Strategic Project Management

The headline reads: A Disengaged Generation: Young Workers Disengaged by Pressures of Work Worldwide. A pretty dramatic headline, isn't it. It's not mine, but I noticed it a couple of days ago on PR Newswire. According to a new study "...conducted among more than 30,000 employees in 29 countries by GfK Custom Research, a global market research agency, finds a labor market polarized between disillusioned 18 to 29 year-olds and their older, possibly more resigned, counterparts."

According to GfK, 5000 interviews conducted in the United States suggest that North American young adults are undergoing the same experience. "Although younger employees are more likely to be free from the biggest responsibilities at work," asserts GfK, "a larger percentage of them are 'frequently' or 'nearly always' concerned about their work-life balance, pressure to work long hours, and personal health."

There might be some who would look at this and say to themselves, "I could have told you the younger generation just doesn't want to work hard." But I think that would be an over-simplification and an inaccurate portrayal of the situation.

I think this study points to an elephant that's been in the room for a long time. However, this generation of workers wants to expose it and ultimately boot it out the door. "Internationally, two fifths of young workers (39 percent) are unhappy with their work-life balance—again the highest percentage of all age groups—while a third (32 percent) feel that work pressure and stress frequently impacts their health—five points more than those in the 50's, and ten points higher than those in their 60's." reports GfK. "In the US, two fifths of young workers (43 percent) are unhappy with their work-life balance, the highest percentage of all age groups, while nearly a third (31 percent) believe that work pressure is affecting their health, again more than any other age group."

Over the course of my career, I've observed that most employers want, expect and often demand that the workforce be willing to spend extra hours on the job. There are times when this is important to get a project finished or handle a crisis, but in light of the current economic situation with most organizations trying to do more with less, many project teams are finding it to be a weekly situation—and it's taking its toll.

In an environment where we need the workforce to be totally engaged and invested in what they're doing, the GfK study suggests, "Young workers around the world are lacking in engagement with their employers and are the most affected by perceived pressures at work, posing long-term retention and management problems for companies and countries..."

Dylan said, "The times, they are a-changing." I think that's true with the workforce today and as project leaders, we need to figure out the best way to work with a "new" workforce.

I believe that in many respects, the on-line shoe reseller Zappos is a great example. Their focus on keeping employees happy and content in their work has created an engaged workforce that is less concerned about how many hours they work be because they take personal ownership in what they're doing. Be aware, that I'm not suggesting that if you can encourage a happy project team you can summarily abuse them by working them into the ground. What I'm suggesting is that if the workforce is happy and is doing something they perceive to be worthwhile, they will get the job done—even if it means "happily" staying extra hours to make it happen when it's needed.

Let me suggest a few things to encourage a happier project team:

1. Encourage "honest" communication and feedback about time-lines and deliverables: Those closest to the work understand it the best. Facilitate an environment where team members have some control, or at least a voice, in their work. This encourages individual ownership of tasks and projects.
2. Democratize how work is distributed: I'm not advocating anarchy, but an environment where people are able to volunteer for the projects that interest them the most allows organizations to get people's best work. I've seen this approach work successfully.
3. Avoid a continual call for long days and long nights in the office: A side benefit of involving team members in the project plans is a better understanding of how to allocate your human resources (there's that resource word again). When people are allowed to make commitments rather than a top-down edict about deadlines, project leaders enjoy a better idea of time-lines and project status. Besides, excessive overtime is really an indication of a project that's in trouble.
4. Be aware: Spend some time with the project team. Pay attention to what's going on within the group. How are people interacting with each other. Watch for body language that might indicate a change in how someone is feeling. This might be a little touchie-feelie, but if you are aware of attitude shifts early, sometimes you can offer help to a troubled colleague.

Is there anything you would add to the list? I don't think this concern is going to go away anytime soon. Attitudes about work are changing and how we work with our younger colleagues will need to change too, or we will face "long-term retention and management problems" for the foreseeable future.

Several years ago I had a colleague declare to me, "I don't think it's important that you're happy at work. It's just a job anyway, why all the fuss to find happiness at work?"

He was a much younger colleague and was working in a field outside of his college education, so I guess he was trying to justify settling for his current job when he really wanted to be doing something else. I must disagree with him. Because I spend the lion's share of each day working, it's hard for me to imagine doing something that was unfulfilling or distasteful for the rest of my life. How about you?

In a recent article titled How to Build an Army of Happy, Busy Worker Bees from CNN Money and written by Linda Mignone, she writes, "Aside from it sounding sensible, recent studies have demonstrated that the happier a worker is, the more productive they will be on the job. While an employee may appear engaged in their work, they may not be as effective as they could be if they were happy."

I've observed this to be true during my career. She continues, "People who are happy at work put in far more effort, work longer hours, and are more productive than those who aren't. They remain at their jobs twice as long and they work 25% more time than an unhappy employee works."

I've really come to appreciate what appears to be the culture at Zappos. They seem to be honestly concerned about the work environment and whether or not their people are happy. According to Zappos founder Tony Heisch, happiness at work begins with giving employees a sense that they are part of something bigger and that they feel connected to the work they do. I couldn't agree more. I believe people have a fundamental desire to accomplish something meaningful.

Mignone suggests something I've been supporting for quite a while now, "Have the team establish their vision for getting to a solution, creating their own time-lines and benchmarks. It's important to provide guidance along the way and hold them accountable, but the goal is to give them autonomy."

Quoting Jessica Pryce-Jones, CEO of HR consulting firm iOpener, Mignone writes, "People want more sense of control. [When organizations put] in more controls, they get the opposite of what they want." She continues, "Pride, trust and recognition from the company are critical factors in happiness. Give the team the resources they need to get the job done and provide them with recognition that they are part of an important project even before they begin."

Mignone also suggest that we give the team visibility at the highest levels of the organization and give them opportunities to present ideas to senior staff—and let them know that they are responsible for those ideas. "When employees feel like they have some control over the work they are doing and when they feel like they're making progress, they are generally happier and more productive, and these feelings are often amplified when employees are part of a team." writes Mignone. "A team makes a bigger, bolder, richer sound, with more layers, like an orchestra. And the richest sounds come when the team feels they are part of something big; a big idea, a vision."

These are themes that I personally agree with. Unlike my discouraged colleague from a few years back, I believe it's not only important for us to be happy at work, it's critical that we create an environment within our project teams where individual contributors can feel like they are part of something important, gain recognition for their contribution and be happy.

What do you do to create a happy and productive environment within your project teams?
 

Over the weekend my sons, my daughter's boyfriend and I spent a few days in Southern Utah hiking and otherwise exploring. The weather was great, the hiking was fun and we discovered a number of things we had never seen or experienced before.

Among the things I discovered was the fact that I spend way too much time these days in front of my computer. I'm not as sure-footed hiking the friction-pitches on the "slick-rock" as I once was and although in the past I could often be found behind the boys as "sweeper" to keep everyone together, now I am at the end of the line because I am the slowest hiker.

Keeping the "team" together seemed to fall to my oldest son, who took responsibility for keeping the faster hikers from leaving Dad alone on the trail. As I was on the trail, I couldn't help but think of how this experience applies to well-functioning teams.

Regardless of the type of work we do, we often work with team members of various experience and skill levels. Here are a couple of observations and possible insight that resulted from my long weekend in the desert:

1. Technology can help keep the team together: Everyone in our group had a small walkie-talkie, so regardless of whether or not we were within speaking distance, we could still keep in touch. Project teams can leverage the same kind of technology to work together regardless of where they work in the world. The Internet has made it possible for project leaders in Europe to manage teams in China or South America, and executives in Cincinnati to have access to real project information to make informed decisions.
2. Because you don't always get to pick your team you need to make the most out of the team you've got: Most of the time project leaders don't get to pick their team—nor does the team get to pick their project leader. Building a good working relationship with everyone on the team is important. My daughter's boyfriend had never been on one of these trips with us before, but he did a great job of stepping out of his comfort zone to take his place on the "team." And my sons reached out to include him in our experience. If you didn't know that this was the case, you would have thought he had been with us dozens of times.
3. It's not fair to expect any team member to do all the heavy lifting: My oldest boy is a great dutch oven cook. Although he and I planned the menu and did the shopping together, he was going to be the primary cook. As easy as it would have been to snooze in the tent and wait for him to announce that breakfast was ready, every morning there was someone who (sometimes reluctantly) would climb out of the sleeping bag to help get breakfast ready for the others. The same was true at dinner (although we all let him clean his dutch ovens the way he preferred—at least that is my excuse). The same is true for project teams, the same team members shouldn't be expected to do all the heavy lifting for the team. We had fantastic food on the trip—made better by the fact that we pitched in to help.
4. Stronger and more capable team members should mentor and help less experienced team members: When my boys were young, I tried to make sure they had enough to drink on the trail, took appropriate breaks and were having a good time. It was amusing to see my boys do that for me. Because they were obviously stronger and faster hikers, they tried to make sure I was having a good time, keeping up and they even refrained from complaining about my slower pace. Often, how we treat less experienced members of the project team can positively or negatively impact how the perceive their role on the team. I will be forever grateful to the more senior people who took an interest in me during the early years of my career and taught me the things that didn't appear in an HR manual or training discussion.

Successful teams don't just happen. Neither do productive working relationships. As project leaders, it's important for us to remember that we need to build an environment where healthy collaboration and communication can thrive. We need to use the technology and interpersonal skills at our disposal to foster a good team environment—which is no less important than the project management software we use, the work management methodology we employ or the details of our project plan.

What do you do to foster a healthy team environment? I can recommend a great place out in the desert if you need some time to think about it.

 

Some time ago, I was talking to one of my friends trying to explain just what it was I did for a living, what project management was and why it's important to organizations to wrap their head around all the work that's done in their organization. I mentioned that I thought resource management was the Holy Grail of project management, to which he said, "Resource management? What's resource management?"

When I explained that resources were people, he pointed out something that I have felt for a long time, but have ignored because we all know what "resources" are.

He said, "So you call people resources? People aren't things."

He's right.

Steven Covey would argue that people can't be managed—only things can be managed. "The greatest tragedy of our time is that many so-called business leaders confuse management with leadership. Business schools have been excellent at equipping would-be business leaders to competently manage costs, cash flows, stocks, machinery, and so on. This is very correct. Things lend themselves to management because they can be controlled. 'Things' do not have choices. Extending the principles of managing costs, cash flows and stocks to people yields disastrous results. That's why many so-called business leaders resort to 'turning people into things' so they can manage them."

In project environments (or any work environment for that matter) we rely on people to do the work and get things done. Empowering people to maximize their contribution for something worthwhile, to create and invent, should be our goal. I know it's a subtlety, but shouldn't we stop calling them resources? They're people.

I have to admit, I don't have a better term. But that doesn't mean we can't collectively come up with one. Does it mean we will have to constantly explain what we mean? Probably. Will it ultimately be worth the cost in time and exasperation? Most definitely.

Let's put our collective heads together and come up with a new term for "resources" when we're talking about people. Any ideas?
 

The last week of April, I wrote about my department's recent Moving Day. We talked about all the different and unique personalities associated with a change and how they deal with it. Since that time, I've had some interesting additions to the list that I thought I would share here:

1. Political Paul: Paul only supports change that comes from himself or his team and slams on change from others. He sees it as an opportunity for him to sprinkle a few mischievous political stunts—Wai Mun Koo
2. Chelsea the Cheerleader: Happy on the outside; her job is to motivate the troops and get them excited about...whatever the change is. It doesn't matter whether she agrees with it, disagrees with it, etc. She'll keep the company line and be the "model" change agent so everyone knows this will be a good thing—slstein
3. Done-it-Before David: Doesn't necessarily disagree with the change. His response is: "Been there—done that and it didn't work, so don't bother." Whether the attempt was five months ago or five years ago, once an idea is set in motion and stalls (or fails), it can't be resurrected or implanted again (even if the organization itself has changed its goals, management culture, staff, etc.)—slstein
4. Won't Change William: Change will happen all around him, but he won't change his ways of doing things to keep up, regardless of how much training and coaching he has. Eventually, he'll get made redundant...—Elizabeth Harrin
5. Doomsday Gordon: Believes the location change is part of a bigger change, aka staff reorganization, about to happen in the organization. He perpetuates conspiracy theories and invites colleagues to share new ones to support his theory. Usually, we find him promoting some other doomsday scenario once the moving day has come and gone—Jiju Nair

I've seen all these folks too. Great additions to the list. Have we missed anything? Are there personalities you would like to add?