Voices on Project Management

By Yasmina Khelifi, PMP, PMI-PBA, PMI-ACP

A few weeks ago, I lost my voice entirely for two days. It finally came back, but I had to wait a few weeks for it to regain its strength.

It was an unpleasant experience on a personal level. I had to use an old slate, a pen, and an eraser to communicate with my family and other contacts. I became aware that my daily environment was not suitable for people who did not speak.

However, it was also an enlightening experience at the professional level. I had to take sick leave for two days because I was not able to work without a voice.

I wrote emails, messages and texts to move projects forward, but I missed being able to use the power of my voice. Electronic communication methods are not enough.

As a project leader, you need to connect, explain, help, negotiate, organize, collaborate and brainstorm. But you also need to listen. I also realized that I spoke too much during conference calls and sometimes had to repeat myself.

The voice translates our inner state, even if we are not conscious about it. We have all experienced team members saying, “I’m fine” with a big smile, but we felt it was not true.

I work most of the time with no videos, and thanks to the international background I work in, I have learned to listen to the hesitations, the “yes” that means “no,” the pauses that indicate a need for help. Smiles can also be “heard” through the phones even if there is no video.

Having a voice is also about learning how to use it. We are so familiar with the sound of our own voices that, for most people, it’s hard to listen to their own voice. But I encourage you to do it. When I began producing podcasts, I had to listen to each entire episode several times to edit it. I heard my voice, and I was surprised—I had spoken too fast, with too much energy, and sounded like I was giving orders. This also explained why, at the beginning of my career, a colleague (politely) told me, “Don't give me any orders.”

My next step is to take vocal training with a coach to learn more about it.

The voice is a fragile muscle: you need to respect it and protect it.

When you have a voice, activate it! Don't shut up, but listen.

How do you use your voice as a project leader?

By Yasmina Khelifi, PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI_PBA

You have probably worked with passionate project leaders who talk enthusiastically, smile or laugh loudly. Maybe their contagious energy inspired you. 

But perhaps, sometimes, it was too much—even counterproductive. 

As a project leader and a passionate person myself, I want to share some thoughts and advice.

Passion can help your team…and exhaust it at the same time.  As a passionate project leader, you remain motivated to find solutions, help people, and share knowledge. Your passion is also communicative and can inspire others and motivate them.

However, passion can become a double-edged sword for you—and your team. I have experienced this issue myself. I was in a hurry to onboard people, giving them loads of details, sending multiple documents, and repeating things by email. For some of the team members, it became stressful because I had forgotten that sometimes, people need space. Some people felt hurt because I insisted too much on helping them.

When I am passionate about a topic, I talk quicker, louder and with more energy. At times, I noticed a few colleagues physically moving back in face-to-face meetings. I wondered why, until I worked with a coach, and she told me: "It's great to have passion and energy, but it can exhaust some of your team members. You need to adapt your energy to the audience." 

It was a wake-up call. I learned to regulate my natural energy and pace of speech. Other project leaders I worked with were so passionate that they could not take a break or disconnect from work, which again was a burden for their teams. 

The worst thing was that they were so passionate that they expected others to be the same and follow their rhythm. “There’s a meeting during a bank holiday? No problem; I’m available.” And if others didn’t do so, they were judged less passionate and less dedicated.

According to research, passion influences your perception of yourself and others. It can make you overconfident in planning, budgeting, or in your own abilities. 

For example, I had to prepare a project presentation. I was very satisfied with it. But when I rehearsed in front of a friend, an expert in presentations, his feedback was different. And fortunately, thanks to his feedback, I improved it significantly. 

Passion can also affect how you perceive others: You may be overconfident in the skills of a colleague because you appreciate them so much.

We need passion in projects, but in a balanced way. Listen to feedback and observe nonverbal cues to adjust your passion for the team. Just because people outwardly express less passion than you doesn't mean they are less dedicated or motivated.

Gather feedback from trusted colleagues or friends regularly so you can maintain an honest view of the projects and abilities of yourself and your team without being blinded by the fire of passion.

What are your experiences with passion—for you and your team?

By Yasmina Khelifi, PMI-ACP, PMI-PBA, PMP

When you begin to work in project management, you have much to learn and need to build credibility and trust with stakeholders. You are alert to new things, new behaviors, and the need to continuously improve.

Yet you may become overconfident about your project management competencies as the years pass. You may develop comfortable routines. You may fall into what psychologists call functional fixedness, a cognitive bias that sometimes prevents you from thinking of novel or creative solutions to problems.

How can you get trapped in functional fixedness?
It may sound counterintuitive because we have more information at our disposal these days at work and on social media: reports, posts, or lessons learned from organizations or individuals.

When I studied at university, the information came from the internet, printed books, or professors. Nowadays, we have all the materials and content to learn new things. However, because we are overwhelmed, we narrow down the content based on our interests. And we may become entrenched in the same areas.

It is essential to remain open to other industries, knowledge, content, and people.

How do you escape functional fixedness?

• Seek reverse mentoring. Reverse mentoring (also known as upward mentoring) is a professional development practice where a less experienced or junior employee is a mentor to a more experienced or senior colleague. The goal is to tame your ego. You will gain new perspectives that will help you to interact with your younger team members. If you feel intimidated, you may begin with small steps: Ask the young intern to review your slide deck and ask you questions, or repeat your presentation in front of them.
• Listen to diverse voices. You may have a young intern or colleague close to retirement in your projects. Or perhaps you are a technical project leader who has to collaborate with the marketing department. All have valuable inputs to give you. All can help you discover new horizons. You may have former university friends who work in other industries; talk with them to understand their challenges and how they solve them.
• Take roles at work—or outside it—in different areas. You may not have a remarkably diverse workplace. Look for communities or activities you can get involved in to immerse yourself in a different environment. You can define what “different” means for you. Differences can embrace social, economic, or academic backgrounds, along with ages, countries, cultures, genders, etc.

On the contrary, you may be in a diverse workplace, but you don’t take the time to talk genuinely with your colleagues to learn more. Have one-on-one breaks with some of them to exchange information.

Regardless of your situation, once you experience a new situation (that you naturally find or intentionally look for), observe how you feel:

• What do you like about the situation?
• What do you find disturbing?
• What are you learning?

Making efforts to remain open will protect you from functional fixedness. What strategies do you use to embrace novelty?

By Yasmina Khelifi, PMI-ACP, PMI-PBA, PMP

The ability to maintain a learning mindset is a top hiring quality that can potentially be more important than experience. Despite that, no one explicitly explained to me how to do it. I’m curious and ask many questions, which has helped me gain new insights.

However, given the pace of change in the world, this is not enough. Based on my experiences, I’d like to share a three-step roadmap to make the motto “learn continuously” a reality.

1. List your obstacles

First of all, you have to acknowledge it is not so easy. You are bombarded with information from social media, with successes from former colleagues or university friends. We may be tempted to follow all the paths and then abruptly stop in the middle. You may also have work-mandatory training.

At the same time, you want to prepare yourself for the next role and take other training courses. How can you squeeze in learning now and tomorrow in between all your work and your personal life?

This is where you need to reframe your mindset.

2. Change your mindset

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Stop repeating, “I have to do A and B,” “ I don’t learn so much” or “ I’m lazy.”

Learning doesn’t only take place in formal classes—something I’ve only recently understood. Being aware of this will help you be more satisfied with the learning you pick up along the way.

Also accept that it’s okay to be less ambitious; it is better to learn a little daily rather than not at all.

Force yourself to learn things in completely different fields. For example, talk with a video expert if you work in compliance, or have lunch with a marketing colleague if you work in technical fields.

Last but not least, be open to changes along the way. You might need to learn a new tool or technology you were unaware of at work. Or you might become overwhelmed by work or personal issues that stop your plan—and that’s okay. If you accept these changes, you will not feel frustrated.

3. Sharpen your approach

Define clear objectives for what you want to learn (hard skills or power skills), and for when (short term, mid term, or long term). It will help you prioritize them.

Then you have to map how you would like to learn these skills—taking a training course, preparing for a certification, etc.

Engaging in communities within your industry to keep abreast of the latest trends and having conversations with experts is also important. You can also watch a webinar, listen to a podcast, or read a blog or a book.

The key is to not insist on doing all the different things at the same time.

Learning continuously is a lifelong project to develop yourself professionally and—more importantly—as a human being.

How do you learn continuously? Share your feedback below.

The business world is busy. It is busy with words: emails, messengers, phones and videos. It is busy where we work: open spaces, flex desks, public transportation and crowded cities. It is busy in matrix organizations: transversal meetings and redundant communications.

How can we translate this noise into building relationships with people?

Why we fear silence
Sometimes, we make an effort to speak uninterrupted so we don’t leave space for uncomfortable silence or questions, or because we are stressed. It is situational.

In other cases, this is part of our image of being a leader. You may have been influenced by former leaders you saw, or colleagues who you admired because of their energetic way of talking.

You may have deduced that this is a good way to be a leader and have tremendous executive presence—that taking up “speaking space” signifies power, of someone who has knowledge and wants to share and mentor.

There are also cultures (national, corporate, educational) where you are pushed to speak up, give your point of view, or express yourself. It is valued. It is a sign of engagement and interest. When people are silent in these cultures, they may be judged as less engaged and even less competent.

Some languages don't bear pauses and silence. Others need it. I became aware of that in an exciting way. I work with Spanish colleagues remotely, and we usually speak English. I am looking for the point when some Spanish colleagues talk in English; I feel like the sentences have no end (like in French). When we speak in Spanish, I don’t have this feeling at all.

Pauses and silence make you a better leader
You can improve your communication when you take care of pauses and silence—if you use them in the proper context.

In some languages (like Japanese), making small sounds when people talk is essential to confirm you are following the conversation. By mistake, I began to do the same in French and said "yes" regularly. The person thought I wanted to talk and, at a certain point, told me, “Can I speak, please?" These small sounds in French were interpreted as interruptions.

I have also worked with British colleagues a lot in the past by phone. When I finished a sentence, I wondered what happened: My colleagues waited a bit before talking. I thought there was a network issue. But when I paid more attention, I noticed how important it was to leave some seconds between the end of my sentence and the beginning of their sentences. It was a way to ensure I finished speaking, and not to interrupt or overlap.

This small break is also practical when you don't use video and don't see if the person wants to add something. It was a practice I didn’t have. I tended (and still tend) to speak right away after the end of a sentence. Now, I count five seconds before talking.

When you immediately jump to the next sentence, you look more aggressive and less respectful. But when you begin to pause and stop speaking, you leave more space for others—and you listen more to silence.

Learn to listen to pauses and silence in your teams
Silence can have different usages:

• It helps you and your teams digest information and think about what was said.
• It helps you and your teams prepare an answer, or answer in a quiet way, to hurtful comments or questions.
• It helps you and your teams to breathe and step back.

Silence can also have different meanings:

• It is a cultural way of communicating.
• It can express some disagreements people don’t dare say.
• It perhaps signifies a lack of interest in the topics.
• It may show a lack of understanding and/or a fear of asking questions.
• People do not have time, or do not prioritize your projects.

When you work remotely, you may send emails and don’t get any answers—despite the good relationships you have built. There might be simple reasons: people have personal issues; there are other problems in the organization (or the country); people have other priorities. That’s why it’s crucial to have different sources of knowledge—people who know the country.

How can you distinguish between these different meanings? You need to observe, listen properly, and learn to decipher pauses and silences. They are part of the rhythm of communication. Adapting to different rhythms can forge better relationships with your team members and create a more collaborative environment.

What are your experiences with pauses and silence while communicating in your teams