Returning To Your PM Roots

 

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

― Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time

I am going to be so bold as to attempt to convert the above quote from Eric Hoffer to something more applicable to the Management Sciences in general, and PM in particular. I think Hoffer brilliantly laid out the typical life cycle of how ideas gain wide acceptance, are then monetized as they are advanced, and ultimately end up within the domain of an organization that has lost sight of its original underlying vision, and instead directs its energies only to keeping itself in existence. This nominal life cycle structure is rather similar to those laid out by some of the giants of Management Science literature, who have theorized that, absent some form of re-invention of itself, corporations will also tend to follow the template of (1) the invention or discovery of a new technology, business model, manufacturing technique, et.al., (2) the monetization of #1, (3) attempts to overcome competition within a given market, (4) a steady decline in said market share,  until a competitor or newcomer enters Step 1, and either acquires the organization, or drives it out of business.

Next, I want to shine a light on Hatfield’s Incontrovertible Rule of Management #7, that Project, Asset, and Strategic Management are different by type, with different goals, different techniques to achieve those goals, and different Management Information Systems used to execute those techniques. I’m struck by how neatly Rule #7 aligns with Hoffer’s three brackets, so:

• Project Management is all about pursuing Scope, right? Well, what is Scope? Is it not the articulation of a goal, an objective, an idea, or, dare I say, a movement?
• Asset Management’s prime axiom, oft criticized in this blog, is that the point of all management is to maximize shareholder wealth. In my opinion, this is simply an exaggeratedly blinkered way of saying that everything must be monetized, to its maximize capacity, and that this monetization is the primal essence and end-goal of all of the management sciences.
• By the time we’re approaching “racket” status, the organization would have had to have attained significant market share—otherwise, customers wouldn’t stand for a deterioration of the quality, affordability, or availability of its goods and services, and the organization would quickly cease to exist.

Put graphically, this alignment would look like this:

I believe that there’s an organizational behavior and performance component to this, and to illustrate it I want to invoke the Maccoby Archetypes (Craftsman, Company Man, Jungle Fighter, and Gamesman). I think that, if one were to want to measure a given organization’s pace of moving from great cause/movement to business to racket, an excellent way would be to note the number of employees that fall within the Maccoby Archetypes. In the Great Cause/Movement phase, it’s clear that the risk-taking Gamesmen, teamed with the Craftsmen, would be the prime archetypes to advance these ideas. As these ideas become monetized, the organization will likely become less attractive to the Gamesmen, but more attractive to Company Men, who derive their personas from the corporate culture around them. Finally, as the business degenerates into a racket, the Craftsmen will find it more and more unpalatable, but it will become like a magnet to the Jungle Fighters. Put graphically, this alignment would look like this:

Now, not to come across as a total fanboy for PM, but remember the previous reference to organizations following this cycle, absent some form of re-invention of itself? When organizations form and maintain a Project Management Office (PMO), I think this represents an effort to slow or even reverse movement along this structure, as the organization’s energies are re-directed towards its original Great Cause/Movement/ pursuit of Scope. When this happens, I believe that the organization becomes more attractive to Gamesmen and Craftsmen, fueling a sort of symbiotic return of the organization to its original purpose, or cause. I’m reminded of perhaps the ultimate Gamesman, Steve Jobs, whose return to Apple in 1997 was largely seen as the reason Apple returned to prominence after being on the brink of bankruptcy.

So, yeah, the Asset Managers want to monetize everything (I intend to hang that whole “maximize shareholder wealth” stuff on them like a Coleridgean albatross), and the Strategic Managers are looking to maximize market share, and they certainly have their places in the boardroom. You want to return the organization to its original vision?

You’re talking Project Management.