Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Reading People
People don't always do what they say or say what they mean, which is why a knowledge of body language is an important skill for project managers. If you know how to read your team members, you can grasp their needs, have true dialogues and run better meetings. What's more, you can pay attention to your own body language to be sure you're not sending the wrong signals.
There’s an old adage: Law school is not lawyers’ school. Otherwise put, it teaches you very little about the real-world practice of law. What it does, as you’ll learn if you ask any lawyer, is teach you a good deal about the theory of law and how to think logically. But you won’t find a course on dealing with clients, and you won’t be taught the finer points of cross-examination. Lawyers have to learn those tricks by doing them.
Luckily, training for project managers is a bit more pragmatic. You’ll learn how to manage risks and write a statement of scope, how to set goals and hit them. But you won’t learn all the skills you’ll need to be a fine project manager, like how to read people, how to speak well, and how to conduct a post mortem.
This article, excerpted from the book Herding Chickens: Innovative Techniques for Project Management (Sybex, 2004), is the first in a new series from Projects@Work that will explore novel ways to approach the management of projects and offer "tips not typically taught" in …
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