Strategic Project Management

Shakespeare said, "Talkers are not good doers."

Early this morning I found the OpenView Labs newsletter in my in-box. Among a number of pretty interesting articles, I noticed one written by George Roberts titled As a CEO, How You Do Anything Means Everything. I'm a firm believer that any kind of leader should not only "Talk the Talk," but should also "Walk the Walk," so this caught my eye. Although Roberts is talking about CEOs, I believe what he's describing and suggesting is something we should be implementing too.

Quoting a recent interview on BusinessWeek's website, Roberts, a former member of the executive management team at Oracle, writes, "In the article [Why How We Do Anything Means Everything in Business (and in life)] Sideman says that a great leader is a model of behavior. They self-govern by a set of principles and inspire others to do the same thing. They embrace the conditions of the new world and turn it to their advantage."

In a nutshell, the common things shared by highly successful executives included:

1. It is not what you say, but how you say it
2. It is not what you do, but how you do it
3. Lead by example
4. Treat people the way you want to be treated

"Sure," says Roberts, "they're simple concepts and we've all probably heard them before. But they also collectively point to the fact that employees watch how company leadership behaves and take cues from their executive's behavior."

I couldn't agree more. I'm sure we've all had bosses that were really good at this and some that were really bad. What's more, I think this also applies to how we lead project teams. With that in mind, let me ask, what type of project leader are you?

Citing an article in the Harvard Business Review, Are You a Good Boss or a Great One? by Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback, Robert writes, "...most managers, at some point, fail to continue working on themselves. As a result, as their professional development stagnates, so too will the development of their employees." He suggests that we ask ourselves the following questions:

1. Do you understand what's required to become truly effective?
2. Do you understand what you're trying to attain?

"As you begin to better understand how well you're doing in each of those categories [including: Managing Yourself, Managing Your Network and Managing Your Team]," writes Roberts, "it's important to discuss what you can do right now to perform better and then get into a daily rhythm to maintain that performance. That rhythm includes: Prep, Do, and Review."

I don't think it really matters what type of group or objective you lead—or even what type of leader you are—there is always room for improvement. Learning and skills development should be a life-long objective. I've always believed you should be in the middle of a book, taking classes or attending seminars on a regular basis. But I don't think that's enough. I also think it's important to do some regular (and honest) introspection to evaluate how we're doing in the real world of leading teams and managing projects.

As Roberts suggests, "...you're setting the example for the rest of the [team] to follow. How you do everything will mean everything to your [team]." I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

In the 1989 movie Batman, before the Joker is about to gas everyone in Gotham, he says, "And now folks, it's time for 'Who do you trust!" Hubba, hubba, hubba! Money, money, money! Who do you trust? Me? I'm giving away free money. And where is Batman? HE'S AT HOME WASHING HIS TIGHTS!"

A week or so ago I finished the book, The Truth About Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know, by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. According to Kouzes and Posner, trustworthiness and credibility are foundational to leadership.

With that in mind, I found it interesting that they cite a 2009 international study originally posted on the Harvard Business Review in an article titled Managing Talent in Troubled Times, and suggest that "...the majority of people said they trust a stranger more than they trust their boss."

If this is the case, is it any wonder why project teams are so reluctant to provide visibility into what they're doing? If you were afraid that transparency would be used as a club, would you willingly provide it to your boss? Basically, according to Posner and Kouzes, "...if people don't trust you, they won't believe what you say."

They further suggest that high-trust organizations tend to outperform low-trust organizations by 286 percent. Now that's a pretty impressive figure in my estimation. "A Pricewaterhouse-Coopers study of corporate innovation among the Financial Times 100 showed that the number one differentiating factor between the top innovators and the bottom innovators was trust. That means if people don't trust you, your organization is likely to under-perform and be slow to innovate," suggest the authors.

"The truth is that trust rules," they write. "Trust rules your personal credibility. Trust rules your ability to get things done. Trust rules your teams cohesiveness. Trust rules your organization's innovativeness and performance. Trust rules your brand image. Trust rules just about everything you do."

If, and I believe this to be true, trust is such an important leadership trait, how does a project leader develop a relationship of trust? Kouzes and Posner suggest the following four behaviors:

1. Behave predictably and consistently: "When you are reliable and others know they can count on you, then your words and actions will have greater power to influence them," they suggest. When they suggest that confusing, indecisive or inconsistent behavior makes it difficult to trust someone, I have to agree. Those people who I trust the most tend to react consistently, regardless of who they are with or what they are doing. The authors suggest, "Consistency means that the same personal values and organizational aims will influence what you say and do."
2. Communicate clearly: "When you are clear about what you mean, then there is less chance that others will find your statements misleading," they suggest. I wouldn't suggest that every conversation needs to be guarded, but we do need to be aware of anything we say that could be interpreted as a promise. For example, "We might be able to pay out a bonus if this project comes in on time," could easily be misinterpreted. To be trusted, we can't be cavalier with what we say or how we communicate.
3. Treat promises seriously: According to Kouzes and Posner, "The more seriously you treat your own commitments, the more seriously others will treat them." This is particularly true in organizations that empower team members to make their own commitments about their work rather than push down assignments. The same is true about making promises out of hand. Casually-made promises are often difficult to keep, and in the long run are better left unsaid.
4. Be forthright and candid: "Discovering that someone has been dishonest casts doubt over everything he says and does," they write. If you never want to be caught in a lie, the best way to avoid it is to make being forthright and candid your mantra. Regardless of how clever you may believe you are, it's difficult to keep a like hidden forever. Mark Twain said, "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

I agree that the key to any relationship, including a working relationship, is trust. As project leaders, our teams need to trust that what we say can be trusted. They need to trust that visibility into our projects will be used to make decisions and not as a club to pummel us into submission. They need to trust that we will walk the walk, or put our money where our mouth is. The best way for us to create an atmosphere of trust on the team is to step up ourselves before we ask or expect others to do so.

What are you doing to engender an atmosphere of trust on your project teams?

 

I had the opportunity this week to visit the Palmetto Chapter of the PMI and speak at their eleventh annual symposium in Greenville. It was great to meet so many dedicated and passionate project managers (it didn't hurt that the weather was beautiful and I was able to escape the spring snow storm that was approaching Utah as our plane took off).

I really love events like this. In my opinion, these types of collaboration and learning activities are where a lot of real learning can take place. There are some things that are best learned in a collaborative learning environment (like a symposium or convention) where we can talk about common experiences, share best practices and lessons learned, and maybe even discuss things we need to work on to improve our profession.

I can't thank the folks in Greenville enough for the friendly and accommodating atmosphere their PMI chapter showed us while we were there. It was great to be among you for the day, learn from you, and experience your warmth and hospitality.

As special thanks to Maritza Guerra from BASF for graciously consenting to participate in my presentation and Courtney Byington, the chapter president, for inviting us to be part of the symposium this year. In addition to great speakers and a wonderful venue, she introduced us to a wonderful sushi restaurant. If you're ever in Greenville, be sure to check out Irashiai—you won't be disappointed (I particularly enjoyed the jumping shrimp).
 

Have you ever heard the phrase, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"?

Albert Einstein said, "Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them." As more and more organizations turn to project management best practices to increase efficiency and productivity in the workplace, I think it's important that we consider Einstein's advice in regard to how we approach the challenges of project-based work.

That being said, I acknowledge that projects are inherently risky and messy things (otherwise they wouldn't be projects in the first place), and many corporations' risk aversion actually hampers the ability to execute on meaningful and potentially profitable projects. However, we can (and should) take steps to anticipate challenges to prevent as many as is humanly possible and what's more, an often overlooked project management best practice is an invaluable tool to facilitate the "ounce of prevention."

Learning from past experience is an incredibly important tool in project environments that are constantly changing. In my opinion, in order to successfully learn from experience, we need to take a regular and consistent approach that can be incorporated into any work management methodology. Here are a few suggestions to help any project team learn from experience:

1. Establish a venue for sharing lessons learned: It doesn't matter whether you call it a post-mortem, a project review or a project retrospective, most organizations don't do them—but they should. It's a real shame that many project teams move from one project to another without even taking a breath; let alone taking the opportunity to capture lessons learned from the last project.
2. Share what has been learned: Although many organizations don't take the time to do any kind of project retrospective, very few of those that do share what they've learned. If lessons learned are captured and then tucked away in a file somewhere, the exercise doesn't do any good. Not only your own team, but other teams within the organization can benefit from a culture that freely shares lessons learned upon the completion of a project.
3. Learning doesn't work as a "corporate" initiative: It's natural for organizations to try to formalize the learning process into a forced and contrived corporate project. Although a natural learning environment should be encouraged, "corporate" is all too often the same as "bureaucratic," which employees are more likely to avoid.
4. Don't make learning a one-time activity: Project learning should be ongoing and interactive. Don't let it become an isolated activity that happens rarely.

No two organizations are exactly the same. For that matter, no two projects are exactly the same either. Regardless of your project management methodology, it's important to create a culture and environment where project learning can take place. What does your company do to capture best practices and learn from experience?

Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States said, "Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort."

I couldn't agree more. Regardless of the type of work we do, working on a project team and solving problems is a "creative effort" and if everyone could be "artists," organizationally we would accomplish more, produce greater value and work with happy colleagues who would be excited about what they did and motivated to contribute.

What do I mean when I suggest that everyone should be an artist?

Seth Godin, in his book Linchpin, suggests, "You must become indispensable to thrive in the new economy. The best ways to do that are to be remarkable, insightful, an artist, someone bearing gifts. To lead. The worst way is to conform and become a cog in a giant system."

Although empowering everyone on a project team to become an artist (or to lead), may sound counter-intuitive, it's really the way to make the entire team indispensable, and consistently successful. Hopefully, the members of a project team are there because they bring needed and important skills to the endeavor—and a command-and-control approach minimizes the contribution of any particular team member and hampers success.

When I suggest that everyone on the team should be a leader, Godin asks (and answers) the question of what that really means:

"What does it take to lead?" asks Godin. "The key distinction is the ability to forge your own path, to discover a route from one place to another that hasn't been paved, measured, and quantified. So many times we want someone to tell us exactly what to do, and so many times that's exactly the wrong approach."

The world has changed, and the way we lead teams (and organizations for that matter) also needs to change. The days of command-and-control leadership approaches have gone the way of the dodo. Roosevelt also said, "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are" I think that applies to how we approach projects and lead teams.

"The truth is found when men are free to pursue it," said Roosevelt. When everyone on a project team is empowered to be an artist, organizations will truly be able to accomplish great things.