"Good" Isn't Good Enough
From the Strategic Project Management Blog
by Ty Kiisel
I think it's safe to say that most organizations are looking for good employees. People who will show up on time, do reasonably well at their jobs and don't rock the boat. The same is true for project teams and even project managers. Unfortunately, I don't think being good is enough anymore.
Saying that, we need to realize that the reason most organizations are looking for good employees is because they are predictable and replaceable (although they might not realize that's what they're doing). What's more, being a good employee isn't really very good for your career.
With that in mind you should understand that exceptional employees, or irreplaceable employees, are considered risky by many organizations. They are more expensive than good employees and they are harder to replace (although nobody is impossible to replace).
Why do you want to be and hire the exceptional?
The environment we live in today is highly competitive. Truly great organizations understand that it is great people within their organizations that make them great. About a week ago we talked about how Talent Trumps a System, and how a smart system does not really make a mediocre team member smart—it just makes them easier to replace. However, there are organizations who understand this and leverage exceptional people to create exceptional companies. If you are lucky enough to work for one of those organizations, it won't take long before your efforts to become exceptional are recognized and opportunities to create more value will come your way.
As project leaders, it's important for us to recognize those people on our teams that are exceptional and provide opportunities for them as well. Frankly, I enjoy working with team members who have talents that I don't have and are adept at skills that I don't posses. My job is not to compete with them, but leverage their talents (as I expect mine to be leveraged) to accomplish things that are truly remarkable.
Over the last few days we've been talking about excellence and the small differences between good and great. Admittedly, being better than good, nay being great, takes extra effort and investment. However, for most truly exceptional people, the system has stacked the cards against them. I have to agree with the American sociologist and writer Paul Goodman, who said, "Few great men could pass Personnel."
Unfortunately, most companies and hiring managers rely too heavily on automated resume scrapers and degrees or credentials to determine if a candidate is "good enough" for an interview, missing many "exceptional" candidates to interview "good enough."
When project teams are increasingly asked to provide value, being exceptional and working with exceptional teams is critical. Part of our role as project leaders is to help build teams where "good" just isn't good enough.
What do you do to insure that you're project team is irreplaceable?
Posted on: March 10, 2011 04:24 PM |
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Comments (11)
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Wai Mun Koo
PMO Director| Intergraph PP&M
Singapore, Singapore
First of all, thanks for this great write up. It reminds me of the book 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins. However, it is not easy to manage a team of great people. First of all, the leader himself must be exceptionally great. Next, like you said, he needs to accept that there are people in the team who are better than him in certain areas and his job is not to compete with them, but leverage their talents. Unfortunately, many people fail to see these two points.
What would I do to insure that my project team is irreplaceable? Well, to achieve this, I must first be replaceable. My project team will only be exceptionally good and irreplaceable when the whole team is still able to function and perform well without ME. When the team is able to continuously delivering great results without me, then they have entered an autopilot mode, and of course, such a team is irreplaceable. Isn't it true?
Ty Kiisel
Manager Social Outreach| AtTask
Lehi, Ut, United States
Thanks for the comments. I'm glad you liked the post. I don't know that a project manager needs to become "replaceable" for the team to become "irreplaceable." Although I do think we need to be willing to step out of the way. I believe our job on such is team is to rather facilitate collaboration, help overcome roadblocks and encourage communication. I like to think of it in terms of the Chinese philosopher Lau Tsu who suggested that the best leader recognizes that when the work is done everyone says, "Look what we did by ourselves."
I don't think that's becoming "replaceable," although I really liked your sentiment. The team should not feel that they were "lead" or "managed."
I hope you'll keep reading.
Wai Mun Koo
PMO Director| Intergraph PP&M
Singapore, Singapore
Perhaps, let's look at this from the angle of a soccer team. Anyone who is familiar with this sport will agree that putting all the greatest players in a team will not make it a great team. It takes years to forge the bonding and chemistry among the team members. When the team is new, it depends highly on the coach's capability to lead the team to deliver good results. At this time, the coach is less 'replaceable'. However, as the team becomes more matured, perhaps after 1000 matches, the reliance on the coach's capability becomes lesser. When this happens, the team is at a state that it can work with any coach and yet able to continue to perform well - in other words, the coach is more 'replaceable'.
My point is, a project team can only be considered great or irreplaceable if it can work with any project manager (the project manager is replaceable) and yet able to deliver great results.
I enjoy this good discussion. Thanks.
Ty, I read recently that first rate managers hire first rate employees, and second rate managers hire third rate employees. With that in mind, I have to say I agree with Wai's idea that the leader then becomes replaceable. The better the individuals, and the better they work together, the less guidance and management they will need - or at least, to them it will feel like less guidance and management. This in turn gives the manager time to manage up and out instead of down.
Of course, the other side of the coin is that no one in business is truly irreplaceable: if they were, business would come to a halt every time someone went on holiday. There is a difference between irreplaceable and exceptional.
This is an interesting debate!
Ty Kiisel
Manager Social Outreach| AtTask
Lehi, Ut, United States
I think we are all basically saying the same thing. A project manager's desire to validate what he or she does or the value brought to the team is the sticky point. I'm convinced that a really good project leader isn't the star of the team, the star should be the team. A great leader is able to help motivate, inspire and facilitate collaboration without drawing a lot of attention to him or herself. Those who are able to successfully do that seem to empower team members to do more than they would be capable of doing themselves. Building empowered teams is sometimes challenging, but well worth the effort.
Wai Mun Koo
PMO Director| Intergraph PP&M
Singapore, Singapore
Agree with you Ty. However, like what you mentioned in the main paragraph, the life span of a project team is ephemeral and each comes with an expiry date printed on it. No matter how good the project team is, the whole team will be disbanded the moment the project comes to a closure. This is inevitable. Perhaps, the interesting thing for us to explore here would be how to retain the 'good knowledge' of this exceptional project team or how to retain the 'good people' within this team and transit them to an operational team after the project is completed.
Ty Kiisel
Manager Social Outreach| AtTask
Lehi, Ut, United States
I think you've hit the nail on the head. The challenge is to expand a positive team culture throughout the organization among all the teams. As you suggest, part of this is retaining "good knowledge," but I don't think that alone does the job. It's also critical to keep the right people, which you also suggest. In my opinion, project success is largely due to the people on the team. They understand the work best, are in the best position to positively impact success and are where the rubber hits the road. I think this is a fruitful discussion and appreciate everyone's participation.
Randa Speller
Marketing Specialist / Chair PM Community of Practice| Union Gas Limited; Enbridge
Chatham, Ontario, Canada
Great conversation! As a project manager, it's part of my job to find the exceptional within each of my project team members. Lighting that spark in each of them is a wonderful thing, and motivates the entire team. Sometimes this takes a while - new teams don't gel right away, especially if they haven't worked together on a project before. I know I'm successful when they really start to pull together and can envision life beyond the project lifespan (i.e., when they've got the deliverables in hand and are using them actively).
 | PeggySueM |
One of the things I do to ensure our project team is "irreplaceable" is to create cross-functional camaraderie. In my experience, when I am able to - for example - get IT and the Business Unit to a higher level of mutual understanding and respect, they begin to build a different type professional relationship. This relationship creates a rhythmic energy that builds project momentum, breeds higher quality results and often becomes a critical success factor for a complex project.
When that happens, the team becomes "irreplaceable" because to replace them, you not only have to replace individual skill sets and industry knowledge, but also the symbiotic professional relationships that have been built.
Often, one of the most remarkable halo effects of this type of team building is that a team member who was originally considered "good" often finds the support, encouragement and confidence to become "great". All for one...one for all...
cristian rosu
Global Business Manager| MAHLE GmbH
Regensburg, Germany
I like your comment, Peggy. Relationship management is one strength that the project manager should have. Encouraging the team members to adopt an emphatic behaviour on the top of their unique skills will not only add dotted resources to the project, but also increase the output by synergy. As regard to replaceability of the leader, yes, I agree, this should be another way to bring contribution to the organisation. If the leader has the capability of raising other leaders the power of the organisation increases. The leader makes him/her replaceble and available for the next position higher up.
Wai Mun Koo
PMO Director| Intergraph PP&M
Singapore, Singapore
Agree with Peggy's comment on relationship management part. Maintaining good relationship with business folks is key to successful project execution. As part of this, trust plays a crucial role in the whole picture. When there is trust, any big mistake will appear to be acceptable to the business folks and sponsors. On the contrary, if the trust is broken, any small issue will be perceived as catastrophe to many people.
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