During a group exercise in a recent project management class at a biotech firm, my main contact waved me over to ask a question. She noticed that women represented around 80% of the class participants and wondered if that's something I see at other clients. 

I told her it's absolutely a trend I've seen for years--increasingly so in the last decade. There are a few exceptions in some industries (e.g. construction) and the trend has not been as clear with some of my engagements outside the U.S., depending on the local culture. But I'm in-house at companies almost every weekday, and in just the last month, women have represented between 60%-75% of the participants in each of the sessions. 

Women are still in the minority of project management roles, but this is an encouraging leading indicator of what is to come.

What Is Driving The Trend?

Here's where my client and I went in our conversation, and where I'd love for you to share a comment with your thoughts. What do you think is driving the trend?

I'd love to hear what some of my favorite women in project management thought leaders think about this. What are some forces that are leading more women to pursue project management career paths? 

Also, for those of you who share my privilege of teaching and developing project managers, are you seeing similar trends? If so, what do you think is driving this?

Finally, for those of you who are in project leadership roles, are you seeing similar trends? Your insights would be helpful additions to the discussion as well.

Join the conversation by leaving a comment. I also invite you to share this with your colleagues to get their voices added to the discussion. Thank you!

Are you spending more time leading webinars or web meetings (or participating in them)? It's a rare week that I'm not leading webinars with clients (or meeting with them through a web-based tool).

Though I've been surprisingly pleased with the results after years of tweaking my approach, I am struck by how ineffective virtual meetings and training sessions end up if we're not careful.

This is front of mind for me because later this week I'm interviewing Dr. Nick Morgan about his excellent new book Can You Hear Me? How to Connect With People in a Virtual World (HBR Press). UPDATE: Here's a brief segment of the interview:

Here are some quick lessons for your consideration.

It's Better If We Can See Each Other

One of my clients, in particular, is notorious for people having tape over their laptop cameras. I'm not disputing the wisdom of considering security measures with webcams. What's funny is that for about 5 seconds or so after they log in, I see them in a frame. Then the tape comes down. It's not about security. It's that they don't want to be seen.

I get that. But see if you can get around that with your participants. Nick shares the science behind this but you know it intuitively. When you can see each other, there's more connection.

If I'm leading a training session or meeting, I always have at least my camera on. Depending on the size of your meeting participants, it may not be feasible to have everyone's camera on. But I recommend you keep yours on.

And as I learned from Nancy Duarte in our interview about persuasive presentations, when you're speaking in a virtual session, "fall in love with the little light on your webcam." That's her way of reminding us to look them in the eye, so to speak.

Provoke Interaction

Good face-to-face meeting etiquette remains true for virtual sessions as well. Limit lecture. Provoke interaction.

Whether it's a training session or meeting, I try to make sure 5 minutes doesn't go by without some sort of interaction. It might be:

• Asking a question. Polls usually take too long. Get a question on the table and have people respond through the chat box or by unmuting microphones.
• Calling on someone. Do it because you genuinely want their input. There's a side benefit as well: when they know they can be called on, they're more likely to pay attention.

I don't care if it's Tony Robbins at the mic, the longer you go with only one person speaking, the more participants will be drifting to their inbox, social media, or other distractions.

Make It Personal

As we get more virtual, we lose connection. Find a way to keep your virtual meetings personal. This can include:

• Referring to people by name. Call back to comments they've made earlier.
• Encouraging people to actively use the chat box, sharing thoughts, questions, jokes, etc. If you're not used to this it may seem like it would be distracting. To the contrary, it's an amazingly effective engagement technique. And you learn about each other based on these interactions.
• Having people share something up front. This depends on the context of the meeting, but here's an example. During the minutes before the meeting starts, I will occasionally put something like this in the chat box: "What's something good from your last week?" This has the benefit of getting people interacting, priming some positivity, and providing an opportunity to learn about each other.

Bonus Tip

Have music playing when people are logging in. When there's quiet, people often don't know if the audio is working correctly. Plus, depending on your music choices and their tastes, it can add some helpful ambience.

I stream a music service using a curated playlist (I find upbeat jazz works for many audiences regardless of culture) and make sure the tool is sharing the computer audio.

Share Your Tips!

What have you learned about making virtual meetings and webinars more engaging? More valuable? What are some things you try to do and seek to avoid? 

And how about some true confessions.... Have you ever led (or participated in) one of these in your pajamas? Any funny stories you're up for sharing?

I don't see virtual meetings or training going away any time soon. But we can do better. Agree?

If you found this helpful, give it a like and share it with your network. And leave a comment with your lessons and stories. Let's learn together. Thanks!

Today could be just another day for you. Or it could be one of your best.

The next project meeting you lead could be just another gathering of the same people. Or, it could be one of the best you've ever led.

I've been running an experiment lately. I'm challenging myself to approach every interaction and experience with the goal of achieving a personal best. For example, before I get to the venue for a keynote or workshop, I'm asking myself, "What would it take for this to be the best keynote I've ever delivered?"

Athletes are constantly striving to beat their personal best. And in many ways, it's easier for a runner or swimmer to know if they achieved it because there's a timer to prove it. Our success as project managers and leaders may not be so easily measured.

But what if we aspired for it nonetheless?

The Problem

It’s so easy to get into a rut. We can coast toward complacency. Though we may not acknowledge our creeping comfort with status quo, we subtly, slowly, unsuspectingly settle.

Over time, settling for status quo sucks the joy out of what we do. It dilutes our potential and can easily spread to those we seek to lead.

What Difference Would It Make?

What difference would it make if you and I walked into any project situation this week, striving to be the best we’ve ever been? I’m not suggesting it’s even possible to achieve—it’s about the aspiration. And I’m suggesting it’s a worthy aspiration.

Today's meetings. The next stand-up. Your discussions with team members. The email you're about to write. The deliverable you’re assigned to work on.

And what about tonight, after you’re home from work? What difference would it make if you aspired to make interactions with your loved ones the best you've had despite a long day of work? This challenge has led me to reduce, even if only a little, how many times I turn to my devices. I feel more engaged in discussions.

Can anyone tell? I don’t know! Until now, I haven’t announced the experiment. But I can tell the difference. That’s enough to keep the challenge going.

It’s About Getting Better

Maybe it sounds exhausting! Maybe it sounds like we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment and failure because, as with athletes, it's impossible to hit a personal best every performance. But the challenge thus far hasn’t yielded a cloud of disappointment. To the contrary, I’m finding it invigorating.

The athlete wants a personal best. I’m just looking to get better, and that’s what I’d love for you (and your project team) as well. Aspiring to make it the best helps move us closer to growing our potential and the potential of those around us.

Strive for a Personal Best Today

I'm about to head into a session to address a group of leaders at the United Nations. I am asking myself how I could make it the best session I've ever delivered. It may not be—in fact, it probably won’t be the best. But I suspect it will be a better experience for them and me because of the aspiration. And then I’ll learn from it and try to make the next one even better.

Join me in this challenge! Strive for some personal bests today. And let me know how it goes! Leave a comment below with your thoughts. I invite you to share this with your network to help them go for some personal bests today as well! Thanks!

The dirty little secret of business is that it’s all done on relationships. In our first article in this series, the bottom-line was that you can’t afford to not take the time to invest in this critical aspect of your career.

But that’s the rub, isn’t it? It takes time. And who has enough slack in their work week to add yet something more?

“Relationship-building? Great idea. I just don’t have the time.”

But Is It A Time Issue?

This is a bit personal but let me ask you a question. Prior walking into work, did you brush your teeth? Take a bath or shower?

I realize that norms vary by culture, but here’s the point of my prying question. We take care of at least basic personal hygiene before work because there’s typically a return on that investment of time in the morning! Most of us don’t roll out of bed and say, “Sorry! I just don’t have time to get cleaned up today!” (Unless, perhaps, when we’re working from home without any meetings with webcams!)

When I work with executive coaching clients and audiences around the world, nearly everyone agrees about the importance of relationship-building, as an idea. But, in practice, it’s often not perceived as sufficiently valuable to justify the investment of time.

Over the years I’ve had the distinct privilege of interviewing some of the top leadership thought leaders of our time, and one highlight is Dr. Ed Schein. Ed, who is now in his nineties, is the guy who coined the term corporate culture. It was like talking to Yoda.

One of the most important lessons I learned from Dr. Schein is the dynamics of learning and anxiety. “Learning anxiety comes from being afraid to try something new for fear that it will be too difficult, that we will look stupid in the attempt, or that we will have to part from old habits that have worked for us in the past.”*

Forget about trying to talk people out of learning anxiety. It’s the basis for resistance to change.

Ah, but there’s also survival anxiety: “the horrible realization that in order to make it, you’re going to have to change.”* His thesis is that learning only happens when survival anxiety is greater than learning anxiety.

Take a moment and let that idea soak in. You’re most likely to go through the inconvenience of learning something new when you think your survival depends on it.

Your Survival Depends on Relationship-Building

Stop thinking about relationship-building as a nice idea. Think of it as one of the top skills you need for career survival.

You are one acquisition or economic crisis or management change or automation disruption away from looking for a job. That next career opportunity will likely come because of a relationship.

But it’s not just about job hunting.

Mentors can radically boost your ability to navigate an increasingly complex business world. Broader relationships expose you to innovative ideas, provide early warnings about upcoming changes, and ease your ability to influence outcomes.

An Idea and An Exercise

Since you’re tight on time, here’s an idea: leverage something you’re already doing. Meetings are not just for information sharing and decision-making. Think of them as relationship-building opportunities. If you arrive before the meeting starts, seek out someone you don’t know as well and sit by them. Ask questions to learn more about them.

I like to ask people, “What’s something good from the last week?” It gets them talking, primes the discussion to be positive, and provides an opportunity to celebrate with the person--all of which are powerful ingredients of relationship-building.

Even if you sit by someone you know well, ask some questions. Follow-up with them about something they may have mentioned before (e.g., “You mentioned your family was going to get some time away. How was your trip?”). Avoid bringing the focus back to yourself (Celeste Headlee calls this conversational narcissism).

Beyond that, carve out 15 minutes for a network audit, an exercise described in Herminia Ibarra’s book Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader. Here’s how it works:

Identify up to 10 people with whom you have discussed important work matters over the last few months. Perhaps you went for advice. Or used them as a sounding board. You don’t have to identify 10, and don’t try to think of who should be on the list. Only list people to whom you have recently turned for help.

Now, look that list over. What does it say to you about your network? What are the strengths of your network, as it exists today? What are the weaknesses?

One observation I took from my first network audit exercise: I don’t go for advice nearly enough. If I was truthful about how I actually went about work, the list of advisors I sought over the last few months was strikingly short.

I also realized that the network was not nearly as diverse as it should be. Here I mean not only gender or racial diversity. I also mean cognitive diversity. Departmental diversity. Job level diversity. Experience diversity.

A network audit is an easy exercise to skip. Don’t. Try it and see what it tells you.

Your survival may just depend on what you learn.

What stands out to you from this article? Please leave a comment to join the discussion. Keep an eye out for our next article as we continue this series on relationship-building.

* The quotes are from Diane Couto's Harvard Business Review article “The Anxiety of Learning” (available online at https://hbr.org/2002/03/the-anxiety-of-learning). 

You’re stuck at an airport. In another country. Alone. Forced to wait 7 hours for a flight. That you might not get on.

That’s me right now. The details surrounding why I’m stuck in Athens International Airport are not nearly as important as the fact that I’m having to wait. And waiting is not something I excel at. For most of us, waiting is not what we do well.

At all.

We’re productive. Active. Moving. In a hurry. Using incomplete sentences.

We are not waiters.

Airports are filled with impatience. I’ve humored myself today watching people hovering for a power outlet like vultures searching for their next morsel, swooping down to plug in so they can leverage their wait time to catch up. Coffee lines have impatient travelers, hoping that another glare at their watch will make the queue go faster. Boarding times become pushing matches, with everyone jockeying to the front to ensure they don't miss out on some overhead bin real estate.

I’m surrounded by discontented waiters today, and in truth, I confess I’m one of them.

What Are You Waiting For?

Chances are you’re waiting for something right now that is far more significant than the distance between you and your next flight. Perhaps you're waiting for a promotion. Or the day when your boss gives you the credit you think is due. Or a job offer. Or for a stakeholder who is dragging their feet on a sign-off. Or the results of a medical test. Fill in the blank: you’re likely waiting for something, and it can feel like you’re stranded, alone, not sure how it will turn out.

Lewis Smedes writes, “Waiting is our destiny as creatures who cannot by themselves bring about what they hope for.” As leaders, we might give Smedes props for his prose but bristle against the belief we can’t make our hopes come to fruition. He seems to give us permission to wave the victim flag.

Which is it? Captains of our ship? Or ships being tossed by the waves?

How Much Control Do You Have?

If you dislike waiting as much as me, here’s what I recommend: start by taking a long, hard look at how much control you have over your waiting. For example, I’m flying back to the States today as a standby passenger (thanks to my wife’s flight attendant benefits), which means I only get on if there’s an open seat. My wife and kids were able to fit onto an earlier flight, but we have little control over how much room a plane will have. We can target more open flights, be at the gate early, and be extremely kind to the gate agents, but beyond that, I'm at the mercy of who shows up (or not). If you’re waiting for the results of a biopsy, you have no control at this point of what will be found. You can do some research, talk with friends, but your level of control is low.

Where your level of control is low, the waiting battle is fought in the mind. How you think about your situation may not necessarily affect the outcome, but it can make all the difference while you wait. I can conjure up positive thoughts about getting on today’s flight, but that’s not going to open a seat for me. But ruminating over how much of an inconvenience this is won’t help me either.

In situations of low control, there’s wisdom in the “count your blessings” idea. In my case, I'm currently healthy. I love my job. My whole family enjoyed a holiday in Europe for a fraction of what it would have cost us if we had to pay typical prices for flights. I’m here because my wife and I are celebrating 30 years of marriage--and I'm more in love with her today than 30 years ago. I could go on with other "blessings", but you get the point: when control is low, watch how you think. Try to focus on the good, not because it will change your situation as much as help you during the wait.

Where you have more control, use all the influence you can muster. Certainly how you think matters here as well. But what actions can you take? With a promotion, you can’t decide for the boss, but you're likely not completely without influence. You can discuss your goals, find out what’s expected, and work hard to achieve those expectations. You can seek a mentor, build relationships, develop your skills, and keep your resume updated. We rarely have complete control over situations, but we often have more influence available than we realize.

Regardless of the level of control, waiting is often made better when we have trusted people to go through it with us. Most often, I have a better perspective on situations when I lean into my support network instead of drifting away from it. People can help us process the wait.

Take a Breath

If your wait is relatively insignificant, in the scheme of things, take a breath. I so easily stress out over situations that won’t even be remembered a day or two from now.

• That slow driver in front of you? Instead of laying on the horn, take a breath and try to remember Wendy Moss' admonition to always "be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about." The other driver is a person, not an inconvenience. (David Foster Wallace's iconic Kenyon College commencement address offers a related thought experiment.)
• The protracted line at the coffee shop? Maybe it’s an opportunity to strike up a conversation with someone.
• Being stuck in an airport, being bumped from flights? Maybe it's my chance to slow down and be present instead of in a hurry.

In these cases, maybe the blessing is the wait. Sometimes delay makes the gratification sweeter. You and I still don't like waiting, but it might just be the opportunity we need to take a breath, get some perspective, and realize that faster isn’t always better. Busy isn’t always productive. Waiting is part of the journey.

P.S. We're on day 5 of trying to get home, finally hitting US soil today. Little did I know when the article was first written that I would increasingly need to practice these insights!

What are you waiting for? What helps you make it through? Share your thoughts in the comments below.