While We Are Still Becoming

Walang pera — pause.
Hindi pumasa sa exam — pause.
May nagawang mali — pause.

We have many reasons to put our lives on hold. Sometimes, we treat these moments as signals that everything must stop—as if progress and happiness must wait. But life rarely works that way.

For women, the pauses can come in other forms. When I gave birth to my two children, life slowed down in ways no career plan could have predicted. There was even a scholarship opportunity in New Zealand that I had to forgo because I was still breastfeeding my daughter. Those moments were pauses—but not endings. They were seasons. And when the season passed, life had to move forward again.

I once learned something about this during a job interview that was far from gentle. At one point, the interviewer looked at my résumé and said bluntly, “You seem like a confused person. You’ve done too many different things.”

I understood what she meant.

I am an underbar. For a time, I was also a networker, building relationships and learning the discipline of sales and entrepreneurship through a part-time direct-selling business. Later, I became a mediator. I worked in policy. Later in my career, as a Director, I worked in Human Resources, and during that time, I also spent a year as a graduate scholar and full-time student. After that, I moved into records management. At the same time, I worked on IT and digital transformation while serving as a project manager for a major modernization initiative.

To someone searching for a neat and straight line, my career probably looked scattered.

Life rarely unfolds in straight lines. We often assume careers must be linear—one ladder, one track, one predictable progression. Yet most meaningful lives are not built that way. Our journeys move more like spirals.

We cycle through experiences. We gain skills in unexpected places. We fail in one area and grow in another. We step into roles we never imagined when we first began.

What appears confusing from the outside may actually be formation.

Yet somewhere along the way, we begin telling ourselves that life must pause. No money — pause. Did not pass the exam — pause. Made a mistake — pause. In doing so, we quietly postpone something else: happiness.

We tell ourselves we will celebrate when the promotion comes. We will relax when the finances improve. We will feel fulfilled when everything finally aligns. But joy does not live only at the finish line.

If we fail to find happiness in the small things—the lessons learned, the unexpected opportunities, the people who walked with us along the way—then even the biggest achievements may feel strangely incomplete.

Happiness was never meant to arrive only when everything is perfect. It was meant to accompany us while we are still becoming. Our lives do not stop because of failures. They do not stop because we did not pass an exam, or because money was scarce, or because we made mistakes. Those are moments. They are not endings. Human lives were never meant to remain paused.

We are thriving individuals, capable of learning across disciplines, adapting across seasons, and growing through the turns we did not plan. Perhaps most importantly, we are not wandering without direction.

God does not ask us to be perfect. But He does ask us to be deliberate—to keep moving, keep learning, and keep trusting that even the unexpected paths have meaning.

So when life seems to pause, perhaps the deeper question is not “Why did this happen?” Perhaps it is this:

Am I still able to see the joy that God has placed along the way?

Perhaps the real tragedy is not that life pauses—but that we forget to see the joy God placed in the journey while we are still becoming.

— Director Noreen

Project Leadership Series | Part 5 of 5 - When Projects Change Hands: The Quiet Discipline of Transition

Most people think the hardest part of a project is the beginning. They imagine the complexity of design, negotiations, planning sessions, and long meetings in which a program's direction remains uncertain. But in many large initiatives, the most delicate phase is something far less visible—transition.

Transition is the moment when the builders step back and the implementers step in. It is the point at which preparation gives way to execution. Handled properly, transition allows the project to move forward with continuity and confidence. Handled poorly—or forced prematurely—it can quietly undo years of careful work.

Projects Are Not Just Built — They Are Handed Over

A project does not move forward simply because documents were completed or approvals were secured. It moves forward because the next team understands what they are inheriting. That sounds obvious. Yet in practice, transition is often treated as an administrative formality—a turnover memo, a few shared folders, perhaps a meeting to summarize key points. But complex initiatives carry far more than files.

They carry context,  institutional memory, the reasoning behind decisions that may not appear in any formal document. When these are not transmitted or understood clearly, the next team does not start where the previous one finished. They start somewhere behind it or sometimes much further behind.

This is why structured transition matters. A proper transition is not merely a record of accomplishments. It is a bridge between two phases of leadership and two teams responsible for the same mission.                                                 

The Discipline of Stewardship

Project management is often associated with schedules, budgets, and deliverables. Those are necessary, but transition reveals a deeper discipline: stewardship.

The team preparing a project must think beyond completion. They must think about continuity, ask difficult questions:

Will the next team understand why this structure or project design exists?

Will they see how the pieces fit together?

Will they know which risks have already been addressed—and which are still emerging?

In other words: Have we left them clarity—or confusion?

The difference between the two can determine whether implementation begins smoothly or struggles through months of rediscovery.

In large initiatives, rediscovery is costly. It delays implementation. It creates unnecessary debate, and it erodes confidence in the project itself.

When Transition Happens Too Early

There is another challenge that experienced project managers quietly encounter.

What happens when a transition is not allowed to occur logically? What happens when it happens too early?

Projects—especially large reform initiatives—move through natural phases. Preparation leads to readiness. Readiness leads to implementation.

The transition occurs only when the groundwork is sufficiently established, but the rhythm is sometimes disrupted. The project team that prepared the project may be asked to step aside before the work reaches its natural handover point.  A project manager may not be allowed to complete the final phase of transition. The result is neither continuity nor closure. Instead, the project experiences institutional turbulence.

The incoming team inherits the work, but without the full transfer of context. The outgoing team carries the knowledge, but without the opportunity to complete the handover.

The project itself sits somewhere in between. Still moving forward—but with friction.

When the Next Team Faces a Different Terrain

There is another complication that projects rarely acknowledge openly.

What happens when the receiving team inherits a project operating in terrain they have not previously navigated?

Large reform programs often operate within governance environments that go beyond ordinary organizational procedures. There are fiduciary safeguards, procurement rules, documentation standards, monitoring frameworks, and alert mechanisms. Sometimes, even environmental, social, and cybersecurity compliance requirements.

These are not minor technicalities. They are systems of accountability that shape how the project must operate.

Teams that prepared the project often spend months—sometimes years—learning these rules. They learn the language of development partners. They understand the expectations of oversight bodies. They internalize the discipline required to maintain compliance across dozens of documents and processes.

When a transition occurs smoothly, that knowledge travels alongside the paperwork. When the transition is abrupt—or when the receiving team has not yet been exposed to that terrain—the project enters a difficult phase. It is not because the new team lacks competence.  It is because the environmental rules are unfamiliar.

It is similar to moving from local roads to international airspace. The principles of movement are the same, but the protocols are different. The margin for procedural error becomes smaller, and the cost of misunderstanding increases.

The Learning Curve No One Sees

In these situations, the receiving team must do two things simultaneously. They must continue moving the project forward and learn the system governing it.

That learning curve is rarely visible to stakeholders. From the outside, the project appears to be simply continuing, but internally, the team may be navigating a steep learning curve—understanding documentation standards, approval protocols, procurement procedures, and reporting expectations.

If the transition was well prepared, the curve is manageable. If it was rushed or incomplete, the project may spend valuable time reconstructing knowledge that once existed within the earlier team.

This is not failure. It is simply the consequence of a transition without full knowledge transfer. Because transition, at its core, is not administrative.

Transition is not the transfer of responsibility. It is the transfer of understanding.

Transition as a Measure of Institutional Maturity

How an organization handles project transition reveals something deeper about its culture. In mature institutions, transition is treated as a professional obligation. Outgoing teams ensure continuity. Incoming teams respect the groundwork already laid. There is no sense of replacement—only progression.

But in less mature environments, transition becomes personal. New teams feel compelled to reinterpret everything. Previous work is questioned before it is understood.

The project risks becoming a cycle of reinvention. That cycle is dangerous not because questioning is wrong, but because projects with long timelines depend on stability.

Every major initiative passes through different leadership periods, different teams, and different priorities. Only strong transition practices keep the project coherent across those changes.

The Human Side of Transition

There is also an emotional dimension to transition that rarely appears in formal reports. For the team stepping away, the project is no longer theirs. They may have invested months—sometimes years—designing systems, coordinating stakeholders, resolving obstacles, and building momentum.

Transition requires them to let go. That requires discipline because good professionals understand that the measure of their work is not whether they remain in charge. The measure is whether the project succeeds after they leave. In that sense, transition is the final act of responsibility. It is not the end of ownership—but the completion of it.

What Transition Ultimately Brings

When done properly, transition brings three things to a project.

First, continuity. The next phase begins where the previous one ended.

Second, clarity. New teams understand not only the documents but the decisions behind them.

And third, confidence. Stakeholders see that the project is larger than any single group managing it. It belongs to the institution. That may be the most important outcome of all because large initiatives do not succeed through individual brilliance. They succeed through disciplined continuity across teams, across leadership cycles, and across time.

Transition is where that continuity is secured - quietly, deliberately, and often without recognition.

This article also brings to a close a short series of reflections on project management—beginning with preparation, moving through stakeholder dynamics and execution, and ending with this final phase of transition.

Because in the life of every project, the moment the work changes hands is when preparation finally reveals its strength—or its absence.

In the end, the true measure of a project is not how it begins, but whether it remains steady when the work finally changes hands.

- Director Noreen

Image: AI-generated caricature,  created for the Director’s Cut project management series.

Project Leadership Series | Part 4 of 5 - The Stakeholders Who Care the Most: Managing the “Keep Informed” Quadrant

In the previous article, I wrote about the high-influence, low-interest stakeholders—those who must be kept satisfied so they do not disrupt a project's progress.

This time, I want to talk about the other side of the matrix—the stakeholders who care deeply. These are the High-Interest, Low-Influence stakeholders. In project management, they fall into the “Keep Informed” quadrant. The phrase sounds harmless, almost polite. But in reality, this group is often the most emotionally invested and easily disappointed if handled poorly. While they may not control the project’s direction, they are often the ones who live with its consequences every day.

The People Who Watch Closely

In public sector projects, this group usually includes:

• Technical staff implementing the work
• Analysts and subject matter experts
• Frontline employees
• Unit personnel affected by the reform
• Staff who will operate the system once it is built

They may not sit on steering committees. They may not sign approvals. But they are watching closely. They follow every development. They ask questions. They notice inconsistencies. They see gaps long before anyone else. The project is not abstract to them. It is operational. It will eventually become their daily reality.

Figure: The Project Approval Maze

High Interest + Low Influence — Keep Informed

Concept by the author. Illustration generated with AI assistance.

Interest Without Authority

This quadrant is defined by a tension—high interest, low authority.

The stakeholders here want to contribute and shape outcomes, yet their ability to influence decisions is limited. That gap between care and control creates a delicate dynamic. If ignored, it breeds frustration. If mishandled, it breeds resistance. But if managed properly, it becomes something extremely valuable: institutional intelligence.

Because the people who care the most are often the ones who understand the system best.

The Danger of Silence

Many project teams make a simple mistake with this quadrant. They communicate only when necessary. Updates are infrequent. Decisions are announced only after they are final. Questions are acknowledged but not truly addressed.

Technically, the stakeholders have been “informed,” but not engaged. The difference is enormous.

Information without context often feels like exclusion, and exclusion creates narratives. Soon, people begin filling the gaps themselves. Speculation spreads faster than any official memo. Once that happens, even a good project begins to lose credibility.

What “Keeping Informed” Actually Means

To manage this quadrant well, a project leader must understand that information is not just about reporting progress. It is about building trust. That means sharing:

• What has been decided?
• What has not yet been decided.
• What constraints exist?
• What risks are being considered?
• And sometimes, what the team still does not know.

Transparency is rarely dangerous. Silence almost always is. When explained, people are far more willing to accept the outcomes—even if those outcomes are not exactly what they hoped for. People understand.

Listening as Strategy

Another mistake project teams make is assuming that stakeholders in this quadrant only need updates. In reality, they often have insights that can significantly improve the project. They see operational realities that senior decision-makers may never encounter. They know where processes fail. They know which assumptions will break once implementation begins.

Ignoring that knowledge is not just disrespectful. It is inefficient.

Some of the most valuable adjustments in complex projects come from people who simply ask: “Have we thought about what happens when this reaches the field?” Listening to these voices early can prevent expensive redesign later.

When Interest Becomes Advocacy

Handled well, this quadrant can transform from passive observers into powerful allies. People who feel respected and informed become advocates. They explain the project to others. They correct misinformation. They defend the initiative when criticism emerges.

In large bureaucracies, this kind of informal advocacy is invaluable. Because institutional change rarely succeeds through directives alone. It succeeds when the people inside the system begin to believe that the change makes sense. And belief grows through understanding.

A Lesson I Learned the Hard Way

I did not always appreciate this quadrant as much as I should have. Earlier in my career, I focused most of my attention on stakeholders who could approve or block a project. Which is understandable. Influence matters. But over time, I realized something important.

The people who care deeply—even without authority—often determine whether a reform actually works in practice. They are the ones who:

• translate strategy into operations
• explain the new system to the next employee who joins
• quietly fix problems when the design encounters reality

In other words, they are the ones who make the project survive beyond its launch. And survival is the real test of reform.

Respecting the Quiet Majority

Projects are often described in terms of leaders and decision-makers. But most institutions are not led by a handful of individuals. They are sustained by thousands of professionals whose names never appear in project documents.

The Keep Informed quadrant is often where these professionals sit. They may not influence the strategy. But they determine whether the strategy becomes daily practice. Which is why respecting this group is not simply a matter of courtesy. It is a matter of project success.

The Matrix Is About People

The Influence–Interest Matrix is often presented as a neat analytical tool.

• Four quadrants. Four strategies.
• Manage closely.
• Keep satisfied.
• Keep informed.
• Monitor.

But behind every square in that diagram are real people. People with expectations, concerns, and pride in their work.

The Keep Informed quadrant reminds us that leadership is not only about managing power. It is also about honoring commitment.

Because the stakeholders who care—even when they cannot decide—are often the ones who care enough to make the project succeed. And that kind of commitment deserves more than occasional updates.

It deserves respect.

- Direk Noreen

(The Influence–Interest Matrix here comes from Mendelow’s Power–Interest Grid, 1991, which is a classic in stakeholder management circles.)

Project Leadership Series | Part 3 of 5 - When Power Watches Quietly: Managing the High Influence–Low Interest Quadrant

In the previous piece, I wrote about the High Influence–High Interest quadrant—the stakeholders at the center of a project’s gravitational pull. These are the people deeply invested in outcomes, and their authority can accelerate or stall progress.

But another quadrant often determines whether a project moves smoothly or quietly unravels: High Influence, Low Interest. In stakeholder mapping, this group is labeled “Keep Satisfied.”

The phrase sounds simple. Managing this quadrant rarely is.

These stakeholders wield significant institutional authority. Their endorsement can stabilize a project; their hesitation can slow it down. Yet the project itself is rarely their primary concern. They oversee broader mandates and juggle priorities far larger than any single initiative.

They are not indifferent. They are simply not immersed in it.

In the public sector, this group appears frequently. It may include an Undersecretary/Assistant Secretary, Commissioner/Assistant Commissioner, or one responsible for multiple programs; the Department of Budget and Management reviewing fiscal implications; an oversight body such as the Commission on Audit; or even a development partner representative monitoring governance across several projects.

Each holds influence, but the project is only one of many responsibilities competing for their attention.

Because of this distance, their confidence rarely depends on technical details. It depends on whether the initiative makes sense.

Competence Is Necessary — But Meaning Is Essential

Project teams naturally focus on competence—deliverables, timelines, documentation, and procedures. All of these matter. But high-influence, low-interest stakeholders rarely read every annex. Instead, they respond to the clarity of the project’s logic.

Does the initiative feel coherent?
Is the purpose clear?
Does the explanation reflect sound judgment?

A technically sound proposal can still fail if its logic is hard to follow. But when the purpose is clear and the narrative is disciplined, leaders often give teams the space they need to work.

The Discipline of Strategic Patience

Working with this quadrant requires strategic patience.

Senior leaders operate under institutional accountability. Their decisions often extend beyond accountability and have implications beyond the project itself.

What teams interpret as hesitation is often careful stewardship. Silence does not always mean resistance. Sometimes it comes down to a simple question: “Does this make sense for the institution?”

Allowing space for that reflection is not inefficiency. It is professionalism.

The View from the Balcony

Project teams work inside the machinery—close to operational details and deadlines.

Senior leaders see something different. From what leadership scholars call the balcony view, they ask broader questions:

Does this align with institutional priorities?
Does it introduce unnecessary risk?
Does it strengthen governance?

These are leadership questions, not technical ones.

The Real Work of Leadership

Competence will always matter in public service. Projects must be carefully designed and responsibly implemented. But in complex institutions, another factor often determines success: whether the work makes sense to those entrusted with stewardship. That is the real task in managing High-Influence–Low-Interest stakeholders. It is not constant persuasion nor endless reporting, but helping leaders see why the project matters. When the meaning becomes clear, influence that once seemed distant can quietly become one of the project’s strongest sources of support.

- Direk Noreen

(The Influence–Interest Matrix here comes from Mendelow’s Power–Interest Grid, 1991, which is a classic in stakeholder management circles.)

Project Leadership Series | Part 2 of 5 - The Quadrant That Matters Most: High Influence-High Interest

In my earlier article, I shared insights into the Influence–Interest Matrix and how it guides project leaders through the complex landscape of a project. The framework is straightforward, yet its significance is profound.

Each quadrant of the matrix engages differently, and over time it becomes clear that whether a project advances or stalls often hinges on the High Influence, High Interest quadrant—the one where senior leaders operate.

From a project team’s perspective, this area can feel both comforting and challenging. It’s comforting because authority resides there, but it’s also risky because if alignment weakens, no amount of technical planning can salvage the project.

Managing closely, keeping influential stakeholders aligned

Projects are often presented as plans that include timelines, budgets, deliverables, performance indicators, and risk logs. These elements are vital, but in large-scale reforms, especially in the public sector, the focus shifts. Success depends more on keeping influential stakeholders aligned than on schedules alone. Unlike timelines, alignment requires ongoing effort.

I really grasped this while helping prepare a large public project that was far larger than any I’d handled before. My previous projects were meaningful, but this one had a broader scope and far more complex stakeholder dynamics.

What made it especially educational was navigating a new environment—the governance structure of a development partner—which required precision, including fiduciary safeguards, detailed documentation, structured reviews, and multiple levels of oversight.

The technical work was tough, but the real challenge was learning to operate within this complex network of influences. In such an environment, stakeholder alignment isn’t a one-off task; it’s an ongoing process.

Senior leaders drifting apart

Typically, large institutional reforms don’t fail because of operational slip-ups. They falter when key decision-makers start to drift apart. This can happen quietly—through subtle signs such as raising concerns publicly that could have been addressed privately, leaders encountering issues for the first time in formal meetings, or decisions being made before everyone agrees.

Though each sign alone may seem minor, together they can quietly undo months of progress—not because of technical flaws, but because trust and confidence in the project erode.

From a ground-level perspective, common patterns emerge when high-level alignment is lacking. Teams might treat all stakeholders as equal, over-engage supporters while neglecting key influencers, confuse interest with influence, or wait until escalation to involve decision-makers.

Most of these mistakes aren’t made out of bad intent; they happen because of the pressure to act quickly and demonstrate progress.

Remember, reforms slow down not because teams are working too slowly, but because they assume alignment among those with the most influence rather than actively building it.

Senior leaders are expected to set direction, but the real success of reforms depends on their sustained support over time. Their signals set the tone for the entire organization. When leaders remain steady, projects can move surprisingly quickly. When their alignment wavers, even slightly, momentum can fade.

Erosion of trust

The real risk isn’t missing documents or technical glitches; it’s the gradual erosion of trust among key stakeholders, often unnoticed until it’s too late. When someone feels bypassed or hears about decisions publicly before they are communicated privately, trust can quietly erode, harming the project.

Technical issues can usually be resolved, but once trust at the top erodes, recovery becomes much harder.

For project leaders, the Influence–Interest Matrix is a useful tool. It shows where to focus attention and how engagement should adapt. For those in the high-influence, high-interest quadrant, their role isn’t just to approve projects; it’s to keep everyone aligned. This might mean asking tough questions early, inviting concerns in advance, or ensuring decisions are made before momentum is lost—actions that don’t often appear on dashboards but are crucial to success. 

Ultimately, the most effective project leaders don’t just manage tasks—they manage influence. The most effective senior leaders don’t just give approval—they quietly maintain alignment to drive progress.

- Director Noreen

(The Influence–Interest Matrix here comes from Mendelow’s Power–Interest Grid, 1991, which is a classic in stakeholder management circles.)

Project Leadership Series | Part 1 of 5 - Beyond the Gantt Chart: The Leadership Work Behind Every Project

For years, I figured that if a project flopped, it had to be because of a technical hiccup. And sure, sometimes that’s true. But honestly? It’s almost never the real reason things unravel. Nine times out of ten, it’s because we misread the people involved—their influence, their interests. (I’ve been there. More than once.)

It’s rarely the Gantt chart, or a delayed purchase order, or even the budget that sinks a project. Usually, it’s people—how we manage them, or don’t.

After a few rounds (and more than a few late nights), especially on modernization and systems projects, I’ve learned it’s not the complexity that kills a project. It’s when people aren’t on the same page.

This is the first of a five-part series on project leadership. Not just timelines and deliverables (though those matter), but the real work: navigating influence, getting people together, and somehow keeping things moving when everything feels stuck.

If I had to boil it all down, I’d say this: It’s about influence versus interest. (Simple, but not always easy.)

Picture it: on one axis, how much pull someone has. On the other, how much they actually care. Suddenly, you’ve got four types of folks—and four ways to lead. (Trust me, it’s more useful than it sounds.)

1. High Influence + High Interest: Manage Closely

This group is where you find your biggest cheerleaders—and your trickiest headaches.

These are your decision-makers and approvers—the folks who can keep things moving, or throw a wrench in the works with just one question. They care, and they have the power. Your job? Be precise: keep them looped in, skip the surprises, flag risks early, and get them onside before anything blows up.

In public-sector change, this group usually means senior leaders, oversight bodies, finance folks, maybe a development partner or two. Under-communicate? You lose trust. Overpromise? You’re asking for trouble. Leave them out? The project might quietly fizzle. Managing closely isn’t just about playing nice—it’s about survival.

2. High Influence + Low Interest: Keep Satisfied

This bunch? Easy to miss. Maybe they skip meetings, keep quiet, seem neutral. But they hold the power to say ‘no’—and when they do, everything grinds to a halt. We’re talking legal reviewers, regulators, auditors, technical gatekeepers, infrastructure owners. Most days, they couldn’t care less. Until suddenly, they care a lot.

The discipline:

• Integrate compliance early
• Provide milestone updates
• Frame communication around risk control

Keep these folks happy, and you’ll barely notice them. Ignore them, and you’ll be swimming in paperwork. In government, red tape will outlive anyone’s enthusiasm—take it from me.

3. Low Influence + High Interest: Keep Informed

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. These are the implementers, end-users, frontline staff, and sometimes even the people you’re supposed to be helping. They care (sometimes more than you do), spot trouble early, and feel the pain first—but they don’t get the final word. Ignore them, and resistance creeps in. Overpromise, and watch your credibility vanish.

The discipline:

• Transparent communication
• Structured feedback channels
• Clear scope boundaries
• Respect for operational insight

I’ve watched projects that looked great on paper fall flat in the real world—just because these folks felt ignored. When they go quiet, it’s not peace; it’s disengagement. (Been there, and it stings.)

4. Low Influence + Low Interest: Monitor

You don’t have to spend ages on everyone—but you do have to keep an eye out. Who matters, who cares, who’s suddenly in the spotlight—it changes fast. Especially in government, and for reasons like:

• Leadership transitions
• Audit findings
• Media attention
• Budget realignments

Someone who’s off your radar today could be blowing up your phone tomorrow.

Stakeholder mapping? Not just another PowerPoint slide. It’s a living thing—you’ve got to update it as the winds shift.

When the Matrix Got Real

I lucked into helping prep a beast of a public sector project—way bigger than anything I’d tackled before. My earlier projects? They felt tiny by comparison (though, at the time, they sure didn’t).

This one came with more accountability, a bigger scope, and a mess of stakeholder politics. The hardest part? Figuring out the funder’s universe—development partner rules, endless paperwork, constant reviews, and more layers of governance than I could count.

The technical stuff mattered, sure—but people and politics mattered even more. The stakeholder matrix? It wasn’t a theory anymore. It was survival.

I had to map out who had influence, keep checking who cared, and make sure I was engaging the right people on purpose.

Biggest lesson: misread one person, and you’re back at square one—sometimes for months, or years. (Ask me how I know.)

The Most Common Project Mistakes

Most project mistakes come down to how you understand and work with people:

• Treating all stakeholders the same
• Over-engaging the enthusiastic while under-aligning the powerful
• Confusing interest with authority
• Waiting for escalation before engaging
• Failing to update the matrix as conditions shift

Most of us get taught that project management is all about schedules and budgets. But honestly, the real skill? Political literacy—figuring out who’s got the juice, who actually cares, and how to work with them.

In public sector work, technical chops are only half the battle. If you don’t have a plan for the people and politics, good luck.

The Real Risk

Here’s the thing: I’ve never seen a project fail because someone misplaced a doc. Projects go off the rails because:

• A high-influence stakeholder felt bypassed.
• A regulatory gatekeeper was consulted too late.
• A leader was surprised publicly.
• A high-interest group disengaged quietly.

You can patch up technical glitches. But break trust? Good luck putting that Humpty Dumpty back together.

Final Reflection

If you’re leading a reform, rolling out new technology, building infrastructure, or making a big policy change, ask yourself:

• Who must I manage closely?
• Who must I keep satisfied?
• Who must I keep informed?
• Who must I monitor?
• And which quadrant is about to change?

The best project leaders? They don’t just manage tasks—they wrangle people, politics, and influence.

And sometimes, that’s the difference between a project that ships—and one you’re stuck defending at every turn. (Learned that the hard way.)

—Direk Noreen (yes, this is from experience)

(The Influence–Interest Matrix here comes from Mendelow’s Power–Interest Grid, 1991, which is a classic in stakeholder management circles.)

The Silence After: On Grief and the Vacuum It Leaves Behind

A friend lost his wife recently. The other day has only been 40 days since her passing. Still, there are no correct words for moments like that. We reach for language—condolences, strength, prayers—but they feel insufficient, almost procedural. In truth, what we are trying to do is stand beside someone at the edge of something we cannot enter.

During the wake, I said what I could, which amounted to almost nothing. After the message was sent, I sat quietly. Grief, even when it is someone else’s, has a way of finding its own door. Suddenly, I was back in 2002—when my mother passed.

What I remember most is not the moment she died. It was what came after —the vacuum.

The Grief

We often think of grief as an event. A moment marked by tears, rituals, and the finality of loss. Grief is not a moment. It is a condition that settles in quietly, almost imperceptibly, and then refuses to leave.

The first days are full. There are people, arrangements, decisions to be made, groceries to be bought. There is structure in mourning—wakes, prayers, visits, conversations that repeat themselves because people do not know what else to say. In that fullness, there is a strange kind of support. You are carried, even if only temporarily, by the presence of others. Eventually, the noise recedes. People return to their lives—as they should. That is when grief begins its real work.

The Vacuum

The vacuum is not dramatic. It does not announce itself. It is the empty chair at the table; it is the smell of perfume on clothes left to be boxed and kept in a corner; it is the absence of a voice you are used to hearing at a particular time of day; it is the instinct to reach for the phone—and then remembering there is no one on the other end.

It is routine disrupted, structure dissolved, presence removed.

What disappears is not only the person. It is the architecture they held together in your life.  When that architecture collapses, even the smallest things feel unfamiliar.

In my case, losing my mother was not just losing a parent. It was losing a constant.

There are people in our lives who anchor us in ways we do not fully understand until they are gone. They are not always the loudest presence. Sometimes, they are simply there—steady, reliable, forming the background against which everything else happens.

When they leave, the world does not fall apart in obvious ways. It shifts. You are left trying to understand what exactly has changed.

The Pain

Grief is often described as pain. And it is. Pain suggests something sharp, something that peaks and then subsides. 

The vacuum is different. It is not sharp. It is hollow; it is nothingness, emptiness.

It lingers in the ordinary moments—when there is nothing to distract you, nothing to occupy your attention. It is in the spaces between activities, in the pauses of the day. It is when you realize that life continues exactly as before—but without someone who made that life what it was. That realization is difficult to explain to those who have not experienced it.

The World Continues

What makes grief more complex is that the world does not stop. Deadlines remain. Work continues. Responsibilities do not adjust themselves to loss. In many cases, you are expected—implicitly or explicitly—to return to normal.

And so you do. You show up. You function. You respond to emails. You attend meetings. You make decisions.

From the outside, it appears that life has resumed. But internally, something is still unsettled. There is a part of you that has not caught up with the rhythm of everything else.

Over time, the intensity changes. The sharpness of loss softens. The constant awareness fades into something less immediate. You begin to remember without the same weight. You learn to navigate the spaces that once felt empty.

The vacuum does not disappear completely. It becomes part of the landscape. You learn where it is, how to move around it, and how to live with it. Perhaps that is what we mean when we say we have “moved on.” It is not that the loss is gone but that we have found a way to continue despite it.

Recognizing

When I think of my friend now, I do not worry about what to say. There is very little that can be said. Grief does not need explanation. It does not require solutions. What it needs, more than anything, is recognition.

An understanding that what he is experiencing is not something to be resolved quickly or neatly. It is something to be lived through—day by day, moment by moment. That the vacuum he feels is not a sign of weakness. It is a reflection of what was once there.

If there is anything I have learned about loss, it is this:

We do not grieve because we are unable to move forward.
We grieve because something meaningful existed, something real, something that shaped us in ways we continue to carry.

Rearranging Our Lives

Death does not only take a life. It rearranges the lives of those left behind—quietly, permanently. In that rearrangement, we are asked to do something very difficult:

To continue living in a world that is no longer the same, while slowly learning how to make it whole again.

- Direk Noreen

P.S. This piece is for my mother—her life, and her death. And for my friend, who now walks this difficult path. I did not expect to write this today. But somewhere between memory and meaning, the words came.

As I write this, I realize—I am crying, not loudly, not in the way grief is often imagined but quietly, in the same way it returns.

Image Credit: This picture of my 18-year old mother on her birthday was part of the collection curated by my uncle, Nap Formaran.