Eye on the Workforce

In  the last post, your were asked to decide between two candidates in a situation where the role would need to exhibit risk-taking to be successful in the project.

Recent studies have shown that common rationales used to make these decisions are inaccurate. Worse, they may amount to stereotypes which will result in people being unfit for their project role.

Here is what we know from actual studies:

• Men do take more risks when it comes to finances.
• Women take more risks when it comes to social situations, such as speaking their mind about an unpopular issue in a meeting at work.

But a third and more powerful point related to risk-taking is that people are rarely consistent in life domains. Just because  someone speeds during their commute does not mean they tend to stick their neck out at work.

Just because someone is very cautious with their investments  does not mean they will be careful in the office.

Studies tell us that people take more risks when they are in situations where they are comfortable. That's how you find people more likely to take risks when you need them to. Find out if they are comfortable in those situations, if they have experience in similar situations.

For this reason, Qualified Candidate #1 is the best choice in the given situation. She will be more comfortable in the leader role because she has performed that role much longer - and more likely to be comfortable with taking the social risks necessary to be successful.

Did you select correctly? Have you had problems with selecting the wrong candidate in the past?

An ever-present problem for you as a project manager is being able to "read" candidates so that you can match  the right person to the available position(s). Some people are better at this naturally than others, but this difficult skill can be acquired over time. For example, consider yourself in the following situation.

You have just selected from a large pool two candidates who pass the knowledge requirements for a team leader position. This positioni s going to require  someone who is willing to take risks to  get the work done as necessary. Led by this leader, the team of analysts is going to have to get results without a well-defined process and little time to plan before starting work. Stakeholders will have to approve the team's approach and methods on the fly. If the team does not get results, your project is doomed early.
 

Qualified Candidate 1 

A mild-mannered woman - a former analyst for 5 years - who has led teams of mild-mannered analysts for about 5 years. During the casual conversation in the interview you learned that she is prudent with her personal spending .

Qualified Candidate 2

An enthusiastic project worker with leadership potential. He has been a successful analyst for over 10 years, although he has never led a team. The person who recommended him mentioned that he is on a competitive parachute  formation team.

Think about this for a couple of days and look for the next post with a full explanation.

You can find many posts in Eye on the Workforce describing the importance of having workers engaged. (A few are linked below.) Not in the betrothal sense, but in the sense they are both satisfied with their jobs and committed to doing what it takes for your project success.

Now comes a new study in Current Directions in Psychological Science, reported in kitchen English here, that adds new benefits to having engaged employees.

• Engaged workers are more likely to take the initiative to change their work environment.
• They are more likely to make adjustments so a job fits their talents and interests

Two major implications:

• Engagement takes hold more strongly the more demanding a job is and
• All of this is a positive feedback loop. More engagement leads to workers making changes on their own to create a work environment where they feel even more engaged.

According to the study, you can help stimulate this feedback loop. Make sure workers have the resources they need from the job.

• Feedback
• Opportunities for autonomy and growth
• Variety in activities

You can make this happen in your project by, for example, involving workers early to identify

• Potential problems in the project - risk items for you.
• Inadequacies in templates, process steps, guidance documents or any other inputs for their work.

This notion of stimulating employee engagement is critical for IT because IT employees are some of the least engaged of any workforce and it does not have to be that way. More to come on what was learned in this study.

More from Eye on the Workforce

http://www.gantthead.com/blog/Eye-on-the-Workforce/1151/
http://www.gantthead.com/blog/Eye-on-the-Workforce/355/
http://www.gantthead.com/blog/Eye-on-the-Workforce/391/

How do you motivate project workers to read and discuss project communications? It goes without saying that you want them to keep the conversation going, so you make sure dry messages are replaced by … what? Motivational statements? The latest news? Statements that instill fear in their hearts? Praise for previous work? Clarity about what is to come?

Consider those sections on news sites listing stories that are "most e-mailed." Have you ever thought much about what is behind that statistic? Jonah Berger did. He is an e-mail scientist. OK, an experimental psychologist  who has completed two studies about what gets people to forward messages - that is to share, to stimulate interaction on a topic.

The results of his studies matter to you because they have applicability in your project when it comes to promoting communication (and discussion) through a complex project organization. 

Berger showed that arousal promotes information sharing. People are highly aroused when they are anxious or amused. People have low arousal when they are sad or content. Berger even checked whether people aroused by jogging in place would be more likely to share e-mails. They were.

Here are some ideas how to arouse project workers to share information and discuss it . The communications can be through e-mail, project online discussions, organizational social networking sites, whatever way communication occurs in your project.

• Send surprise announcements (the good kind) with your message.
• Add humor to your messages. People share Dilbert  cartoons because Scott Adams seems to be hiding in their workplace. You know what your workforce is feeling, so you can write something appropriately funny about the situation. Worried about your humor skills? It doesn't have to be you doing the writing in these cases, you can tap someone who has more communications experience  to help. Even Scott Adams has fans sending him work situations that frustrate them.
• Build on any workforce anxiousness in your message. If the workforce is experiencing anxiety, perhaps of upcoming organizational changes or the impact of your project, don't avoid the subject or gloss over it. Use the source of anxiety as a topic of your communications to get people to interact with each other after your communications go out. You are with them, not against them.
• Ask provocative questions in your messages to stir emotions and get a response. You don't have to be a shock jock to hit a nerve to get people to respond. Merely challenge conventions or question whether obstacles are  as really as bad as they seem.
• Use a conference call to energize through amusement or anxiousness, then send a follow-up e-mail you want discussed.

It will be impractical to require workers to jog in place prior to reading your communications, but give it a shot and let us know what happens.

I'm  moving to Charlotte, NC and, to my surprise, into the middle of a tornado heading directly at the IT workforce . The outwards sign now is a corridor of server farms supporting cloud computing. Not that threatening.

In the past, we have seen IT replace many non-IT workers. Now the cloud is uprooting the IT workforce:. According to this article from Rethinking IT Infrastructure. "...those football field-sized data centers between Charlotte and Asheville may herald an era of increased competition for fewer traditional IT jobs." 

Here are some examples of the type changes to expect:

• Reduced Employment: "Workers who maintain IT infrastructure such as servers within a central data center"
• Increased Employment:  System architects, security experts or other types of computer cloud-related specialists
• Increased Projects and Higher Priorities: To transfer hardware, software, documents, etc. to the cloud

This situation reminds me of an article by Seth Godin back in 2000. He talked about how Walt Disney saw major social changes coming and adjusted so that his business capitalized on those changes - three times. His capitalization resulted in a theme park empire, a movie empire and then a television empire.

You must plan for these changes so that your career is not blown away by them. You must plan to capitalize on them. The changes will come. Businesses are already looking for advantages to the cloud - and finding them. Here is an example. IT organizations may not be the major driver here, having established there power and prestige in t previous years. Business leaders will drive the changes that will rip through IT organizations that are in denial.

Maybe the cloud is not  causing  changes as big as Walt Disney capitalized on, but there are certainly going to be some rifting opportunities for you.

• Identify where the growth is going to in your industry or area of expertise. Be prepared to make your move. What projects will be common? What skills and experience will you need manage those projects?  What do you need to do to get those skills ad experience? What companies do you need to work for? What companies and projects do you need to avoid?
• If you are not already in cloud computing, start building up your network.
• Determine how else can you grow your career given the changes that you foresee. Start your own rifting!