The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

The Goldilocks 'Just Right' Style of Leadership webinar (take 2)

The other day I listened to the PMI Leadership in PM CoP webinar called Goldilocks 'Just Right' Style of Leadership. After promptly losing my review, here is take 2.  The speaker is the same “certified” practitioner of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and hypnotherapy as the last webinar I reviewed. Believe in those techniques if you want to.

The Goldilocks 'just right' style of leadership is just that; adjust you leadership to the situation.  Some of his points, packaged by me:

• Don’t be a shrinking violet.  Do let things go it is hurts the project.  Don’t promote harmony just to keep conflict to zero.  If there is conflict, attack it head on.
• Be demanding.  Clearly state what needs to be done and get agreement on who is delivering what part.  Hold people accountable for their deliverables.
• Don’t micromanage.  Team member can and should take most of the decisions needed to accomplish their tasks.  If you start micromanaging you end up taking ALL the decisions and you become the bottle neck.
• Allow mistakes to happen.  People who achieve goals also make mistakes; those who do nothing have a perfect track record (of nothing).  Mistakes are learning opportunities.

The webinar was very interesting on its discussion of toxic environments.  People interested more in information control and Cover Your Ass (CYA) than in delivering.  Rampant absenteeism, doing no more than the minimum expected, backstabbing, and behavior that equates agreeing to something with being defeated.  Recognizing and dealing with a toxic environment is one of talents of the leader.

Basically it was an entry level webinar into leadership.  Still worth listening to; you have to start somewhere and leadership is one of the weak points in project management

What do you think? As always questions and comments are welcome.

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The First Requirement for Becoming a Great Boss

Here is a great article from Harvard Business Review about becoming a great boss.  Applies to being a project manager too...

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Half ethical is like half pregnant.

OK, I must admit that this subject is not as sexy or controversial as Agile and that it may be anticlimactic for this 100^th post (I know, it is both a shameless plug and a quest for praise; please oblige…) but it goes to the heart of business and human relations.

Can you be half ethical?  How does half trustworthy sound to you?  I’m asking because over the last few days I’ve had to ponder this both at work and in conversations with friends.  Here are some of the issues that came to my attention:

• A project manager has been changing procurement rules after milking a solution provider for information over many iterations of a potential project that never quite starts.  These iterations took place over 3+ years.  It also appears that the project manager may have given part of previous bid packages to the provider’s competition.
• A program manager has been hiding key information from his project manager, his solution provider’s project manager, and his own stakeholders.  This information was critical to proposals and to the successful delivery of projects.  Expectations are now out of sync with what is actually feasible.
• A solution provider has been talking with its clients in a way that would suggest to that client that almost unlimited resources can be made available to his projects although this is far from the truth.

In none of these situations can the culprits say with a straight face that they have been 100% ethical and trustworthy.  All of these situations describe a damaged relationship that will probably never be mended.  What if all participants always behaved like they are in a relationship (for the long term) instead of executing a transaction (a one night stand)?  What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

So, I used the word Agile twice which should perk up my statistics.  All that is missing now is your praise; don’t make me wait too long…

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Be wise

Yesterday, on the train back home, I listened to this TED video with Barry Schwartz.

TED videos are good to amazing; actually I’ve found only one to date that I found boring.  Anyway, I think this video on being wise applies quite a bit to project management.  Listen to it and see if you concur.  Even if it starts with a mention of Obama, force yourself to listen to the whole thing.

I know this will read like a list of common sense items but here are my takeaways:

• Procedures and rules should guide people not rule them.  If you must stick to rules at all times, either you are in the wrong organization and should run away or you are the wrong person for the job because you are plain dumb.  In the same vein, a schedule is just a plan; if you expect to stick 100% to the schedule, expect to fail.
• As an incentive, money has a limited effect.  If money is a person’s only driving force, you may run out of driving force before you reach your goal.  That person should leave.  Given a choice, appealing to greed is likely to be the wrong one.
• Tell your team members what needs to be done, not how to get it done; they already know that.  Don’t micromanage, lead.  If you micromanage because you have to, you have the wrong people on your team; clean house.  If you micromanage because that is your way, you will fail because your team members will expect you to decide everything; you will run out of time.

Be wise.  Lead, mentor, let the main incentive you offer your team members be free agency.  They will trust you because you trust them.

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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How to make enemies

Every project manager has had situations where he was not feeling the love; for example team members that do not provide feedback on their tasks, people that “forget” to provide important information, or team members that are always late for meetings.  Derek Huether describes this last situation in this post.

I do agree with him until he states:

“So, how do you correct this negative behavior?  I like to zone in on something that makes the violator uncomfortable.  I’ve made them sing.  I’ve made them dance.  I’ve stopped the meeting when they’ve arrived late and then made them go from person to person on the team and say “I’m sorry for wasting your time”.  This may sound a little over-the-top but they slighted everyone on my team.  Everyone else was there on time; they should be as well.”

Taking this path is horrible.  Under no condition should a leader humiliate a team member; if you do this you are creating an enemy.  Projects have enough challenges without having to watch your back because a team member is now an enemy.

My suggestion is to take the person aside and discuss the matter.  If there is no legit reason for the person being late; for example they can’t make it at that time because of daycare hours which could be accommodated by changing meeting time, tell the person that the next time they are late they will hit a closed door.  Have this conversation only ONCE and then act as you said you would.  Never make a threat, make a promise.  Walking the walk creates trust.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Trust and doing the right thing

Trust and having a backbone are probably the two most important components of leadership.  This was illustrated plainly by the Obama – McChrystal incident that unfolded over the last couple of days.

For those of you that did not follow this on the news, General Stanley McChrystal and some of his staff publicly made disparaging remarks against President Obama and some of his staff and entourage.  The end result was that General McChrystal was removed from his command.

Do not confuse these events with politics; the issue here is loss of trust.  Students of history will know that this kind of situation has happened over the centuries both in the USA and in other democracies.  Typically the political leader of a democratic country is also the leader of the armed forces; this means that the President is the master of the General and that the General has to either follow his orders or resign.  Undermining his superior is not a option as it destroys trust for that superior all the way down the chain of command.  This most likely also undermines the person that questioned his superior, compounding the problem.

I’m certain General McChrystal understood that there could be only one outcome to the situation; his removal.  That’s why he offered to resign but he knew that the offer would be refused and that he would have to face the President because his dismissal could not be delegated to others.  The President had to show that he has a backbone and the General, being a leader, even if a mistaken one, had to show that he also has a backbone by facing the music.

How does this relate to project management?  Undermine your leader, betraying his trust and you can expect to have to fall on your sword.  That’s where the leader’s backbone becomes useful.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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The Idiot Switch

Recently I discussed the need for team members having crystal clear communications.  In some settings this can be hard to achieve.  Sometimes you could swear that someone is attempting to pull the wool over your eyes.  I call that flipping the Idiot Switch.

How do you know that someone is trying to flip your Idiot Switch?  Let me give you an example.  I consider myself a reasonably intelligent guy (not an idiot).  When I ask a question I assume that I will be able to understand the answer.  Once in a while, after asking a fairly simple question, I get an answer that would probably make a quantum physicist’s eyes glaze over.  I suddenly feel like an idiot; my Idiot Switch has been flipped.  If I move on, the Idiot Switch gets flipped back and I’m suddenly back to my normal self.  What happened?

I’d say that one of two explanations is possible:

• The person I was talking to knows his stuff but not well enough to give a plain language, clear answer. I typically state that I didn’t get the answer and ask again, asking for a plain language answer. If my initial assessment was right the person makes an effort and we get closure. The Idiot Switch was not actually used and we have a happy ending.

• The person I was talking to is actually intent on being evasive and is using the Idiot Switch to get me to go away. I will restate my question, again asking for a plain language answer which I will not get. The typical outcome is a loss of trust in that person which will mean increase oversight. Trust leads to increased autonomy, distrust leads to your friendly PM reverting to battery sergeant major mode. Fair enough deal, no?

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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