The Resonant Project Manager

 

YouTube:  The Resonant Project Manager

As project managers, we are taught to focus on scope, schedule, and budget.  However, studies have shown the main reasons for project failure is almost never purely technical. When we dig deeper into the common sources of project failure, we find it’s rarely a shortfall in technical expertise, but rather a shortcoming in the project leadership’s interpersonal, communication, and self-management behaviors.   

Leadership is the key to project success and the path to effective and sustainable leadership is through resonance. Resonance can be defined as the transfer of a positive emotional state from one person to another. Dissonance is the transference of a negative state.  Cognitive research has shown that positive emotions increase productivity and boast the immune system. It generates more creative thinking and improves performance.  

The attributes of a successful project manager consists of both hard skills and soft skills. The term “soft skills” is a holdover from the Tayloristic approach to management that has permeated organizations for close to one hundred years. In this model, only technical, easily measurable skills and IQ are valued, while technical skills and intellect are important, the research is conclusive: emotional intelligence competencies such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management are at the heart of leadership effectiveness— and business success. 

Hard skills are technical and specific abilities such as organizing and managing project staff, creating and maintaining the project budgets, developing work plans and schedules, defining project scope, tracking milestones and deliverable deadlines, addressing and handling project risks and issues. These types of skills can be taught and are easy to quantify. Soft skills are subjective and difficult to define. Soft skills are relationship based and focus on interactions with people such as conflict resolution, communication, listening, and motivating. As managers, we spend about 90 percent of our time on communication. 

Importance of Soft Skills
Soft skills can be directly related to leadership style and individuals often have a variation of leadership styles. While some leadership characteristics are natural, we can always fine tune them, learn, unlearn and relearn in other to achieve the project goal.