Voices on Project Management

By Jen L. Skrabak, PfMP, PMP

“It is not the strongest that survive, but those most adaptable to change.” —Charles Darwin

It seemed as if everything changed overnight when the news of the COVID-19 pandemic broke. In California, where I am located, we went from the hustle and bustle of going to work every day and an abundance of options in travel, restaurants, entertainment and events to self-isolation, mandatory family time and the shuttering of many businesses.

We adapted quickly to schools and workplaces being closed. And most project managers, who are fortunate to fit into the small percentage of the workforce able to work remotely, are working from home.

So, what can we learn from all this change? It’s important to reflect on the leadership lessons that will carry us through this crisis—and beyond:

1. Welcome change.

I think the area that reflects the greatest change to everyday life is the grocery store. As essential businesses, grocery retailers were forced to change their business model and how they operate while staying open and serving customers. Each day, stores implemented new procedures to adapt to rapidly shifting federal, state and local requirements.

I was at a grocery store recently and noticed how, in a span of days, the business had changed its hours, hired thousands of new workers to stock shelves, implemented hourly cleaning procedures, installed new systems for checkout, managed a surge in online orders and even adjusted how groceries were bagged. California typically charges a fee for plastic bags to encourage shoppers to bring their own. That’s changed. Many stores no longer want you to bring your own bags, and now they are giving away bags for free. During a recent visit to my local grocer, the cashier told me they were running out of bags, and I said I could just take the larger items without having them bagged. I commented on the shifting dynamic I witnessed. 

The cashier replied: “It will change again.”

It’s a great sentiment and true demonstration of leadership from someone who is experiencing a great amount of change every day at work. It’s not just the changes that are forced upon us, but more importantly, how we adapt to those changes with agility. It starts with us.

2. Master agility.

When this crisis is over (and it will be), take the time to understand what distinct behaviors work well rather than just going back to the way things were. I have found that turning on the video in conference calls is a more effective way to engage with teams vs. just having audio. In fact, research shows that 80 percent of people on audio-only conference calls are multi-tasking. And people rely on body language to help understand the message. The most important takeaway is to approach new things with curiosity and a desire to learn. Don’t just return to your comfort zone.

3. Work with what you’ve got. 

It seems that every day, we hear new information that conflicts with the old information. First, the experts told us not to wear masks. Or that only N95 masks are effective. Then, we were told to wear masks when we went outside and that any cloth or scarf would be fine.

When dealing with complex issues, there is a constant stream of new information that we must digest and react to. The ability to keep working well and moving forward, despite the ambiguity, means that we don’t wait for the perfect information in order to start developing and executing plans.

4. Embrace the now.

If you took it for granted that you could get a haircut, go to that restaurant you’ve always wanted to try or travel to a dream destination anytime, we now know that things can change in an instant. Procrastination may result in objectives not getting met at all or a delay that may last months or years.

The lesson here is to prioritize what’s important—and do it now. Good time management practices show that handling something (like an email) once and making a decision on it right away is more effective than putting it aside or making a task list to deal with it later.

5. Be thankful.

While this is a stressful and difficult time, there’s also a lot to be grateful for, such as more time with family, no commute, less pollution and a focus on simplicity. Take a moment at the start of each day to remind yourself of three things that you’re thankful for—and why they are really important to you. It will make you happier and more focused for the day ahead. 

What leadership lessons has the pandemic taught you? Sound off in the comments below.

By Ramiro Rodrigues

Conflict is inherent to human nature—and that’s a good thing! Conflicts are the fuel that boosts our capacity to think, question and communicate. That said, it is worthwhile to analyze the way conflicts may influence the corporate environment and, more specifically, our projects.

Every project exists to change something, whether it’s creating, improving or replacing. No organization invests its resources into keeping everything as it currently is. But human nature tends to resist change, whether out of fear or out of a desire to preserve comfort.

If every project introduces change, and every change generates resistance, then we can conclude that every project is an instigator of resistance.

How to Manage Conflict

Conflicts typically don’t emerge in the beginning and planning phases of a project. During these phases, the environment in which the project is immersed remains constant. Normally, it is during the execution phase that the team starts to bring to the table the requirements and characteristics expected by the sponsor. During this time, the project leader must stay on the lookout for all potential conflicts that may arise.

Of course, one can’t expect the serenity of a Buddhist monk from this profession. Some of the key emotional intelligence principles, such as resilience and assertiveness in decision-making, are hard to find in a world that is growing increasingly competitive and fast-paced. But this shouldn’t be used as an excuse for negligence when faced with conflicts. The project leader must be skilled in understanding the implications and intensity of conflicts, in order to find the most applicable strategy for bringing about resolution.

Conflict resolution strategies incorporate negotiation techniques that have been thoroughly studied by sales professionals who seek to overcome resistance in favor of their goals.

Stephen P. Robbins, in his book Organizational Behavior, defined the five stages of the conflict process. During the third stage, “Intentions,” Robbins provides five strategies that deserve attention from everyone who needs to handle the clashes that may come up in their projects:

1. Competing: to convince another party of a specific position, regardless of the potential impact it may have on those involved.
2. Collaborating: to seek a result that is beneficial to every party involved.
3. Compromising: to have the parties involved partially let go of their original positions in favor of a common result.
4. Avoiding (non-confrontation): to avoid involvement with the conflict, eventually coming to the point of even denying its existence.
5. Accommodating: to bring peace to the conflict by letting go of a position.

Each unique situation deserves a specific strategy aimed at making the most of the opportunity and enabling your project to progress successfully with low stress levels for everyone involved.

It is indeed possible to extract great results from conflicts. If two heads are better than one, it is understandable that different thoughts may complement one another. Conflicts are opportunities to align messages and to clarify every aspect for the smooth progression of the project, avoiding the development of clashes or confrontations.

I wish you happy conflicts and great projects!

How have conflicts led to better outcomes for your projects?

By Dave Wakeman

I’m still on lockdown here in Washington, D.C., until at least May 15. That gives me a lot of time to poorly teach 4th grade and to think about life, business and what comes next. It also gives me plenty of time to watch the news—and I have been fighting that desire, because it is frustrating to see far too many displays of poor leadership when strong leadership is so needed. 

But to bring it back to the positive, we can also see with great clarity how important good, not even great, leadership is. Here are a few principles that have been reinforced to me during this time of uncertainty: 

1. Leadership is about vision: Next to my desk I keep a shadowbox with a profile of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in it. I keep it there because of FDR’s famous quote, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” To me, it’s a constant reminder that we must have courage. 

Courage requires vision—vision of a better future and a better outcome for our project teams. As we come out of this crisis, we need to be ready to provide a vision for our teams of how we are going to grow out of this experience, what we are going to do to overcome obstacles and what future growth and opportunity we can expect. 

In too many places right now, we don’t see that. And the lack of a clear vision for the future and how we’ll come out of this pandemic is causing us more damage than necessary. That’s because business, society and life are all built on a foundation of confidence. When you don’t have the confidence that things will be okay or have direction, it becomes easy to grow demoralized. 

2. Leaders don’t micromanage: I’m only as successful as I am because I let folks do their jobs. 

I’d also tell you with complete sincerity that I only seem anywhere near as smart as you might think I am because of all the people who are willing to share their ideas, experiences and perspectives with me. 

That’s a long-winded way of me telling you: You can’t be an expert in everything. As a leader, you have to recognize your role in the project and let the experts do their jobs. That’s what they are there for. 

No one is an expert in everything, and anyone who is claiming they are is trying to fool you. This crisis should lay open the idea that not one of us, as an individual, can successfully execute all areas of a project. In fact, this crisis should highlight the power of experts, period. 

To achieve success, it is essential that we not micromanage, that we give our teams a clear goal and direction—and that we get out of their way so that they can do their jobs. 

3. Leaders accept responsibility: I think of a scene from Batman v Superman when Wonder Woman dashes in front of Batman to deflect the lasers from the metahuman that was attacking Metropolis and Gotham City. 

Bad analogy, but to me Wonder Woman sets a great example for leaders. She jumped in front of Batman to protect him so that he could get back into the Batplane and come up with a new strategy for defeating the beast with his intelligence and his arsenal of gadgets. 

As leaders, we need to think of ourselves as Wonder Woman in that regard. A leader must protect their team to be able to do the work that is required for project success. It’s relatively easy to deflect attention, pass blame or throw someone under the bus. But real leadership entails dealing with the heat from outside sources and people looking to attack or slow down your project. 

In our current crisis, we have seen many examples of leaders trying to push blame onto others, pass responsibility and remove themselves from the role as the head of the project when things aren’t going well. 

That’s not really leadership, though. That’s sun-shining: the act of leading from the front when things are going great and running for cover when the storm clouds come in. 

I hope everyone is safe, and I hope that we can begin to gain control over this pandemic so we can return to our projects, recreation and life. Until then, I’ll continue to consider lessons learned about leadership while watching this crisis unfold. 

What have you learned about leadership in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic? 

By Lynda Bourne

Eighty percent of the posts I’ve read about dealing with COVID-19 fall into three general categories:

1. Stay safe and obey the rules.
2. Stay motivated.
3. Get legal advice, and document delays and damages.

While many of these posts contain good advice, to my mind they are all focused on threat mitigation. While minimizing threats is important, these approaches miss the opportunities inherent in unstable times. You need to do more than minimize threats to come out of the COVID-19 crisis in the best shape possible.

There are two factors that will help you get through this: your innovation skills and your negotiation skills. I discussed innovation in my previous post, Innovation and Design Thinking, Part One. In this post, I’d like to focus on negotiation in a time of uncertainty.

Of course, to be able to negotiate you do need to stay safe (the first category above). You also need to understand the current situation (the third). But, if you want some control over your future, you also need to be willing to have serious negotiations with the people who matter.

This is a very different situation than normal negotiations with employers, clients, subcontractors and suppliers. The traditional framework of negotiation involves having defined outcomes in mind, deciding on your “walk-away point” (best alternative to a negotiated agreement or BATNA) and using a range of negotiating stances and tactics to achieve your desired outcome. In the era of COVID-19, no one knows what the future holds, and everyone is suffering inconvenience and damage to different degrees. But we are all in this together, and playing hardball for short-term, illusory benefits is unlikely to help anyone.

For example, in normal times landlords around the globe tend to play hardball with tenants—you pay your rent or you are evicted. However, in Australia the government has now made it illegal for landlords to evict business tenants who are unable to pay their rent for the next six months (with the possibility of an extension). The objective of this measure is to ensure the tenant still has a business when the current lockdowns are over and that the landlord still has a tenant capable of paying rent in the future. There are government incentives and guidelines to encourage both parties to negotiate a workable agreement. Compare this to the normal business-as-usual alternative: The landlord evicts the tenant, the tenant goes bankrupt and the landlord misses out on 100 percent of rental income for two or three years until the market recovers.

The imposed solution has everyone sharing the pain. The tenant still has to pay some rent if possible, the landlord will receive less income, the banks support the landlords (after being asked by the government), and the government is paying some of the overall costs if there is an agreement. (Similar measures have also been introduced for private tenants.) This won’t save every business or every commercial landlord. But it will significantly reduce the damage to most businesses and the overall economy. At least, the government hopes this will be the outcome—no one really knows, given the unique situation we are all in.

So, how does this concept translate to your own situation during the COVID-19 crisis? Obviously, everyone and every business is in a unique situation, but there are some useful ideas you can apply at both the business and personal level:

1. Start talking. You will not be able to influence your situation by passively accepting everything that happens to you. And more importantly, the only effective way to negotiate in the current situation is based on achieving a win-win outcome (while recognizing that the win may be a reduced loss). The ability of good negotiators to influence outcomes is not limited by contract terms or organizational position.
2. Be realistic and adaptable. For some projects, the negotiation will result in shutting everything down with minimum costs all around. For example, I seriously doubt anyone will be interested in a new cruise liner terminal for a few years. This can be done cooperatively with costs minimized for everyone or arbitrarily with the likelihood of massive legal costs as the solution is fought through the courts. For other projects, the question may be how to stall the project for a period, and for others it may be how to accelerate or adapt the project to the new normal. In any of these situations, proactive win-win negotiations are likely to deliver better outcomes.
3. Accept change is inevitable—even after the negotiations. Every negotiated agreement needs to be part of an adaptive and evolving approach that recognizes circumstances will change unpredictably. The only thing that taking a hard “win-lose” approach to a negotiated outcome is likely to achieve is cutting off possibilities for a better outcome as the situation changes. Collaboration is likely to deliver far better results than confrontation.
4. Be innovative. In Australia, the smart rental agents and facilities managers are dealing with their massive loss of income by innovating processes to help landlords and tenants reach agreements and maximize government receipts. What’s in it for them? In part, a new stream of fees for services rendered and being in the box seat to carry on managing the facility once the lockdowns are over. Win-win-win.
5. Be agile and adaptive. Vast areas of business will never return to “normal,” and many jobs will be permanently lost. But there will be a new normal, and there will be new jobs. It doesn’t matter if you are a person looking for work or a business looking for clients—the ones that succeed will be those that adapt fastest to whatever the new normal looks like.  But remember: Agility is not anarchy! Useful agility is based on research and assessment of what the future may hold. The problem is that no one knows for certain what this will look like—so being a pragmatic risk-taker is essential.

People and organizations that come through the current situation ready to succeed in the post-COVID-19 world will be resilient, adaptive and collaborative. Great negotiating skills and innovative thinking will be essential.

Still, a little luck will go a long way. As I discussed in my post Probability vs. Luck: Lessons Learned From a Day at the Races, luck will also play a major part in deciding who comes out of this in the best shape. But, to quote Coleman Cox: “I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.”

How are you preparing for the post-COVID-19 future?

By Cyndee Miller

In a matter of mere months, the coronavirus has changed everything. At this point, I can barely remember what pre-pandemic life was like—or what day it is.

Oh wait, it’s Earth Day. And COVID-19 has transformed that, too. Something weird—and good—is happening.

In locked-down India, home to 21 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities, the air in Delhi is cleaner than it has been in decades, and Indians can once again glimpse the Himalayas. The European Space Agency last week released satellite images showing how Venice, Italy’s famed canals have been virtually emptied of boat traffic, leaving clear blue waters and visible marine life. At Yosemite National Park, now quiet and tourist-free, the bear population has quadrupled. From the U.S. to Thailand, sea turtles are thriving in the absence of humans at closed beaches.

And in China, industrial inactivity led to a drop in CO2 emissions by a whopping 100 million metric tons in February. With the coronavirus outbreak bringing economies to a screeching halt, carbon dioxide emissions could fall by more than 5 percent this year—the largest global decrease since World War II, according to Rob Jackson, chair of the Global Carbon Project and a professor at Stanford University.

But is this environmental progress built to last? Or will it fade away as the world economy begins to rebuild?

After world greenhouse gas emissions dipped alongside the 2008 global financial crisis, they shot back up 5.1 percent amid the recovery, Mr. Jackson told Reuters. The rebound effect is already playing out in China: By the end of March, coal consumption and nitrogen dioxide pollution had returned to normal levels.

Without a strategy for enduring structural change, any environmental improvements in the age of COVID-19 will likely be short-lived. I get that the fight against climate change probably isn’t top of mind right now. But that’s the real danger—that the issue moves to the back burner and we blindly return to business as usual when there is clearly so much work to be done. The United Nations in November called for a 7.6 percent emissions reduction every year between now and 2030 to give the world a viable chance of achieving the goal of the Paris Agreement and limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The coronavirus-induced shutdown has shown the world what climate action can look like in hyper-focus. But it will be just a fleeting moment without a real commitment to strong and sustainable change carried out by project leaders. One prime example: A project in Milan, Italy aims to reallocate street space from cars to cycling and walking. Under the nationwide lockdown, traffic congestion—and air pollution—saw a dramatic drop. And now government leaders want to keep it that way.

It’s up to forward-looking leaders to use this moment to fund projects that foster environmental action and economic growth.

An aggressive move to renewables could power a post-pandemic recovery with a US$98 trillion boost to the GDP between now and 2050, per a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency. The investment in renewables would also almost quadruple renewable energy jobs to 42 million, while simultaneously tackling climate change.

“Stimulus and recovery packages can also accelerate the shift to sustainable, decarbonized economies and resilient inclusive societies,” Francesco La Camera, the group’s director-general said in a statement. “As the current crisis makes clear, we can no longer afford to make policy decisions and investments in isolation amid elaborately intertwined social, economic and environmental challenges.”

The battle to conquer COVID-19 is a powerful testament to the strength of global collaboration. And on this Earth Day especially, it’s worth giving some thought to how project leaders can help the world recover and rebuild a more sustainable future. Are you ready?