about a tapestry fire

Bill Venners: In your book you tell a story about a tapestry fire.

Andy Hunt: That is a true story. A former accountant of mine in Connecticut lived in a very up-scale, wealthy section of town. This guy lived in a super mansion. He had a tapestry hanging on his wall a little too close to his fireplace, and one day it caught fire. The fire department rolled in. The fire was blazing. The house was about to go up in flames. But the fire department did not simply come charging in the front door. They opened the front door, and they rolled out a little carpet. Then they brought their filthy dirty hoses on their carpet and put the fire out. They rolled their carpet back up and said, thank you very much.

Even with the fire raging, the fire department took the care to put down the carpet and keep their hoses on it. They took extra special care not to mess up this guy's expensive mansion. It was a crisis, but they didn't panic. They maintained some level of cleanliness and orderliness while they took care of the problem. That's the kind of attitude you want to foster on a project, because crises do happen. Stuff bursts into flame and starts to burn up. You don't want to go running around crazy and causing more damage trying to fix it. Roll out the carpet. Do it right.