, same type of work, similar pay structure, and comparable teams. If the people or the work are fundamentally different, the comparison falls apart.

1. I have since learnt that part of this is the known effect that you work harder when you feel you are monitored[↩]