Killing Eve... and handling Villanelle

 

How do you manage a project team member who is brilliant at their job but whose behaviour is, er, reckless? I give you Villanelle, the psychopathic elite assassin in the hit series Killing Eve…

Are you watching the second series of the BBC’s hit adaptation of Luke Jennings’ Codename Villanelle novellas this summer? The TV series, Killing Eve, follows the cat-and-mouse relationship between Eve Polastri, an MI5 officer, and a sartorially impeccable Russian assassin known by her code name, Villanelle.

The series is an international hit – just 12 hours after the screening of the first episode of the new series, a third outing was commissioned by BBC America. But if you’re looking for project management lessons, we think the real hero of the piece is Villanelle’s long-suffering handler, Konstantin Vasiliev.

Poor Konstantin. On the one hand, he’s responsible for making sure that dangerous and deadly missions are completed in the field as cleanly and effectively as possible. On the other, he’s a vital cog in a machine designed to kill people deemed inconvenient to his paymasters’ shadowy agenda. Yep, he’s the project manager.

His real burden is his project team or, more specifically, Villanelle herself: the brilliant operative who gives the project real spark, but whose wayward approach can be… a challenge.

So here’s Project’s guide to handling brilliant but wayward project team members courtesy of Konstantin Vasiliev.

Tip 1: See the ‘whole assassin’, er, ‘project team member’

We meet Villanelle cheekily tipping a bowl of ice cream into a child’s lap. You’d hope such sociopathic behaviour isn’t common on your team – but then, we’re sort of hoping none of you are running an assassination unit.

We’re often urged to help people bring their ‘whole selves’ to work. It’s a lot less stressful when you don’t feel the need to hide your sexuality or your background, say. And it’s also good for project managers to understand what their team is like when they’re off duty.

Tip 2: Help them see the things they can’t

Our introduction to project manager Konstantin is debriefing Villanelle after an elaborate murder in Tuscany. He tells her in no uncertain terms that signature moves are risky in a programme where anonymity is crucial. Sometimes your project team just can’t see the wood for the trees.

Of course, the trouble with high-flying types is that they can take your management advice a little too literally. Villanelle needs to knock off the hospitalised girlfriend of her Tuscany victim back in London. Even without her trademark hair clip, she achieves this project outcome with collateral damage to a nurse and two guards. Not good.

Tip 3: Show that you care

An odd moment in Killing Eve is the HR assessment that follows Villanelle’s murder spree in the hospital. Konstantin brings in Jerome to review her mental state – a test she fails. This shows our project manager taking clear responsibility for the team and asking the right risk-assessment questions.

But it’s also clear that Konstantin cares. Yes, the project work needs to be completed competently by people fit for the job. But it’s also right to look out for the mental and physical states of team members.

Tip 4: Admit it when you’re outclassed

There will always be people in the project unit who are better than you. Konstantin is running the project for his puppet-masters, but he’s not the elite assassin – Villanelle is sharper and faster. She steals the mission card from his pocket and conducts an assassination without his knowledge.

Most managers would hook their star performer off the programme. And Konstantin’s sponsors are having doubts. But the projects are still being completed. In real life, this kind of behaviour is often the trigger for an ethics review.

Tip 5: Look out for personal tensions and ‘history’

The next mission comes through – and ‘The Twelve’ bring some new team members into the project to keep an eye on things. Villanelle doesn’t take kindly to the ‘help’ on offer – especially when it turns out that she and her new team members have ‘history’. But that’s another great tip: you can’t always be in the room with your project team, so it pays to understand whether there are any touchy areas between them.

Tip 6: Don’t be afraid to muck in – or kill your projects

Villanelle is in a Russian prison to murder Nadia – what a mess. Does Konstantin distance himself? Not at all. The stakes are too high, he mucks in.

But his project star is now officially out of control – kidnapping his own daughter and clearly keen on killing him, too. He’s not just keen to cauterise this failing project; now he’s got ‘skin in the game’. Even if Villanelle doesn’t hair-clip him to death, his sponsors in The Twelve might well do away with him.

Sometimes, then, you need to work out an exit strategy. If the team is fatally flawed, the project is running off the rails or you lose the trust of your sponsors, you have to know when – and how – to tie things off.

Sadly, it doesn’t quite work out for Konstantin, but the best project leaders will always know when to kill off their project before it kills them.

Famous on-screen project mavericks

Villanelle isn’t the only maverick to derail projects in popular culture. And it’s not just villains. Sometimes the ‘good guys’ make troublesome project workers…

James Bond

Programme lead M always has his or her hands full with Bond. And imagine how the other projects feel when he uses up all the programme resources Q provides on his own tasks…

Frank Drebin

The Naked Gun’s wayward cop always seems to get things done. But if you’re after neatly tied-off dependencies and a stable business-as-usual case, forget it.

Dana Scully

Superficially the ‘sensible one’ on the X-Files team, she seems to end up getting sidetracked by her colleague’s more hare-brained approach to project deliverables.