As we start up another year, I have a question for you: What did you learn last year?

I tend to get some common responses to that question. Most often it’s a tilt of the head and a thoughtful, “Hmm…..” The second reaction is a vague response along the lines of, “Um, well, I learned a lot!” or they re-hash some general lesson like, “the importance of communication.”

But I’d like you to get more specific. What’s something specific you’ve learned in the last 12 months that you either didn’t know before then or you had to re-learn it?

Prepared For A World That No Longer Exists

After coaching over 250 executives, occasionally I’ll come across someone who says they have something like 20 years of experience. But the more we talk, it becomes apparent they have more like one year of experience repeated 20 times!

Liz Wiseman warned against this back in Episode 125 of our People and Projects Podcast regarding her book Rookie Smarts. She challenges us to constantly be putting ourselves in rookie roles so we can't just be living off what we’ve already learned.

Back in episode 126, I shared one of my favorite quotes related to this, from Eric Hoffer. He reportedly said, “In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

That’s an inspiring quote, for sure, but one that should also scare us some as well. I only know of one way to keep ourselves from being beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists: to have an insatiable hunger to learn.

Lessons from Leaders

So, what did you learn last year? I decided to ask that question to some people I admire as committed learners—actively making sure they’re not simply equipped for a world that no longer exists.

Each person shares a 3-minute lesson from this last year. I trust you’ll get value from their insights. But even more importantly, I want to spur you on to reflect how you would answer the question.

You'll hear from:

• Peter Taylor, The Lazy Project Manager
• Elizabeth Harrin, from A Girl's Guide to Project Management
• Johanna Rothman, management and project management author and consultant
• Andy Crowe, project management speaker, author, and founder of Velociteach
• Glen Alleman, host of the Herding Cats blog
• Susanne Madsen, project manager coach and author
• Mark Swiderski, project manager speaker and consultant
• Nick Morgan, author and speaker coach
• Peter Martin, CEO, TeenPact Leadership Schools
• Dave Stachowiak, host of the Coaching for Leaders podcast

Let’s see what these leaders have learned in the last year! 

Click here to listen to episode 159.

And please leave your lessons in the comments below. Enjoy! Here's to a great 2017 for you and your team!

Andy Kaufman, PMP helps organizations around the world improve their ability to deliver projects and lead teams. Learn more about his project management and leadership keynote presentations for your upcoming company or chapter meeting at http://www.i-leadonline.com/keynotes.

If you look back at your career thus far, think about the teams you’ve been a part of. If you had to pick a team that truly stands out as one of the best, which would it be? Whether you were the leader or a team member, what factors led to that being your best team?

I’ve had the opportunity to ask that question to team members from all over the world. Though the answers vary, there are common themes.

• “We trusted each other.”
• “Team members were highly competent and totally bought in.”
• “We could disagree but still enjoy each other.”
• “The leader helped us all do our best.”
• “We delivered great work.”

Great teams are often the result of great leadership. By that, I don’t mean just the brilliance of one good leader who is the boss. Rather, it’s leadership demonstrated across the team, including the person charged with heading up the team.

There are many helpful definitions of leadership. One of my favorites comes from Justin Menkes, author of Better Under Pressure. Justin told me during an interview about his book that “leadership means maximizing potential—in yourself and in the people you lead.”

If you are the leader of your team, I’d like to challenge you to consider that definition. What are you doing to maximize your potential? And how could you maximize the potential of your team members?

Maximizing Your Potential

I’ve had the opportunity to coach over 250 executives. Every once in a while, I come across someone who says they have 20 years of experience. But after spending enough time with them, it becomes apparent they have one year of experience repeated 20 times! They haven’t been actively, intentionally growing. They’ve been living off what they know and it’s keeping them from maximizing their potential. Liz Wiseman suggested in our interview about her book Rookie Smarts, that you must continue to seek ways to be a rookie—not just relying on knowledge you’ve already mastered. That’s risky yet required territory to travel if you want to maximize your potential.

And The Potential of Your Team

And how about your team? Perhaps not every team member has the same potential. Certainly, not everyone has the same levels of ambition or talent. But what are you doing with the team you have? How are you challenging them to experiment and grow instead of stagnate and wilt?

In our keynote Lead Teams That Deliver the Goods, we have an open discussion with the audience about characteristics of best teams and practical strategies we can employ to maximize the capabilities of our teams. It’s easy to think that we could do better if we just added stronger team members. Yet, as Donald Rumsfeld has said, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have.”

Don't Settle For Less

Once you've tasted what it's like to work with a high-performing team, your tolerance for mediocrity significantly diminishes. Don't settle for less.

Your responsibility as a leader is to maximize your potential and the potential of your team members. Develop a great team and you can deliver great products.

Join the conversation! What was one of the best teams you’ve been on? What made it such an effective team? What questions or comments do you have about maximizing the potential of your team? Leave a comment below.

Andy Kaufman, PMP, is a keynote speaker who helps organizations around the world improve their ability to deliver projects and lead teams. He is the host of The People and Projects Podcast, which shares interviews with experts on leadership and project management. Click here to learn how to earn free PDUs by listening to The People and Projects Podcast.

I recently had the opportunity to have a discussion with Susanne Madsen, Kevin Ciccotti, and Kim Wasson on the people side of our profession. We discussed topics, including:

• The role of introversion and extroversion when it comes to a project manager's effectiveness
• Ideas and tools to help project managers who are feeling the weight of stress as they juggle so many responsibilities
• Approaches for influencing stakeholders when the project manager doesn't necessarily have authority
• Practical insights on how to keep developing yourself, despite your busy schedule

It's not a short conversation, but watching it earns you a free PDU!* Enjoy! Please share your questions and observations in the comments section below. Thanks!

* Learn more about reporting your PDU here.

It’s being heralded as the worst call in Super Bowl history. Maybe in the history of football.

If you don’t follow American football, this moment of utter disbelief is mostly meaningless. But when you’re inches away from the biggest prize in American sports, with one of the strongest running backs in your arsenal, it seems incomprehensible to call a pass play.

That gets intercepted.

That snatches a repeat Super Bowl victory from your grasp.

It’s like a soccer player being gifted a penalty kick in front of a goal without a keeper. Then the coach telling him to aim for the upper ninety. And the player misses wide.

There’s no shortage of criticism of coach Pete Carroll and his offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell. From players on Twitter to pundits on sports channels to average fans on Facebook, the decision to pass is widely considered not just bad—but perhaps the worst ever.

Leaders and Decision-Making

Coaches call plays. Players make innumerable decisions as they try to execute a game plan. Whether on the field of play or in the office today, leaders face countless decisions.

Thankfully for most of us, we don’t have millions of viewers looking over our shoulder. But let’s be clear. If you lead people or projects, you’re going to make some bad calls. In some cases, you’re going to make some really bad calls. Your bosses will make bad decisions. It’s just part of the game.

History is littered with bad decisions, from the field of play to business. In some cases it’s stupid people making irresponsible decisions. But in their Harvard Business Review article “Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions”, the authors present insights from neurobiology and psychology that consistently show “important decisions made by intelligent, responsible people with the best information and intentions are sometimes hopelessly flawed.”

When Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions

Whether it’s on the sidelines or the boardroom, when you see decisions that leave you scratching your head, try to remember the following:

• “Optimism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.” The next time you find yourself railing on why your government leader or a senior manager in your organization (or the coach of your favorite sports team) made a lousy decision, try to remember this quote from British novelist John Galsworthy. It’s easier to call it stupid the further we are from having to make the decision. I’m as apt as the next guy to complain about a referee’s call (or lack thereof) when I’m on the sidelines watching my child’s soccer game. It wasn’t until I was volunteered to be an assistant referee on the sidelines that I truly appreciated how fast games move and decisions aren’t quite as easy when I’m holding the flag. Social media makes it easy to lob missiles from the cheap seats. Everyone is a pundit. Galsworthy reminds us that calling the plays of a Super Bowl game may not be as straightforward if you’re on the field with the headset on and clock ticking. It’s the same in the workplace. This doesn’t mean a decision is a good one. It just offers some humility in our processing of it.
• Remember the leader attribution error. In my conversation with renowned management expert Henry Mintzberg, we talked about myths related to leaders. The leader attribution error finds that leaders get too much credit when things go right and too much blame when things go awry. When the economy is steaming along, your governmental leaders probably get more credit than they deserve. And when the pass gets intercepted, the coach probably gets more blame than is justified. This often rubs people wrong because it seems to remove some amount of accountability. But what if receiver Ricardo Lockette would have been more aggressive going for the pass? What if quarterback Russell Wilson would have read the defender better and just threw the ball away? What if the pass was caught, scoring a game-winning touchdown? Brilliant call, coach! You can see it on the other side of the field as well. Tom Brady walked away from Super Bowl XLIX as the Most Valuable Player. Yet if his undrafted rookie teammate Malcolm Butler wouldn’t have made his brilliant interception, Brady’s own performance would have been called into question. If I’m Tom Brady, I’m throwing the keys to my new Chevy truck (the award given to the MVP) to Mr. Butler!
• You have to own it. When (not if) we make a bad decision, we have to take responsibility for it. Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll did just that after the game. He didn’t wait to craft a carefully worded press release. He owned it. “There’s really nobody to blame but me, and I told them (the players) that clearly. And I don’t want them to think anything other than that. They busted their tails and did everything they needed to do to put us in position, and unfortunately it didn’t work out. A very, very hard lesson. I hate to learn the hard way, but there’s no other way to look at it right now.” Contrast that to what you see from too many political and business leaders. You get far more grace when you admit the bad decision instead of seek to find excuses and scapegoats.

My brother-in-law lives in Seattle. About an hour after the game he texted me, “Last year I felt differently at this point in the night.” It’s not fun to lose, whether on a football field or a project team.

But we’re going to make bad decisions. And bad decisions will be made by others. Chances are they won’t be the worst decisions in the history of your company. But they will happen.

May we respond more like Pete Carroll when it’s our call that goes bad. And may we seek some perspective when the call is made by others.

What’s a lesson you’ve learned about dealing with bad decisions? What do you agree with in this assessment of the Seahawk’s loss? Disagree with? Join the discussion with your comments below.

“I can’t believe they think that’s a good decision.”

Have you been in that position—when your senior management makes a decision that, from your perspective, makes no sense?

One situation, in particular, turned out to be a significant teachable moment for me.

I was leading a team of truly talented software developers. We were good and we knew it. There were some organizational changes decreed from on high that didn't make sense to us. In my youthful ignorance, I set up a meeting with a leader about three levels above me. He accepted the invitation.

In the discussion, I boldly explained how his recent announcements were upsetting people in the department. I went so far as to say, “Bob, you’re not making the ‘What’s in it for me’” clear.

Bob was quiet at first. Then he responded with a statement I’ll never forget. “Andy, sometimes it’s not about you. It’s about ‘what’s in it for us.’”

Check. Mate.

Explaining the Why

I walked out of his office—humbled—learning a critical lesson.

Yes, explaining the The What’s In It for Me (WIIFM) is important when we communicate our plans. When we make project decisions or deliver announcements, our team members arelikely filtering our messages through self-interested lenses. They want to know what this means to them. To their promotional opportunities. To their mortgage payment.

In Robert Cialdini’s classic Influence: The Power of Persuasion, he explains how the word ‘because’ is critical when trying to influence someone. Too often, we as leaders wrestle with options to solve a problem and then render a decision. But when we communicate it to our teams, we fail to get their buy-in because we neglect to explain the reasons behind the decision.

Sometimes we fail because we spend too much time talking about the How: the process we followed to come to our conclusion. That's not the same as the Why. As Scott Elbin explains in The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success, focusing too much on how you came to your conclusion risks "getting labeled as someone who, when asked for the time, explains how to build a watch."

Cialdini asserts “because” is the most influential word in the English language. Further, the “because” doesn’t even have to be that persuasive!

But the magic isn’t in the word. It’s in the explaining. Cialdini states, “A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”

Make the WIIFM clear when you can.

When The Personal Benefit Is Not as Clear

But sometimes it’s not about what’s in it for one particular person or team. An announcement about layoffs? The outsourcing of work to service providers? A reorganization that leaves people with yet another new boss?

As the executive rightly explained to me, some decisions are more about the What’s In It for Us. Maybe it’s the value to our organization as a whole. Or our customers. Or another part of our company.

One leader told me “this is the first company I've worked at where one department would be willing to give up a dollar of budget if another would benefit by more than that.” You may not work at such a company, but if that’s the reason behind a decision, explain it.

Asking About the Why

Perhaps you’re not the person communicating the Why. Rather, you’re on the receiving end, as I was years ago. You’re scratching your head in disbelief. What’s the lesson for us?

You could schedule a meeting with the leader three levels up. A large helping of humility might be a good breakfast choice, if you do. Even if you just ask your boss or project sponsor, it’s worth seeking out the Why behind their decision.

As an example, I later had a boss who previewed an upcoming reorganization with his direct reports. I asked him, “What are the primary benefits of this reorg, from your perspective?” Interestingly, he struggled with the answer. It illuminated the fact that before announcing the restructuring, we had better sharpen up the message or reconsider the wisdom of the change.

It started with a Why question.

If the Why isn’t clear, seek it out. There’s probably a reason. Remember that it may not satisfy your need to know What’s In It for You, so be prepared to accept What’s In It for Us.

Practicing What We Preach

As I look back on that humbling discussion with the executive years ago, there’s one last lesson I’d like to share. I left his office that day benefiting from a teachable moment.

But I wonder if he did.

My point? It’s easy (now) to argue that he had made a good decision. There was a reasonably compelling What’s In It For Us as an organization.

But he didn’t follow his own wisdom.

For all my complaining about the lack of WIIFM and his wisdom about WIIFU, his earlier announcements didn't live up to his advice. He had not even come close to communicating the Why behind his decisions.

We need to remember:

• It’s not just what we decide. Success also depends on how we roll it out. It’s completely possible to ruin a good decision.
• When we find ourselves thinking we've dispersed highly valuable wisdom to someone on our team, let’s make sure we don’t miss any leftover lessons for ourselves.

Don’t screw up a perfectly good decision. Learn from my teachable moment—and his.

What mistakes have you seen when it comes to communicating decisions? What have you learned about getting buy-in? Please share your perspectives in the comment. Thank you!