The PMO Attitude Litmus Test

I think I’ve mentioned a couple of times in this blog about the time that I interviewed with a fairly young, mid-sized company with an opening for the lead of their Project Management Office (PMO), and how that interview went. A quick recap: I was already in a great position, but agreed to the interview because a friend of mine from a previous gig had begun working for this company, and thought I would be able to fix many of the problems they were facing. The interview was scheduled for the evening, after normal business hours, and I walked into a conference room occupied by around six or seven managers and engineers, and the head of their Human Resources department. The managers and engineers had some really good questions for me, and I answered to the best of my ability, but towards the end of the session the HR director took over.
“Why do you want to work here?” she asked, rather sternly.
“I’m not sure that I do. What about this organization makes it attractive, would you say?” I answered. While the managers and engineers appeared to be mildly surprised by my answer, the HR director looked to be positively furious.
And so ended the interview.
This wasn’t the first time I had encountered this kind of vibe from an organization that was interviewing me for a job. One time – again, at the behest of a good friend who had gone to work for a new company, and wanted me to join him – I flew out to the east coast for a job interview that took place over a weekend. As with the previous example, the first couple of rounds were with technical and managerial staff, but the last interaction was with their Human Resources manager. The technical and managerial staff posed some challenging questions, and I did my best to answer, but it was kind of different with the HR director. She spent much of our time together discussing the advantages of living in the area of that company’s branch office, and wrapped up that part of the discussion by saying “And, if you drive just one hour that way, you’ll see an actual mountain!”
I smiled to myself, and she saw it.
“What, they have mountains in New Mexico?” she demanded, incredulously.
“Actually, my house sits one mile above sea level, and right out my back door is a mountain that stands another mile above sea level.”
I never heard from that company again, not even to say they had selected another candidate. I probably shouldn’t have copped an attitude. Then again, I’m not sure that I would want somebody who doesn’t know eighth grade U.S. geography being in a position to influence my career trajectory.
These two episodes (and several more besides) led me to the conclusion that organizations tend to view their existing employees (as well a prospective ones) in one of two ways. At one extreme is the notion that the employee/candidate is lucky to be working or considered for employment there, and at the other end of the scale, that the organization is lucky to have that employee/candidate as part of their team. Depending on where on this spectrum the organization in question lands, it can either drive or point to other characteristics of the current business culture.
The first such manifestation has to do with the encouragement or discouragement of innovation. In organizations where the zeitgeist is that of you’re-lucky-to-be-here, innovation is not just discouraged, I’ve actually seen it punished. Loyalty to the existing management structure is the coin of the realm here, and any challenge to their stated (or even unstated) technical agenda, no matter how insightful or sincerely brought, is typically seen as disloyal. Conversely, in organizations that view their employees as true assets, the tendency is to be more willing to listen to the outlandish, the fanciful, or even bordering on unbelievable, because often times the brilliant is hiding in there, somewhere, and those generating such ideas will only continue to do so if they are comfortable doing so.
Alert GTIM Nation members probably caught the reference to employees being a “true asset.” The whole our-employees-are-our-greatest-asset sub-narrative is so ubiquitously present in official mission statements and other corporate self-referencing documents that it may as well have its own keystroke on the public affairs team’s keyboards. But if the organization is of the mind that its employees are lucky to be there, then those same employees will recognize that any such assertion is patently false, no matter how often or forcefully repeated. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, as they say, and before you can say “our employees are our greatest asset,” nobody believes anything coming from these people’s mouths or keyboards. The free flow of information is the life blood of the organization, it’s been said, but now that life blood is tainted, and there’s no going back.
For these (and many other) reasons, any organization – PMOs included – that manifests an attitude towards its employees that they are lucky to be there, is likely to fail, sooner or later. If you happen to be in such a PMO, well, I’m sorry. If you direct such a PMO, check the beliefs that drive attitude. Before it’s too late.