Obedience or Excellence?

 

The French moralist and writer Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues said, "Men despise great projects when they do not feel themselves capable of great success."

I've been thinking lately about the choices we make everyday between obedience and excellence, and wonder if it is a lack of faith in ourselves or is it a system that has very effectively taught us that obedience is of more value than excellence.

With that in mind, I believe the traditional methods for approaching the project management process contribute to the problem.Traditional management methods unfortunately, favor obedience over excellence. Whether it's a rigid obedience to a particular methodology or the demanded obedience of an intransigent command-and-control management style, excellence suffers.

As project leaders, we can foster a project environment where individual team members can strive for excellence, projects can be successful and results can be exceptional. With that in mind, let me suggest the following five traits that will foster an environment that encourages excellence over obedience:

1. A focus on collaboration: Engaging the team and stakeholders in problem-solving and decision-making is critical for encouraging excellence.
2. Adaptability: Project teams and individual projects are always different. Successful project environments encourage a flexible approach to creatively solve problems with a fluid leadership style.
3. "Figure-it-out" resourcefulness: This implies creativity and occasional out-of-the box thinking to solve problems along with a tenacious, never-give-up approach to overcoming obstacles. This is not an environment where "It's not my job," or "I give up," is acceptable.
4. Highly-developed communication skills: It's paramount that project leaders and individual team members are able to effectively communicate. An atmosphere of excellence requires that everyone on the team is able to customize their communication style to the appropriate audience—otherwise, success will be elusive.
5. Flexibility: Adapted from a line in "To a Mouse" by Robert Burns, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." It doesn't really matter how well something is planned, there is always something or someone trying to throw a monkey-wrench into the works. Flexibility is the genesis of creative thinking—which is critical for facilitating an environment where excellence can thrive.

I sometimes wonder how often we "settle" for being mediocre because of the perceived "roadblocks" to excellence. I think it's interesting that de Clapiers is also quoted as saying, "Great success is commoner than great abilities."

I think this implies that greatness is within our grasp. All we really need to do is create the type of environment where excellence trumps obedience.