Celebrate Bad Management Day this Saturday (June 25th)!
From the Communication Excellence in Project Management Blog
by Bill Brantley
Although Project Managers spend 90% of their time communicating, communication in project management is the most underdeveloped skill for project managers. This blog will help Project Managers become better communicators and thus, better Project Managers.
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Celebrate Bad Management Day this Saturday (June 25th)!
Categories
cockpit resource management,
cognitive bias,
collaboration,
communication,
communication constitutes projects,
communicative constitution of organizations,
complexity leadership,
coordinated management of meaning,
emergent model,
emotional culture,
employee engagement,
failure,
growth mindset,
Leadership,
network health,
organizational agility,
organizational elasticity,
organizational health,
personal projects,
project management,
project management tools,
project managers,
project risk,
project success,
quality of communication experience,
storytelling,
surgical team communication,
task saturation,
transmission model,
understanding
Date
One-hundred and forty-one years ago, a charismatic but, vain leader made a bad decision that cost him his life and (almost) all the lives of the people who served under him. General Armstrong Custer decided to fight a force of 2,500+ Indian warriors with only 210 men under his command. John Hollon, well-known HR guru, has argued that we should memorialize June 25th as a cautionary warning of the perils of bad management.
What made Custer's decision so wrong? According to Hollon, five factors:
- Refusing to listen to others.
- Arrogance.
- Didn't focus on the goal.
- His opponent had a better strategy AND people that could be trusted to execute the strategy.
- Bad luck.
Personally, I am not sure that the fifth factor wasn't just a natural result of the first four factors. Even so, when I've seen projects go off track and even ultimately fail, I bet you could trace one or more reasons back to one or more these factors.
As a project manager, take time on Saturday to reflect on Custer's Last Stand and think of how you can prevent your current project from being your last stand.
Posted on: June 20, 2016 07:18 PM |
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Comments (7)
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Not sure about #2 Arrogance. My recollection from my readings is that he was Overconfident, in both his leadership abilities and in the capabilities of his troops.
Oh, and are we sure that one day out of 365 is sufficient to recognize Bad Management? It might just be me, but I think reality is such that we should have at least 3 days a year. And that's still less than 1 percent. ;-)
Thank you for the humor Bill.
I will be taking a moment or two on Saturday the 25th to reflect.
Excellent, very interesting and very helpful, thank you very much for sharing, success in 2019
Luis Branco
CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª
Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Interesting perspective on the topic
Thank you for sharing
Luis Branco
CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª
Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear Bill
Important point to remember: "The 5 important factors for making the right decisions"
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