Communication Excellence in Project Management

One-hundred and forty-one years ago, a charismatic but, vain leader made a bad decision that cost him his life and (almost) all the lives of the people who served under him. General Armstrong Custer decided to fight a force of 2,500+ Indian warriors with only 210 men under his command. John Hollon, well-known HR guru, has argued that we should memorialize June 25th as a cautionary warning of the perils of bad management.

What made Custer's decision so wrong? According to Hollon, five factors:

1. Refusing to listen to others.
2. Arrogance.
3. Didn't focus on the goal.
4. His opponent had a better strategy AND people that could be trusted to execute the strategy.
5. Bad luck.

Personally, I am not sure that the fifth factor wasn't just a natural result of the first four factors. Even so, when I've seen projects go off track and even ultimately fail, I bet you could trace one or more reasons back to one or more these factors.

As a project manager, take time on Saturday to reflect on Custer's Last Stand and think of how you can prevent your current project from being your last stand.

According to a recent article in the Harvard Business review, "Research shows that our brains think of companies not as objects but as people. Every time someone engages with your brand, they are asking you: 'So tell me about your yourself.'”

The author, Mark Bonchek, advances the idea of the strategic narrative which is designed to "creat[e] a context of human connection, collaborat[e] around a shared purpose, and [connect] with the company’s DNA." A strategic narrative is how people connect with the company on an emotional level.

This led me to think of how strategic narrative can be used by project managers to advance their projects. When you examine the definition of strategic narrative, you can see that it aligns closely with the definition of a project vision. So, in a sense, a good project vision should be a good story because it serves the same purpose as a strategic narrative. When team members connect emotionally to the project, then the project manager has the full attention and engagement of the project team.

I'm preparing my presentation on project management communication for the University of Maryland 2016 Project Management Symposium. I will be talking about research I have done on the current state of project management communication research and advocating for a new research agenda.

One part of the research agenda is applying complexity leadership theory to project management leadership. Project managers move beyond their traditional functional role of managing schedules, tasks, and resources to empowering the knowledge workers that make up the project team (Stacey, 2001, p. 1).

Project managers must use dialogue to “encourage and persuade people to share knowledge and spread it around” (Stacey, 2001, p. 2), because knowledge is more than just what is stored in artifacts and arises from conversations and relationships (pp. 4, 98). As the communication hub for the project team, stakeholders, customers, and sponsor(s), project managers must use more than functional communication to effectively lead modern projects.

There are more parts to the research agenda with all of the components revolving around complexity theory and neuroscience. I will also be looking at new research in how high-performing teams form and work effectively.

Reference:

Stacey, R. D. (2001). Complex responsive processes in organizations: Learning and knowledge creation. New York, NY: Routledge.

According to an article in the latest Harvard Business Review, "the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more." Although there are many benefits to the increased collaborative activities, there are also increased costs in a greater number of meetings, time spent reviewing emails/documents, and other coordination activities. Maybe the biggest cost is the burnout of those key employees who are the most active collaborators. 'Up to a third of value-added collaborations come from only 3% to 5% of employees."

Even though the study did not address project teams, the same findings easily apply to project collaborations. How do project managers deal with the resource demands of project collaborations? How should project managers keep key project team members from burning out because of overcollaboration?