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.

“You can hit this date, right?”

It’s Maria, one of your stakeholders from the other side of the business. She’s asking for a commitment to deliver a project by a specific date. You know the date is ambitious but the way she’s asking makes it clear that she’s only going to accept a Yes.

You pause.

“Sure!” is the word that slips out of your mouth. But if she could read your mind, she wouldn’t be walking away so confidently, leaving you once again with that sick feeling of “How in the world are we going to do this?”

After a day of ruminating about the project, you realize that you need something from her in order to deliver on the promised date. Your eyes brighten! She probably won’t be able to deliver on her part so that will give you some wiggle room! Brilliant!

You call her. “Hi Maria. You know that project we talked about yesterday? Well, in order to hit that date, this is what I need from you.” You elaborate on the needs.

It’s time to go for the ask. “I’ll need all this by the end of next week. Can you get that to me on time?” You pause, praying for a No.

Maria pauses. “Um. Well, let’s see. Yes, I can. Sure!”

Sigh.

Promises, Promises

Can you relate to the discussion with Maria? Perhaps you spend a lot of time in Maria’s role, receiving promises from people who you know won’t deliver. Or maybe you work with people like Maria, who press you with deadlines but don’t supply you with the information you need to deliver.

It’s important to note that you’re not alone. This drama plays out in organizations around the world, across industries. In a conversation with a high-level executive at a biotech firm, the discussion turned to how promises get made to investors and senior executives. He told me, “We make these date commitments but everyone knows we won’t hit them.”

I replied, “Kind of like mass hallucination, eh?” He smiled, but not with this eyes.

Project Culture

It is critical that you and your organization develop a culture that delivers. Relying on crossed fingers, hope, good intentions, and heroics doesn’t scale. The fundamentals of delivery need to be ingrained in the culture.

It’s rather fashionable these days to talk about organizational culture. Let me be clear: your organization has a culture of project management. It’s just a matter of whether or not that culture is helping or hindering your ability to deliver.

Yoda on Corporate Culture

Dr. Edgar Schein is the Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and a Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He’s widely credited with coining the term organizational culture. When I set up the interview to talk with Dr. Schein, I didn’t realize what a superstar the guy really was.

It didn’t take long in the interview for me to feel like I was talking with Yoda! He responded with ease to my questions about culture.

What is culture, according to Dr. Schein? In short, it’s what has worked. It’s the sum total of what a group has learned that works in solving problems. Whether you like it or not, the project culture in your organization exists because it has sufficiently worked in the past.

Dr. Schein suggests that culture can be broken down into three levels: artifacts, espoused values, and tacit assumptions.

What You Can See

If you walk through an organization, you can see the architecture of the building, the layout of the workspaces, the type of technology they provide for their employees, and the signs on the walls. These are artifacts—things that can be seen. For projects, you might see methodology binders, organization charts, process diagrams, and computer systems to manage project data. You could follow a project manager around and see their behavior—the actions they take. All of these help define the culture.

What We Say

As you continue walking through an organization, you might want to know why certain things are done. You see that a standard operating procedure is documented (the artifact), but you’re wondering why it’s done that way. These would be examples of espoused values—the stated beliefs that give a sense of what is truly valued in the organization?

For example, let’s say you find a form that seems like an unnecessary step in a process. You might ask, “Why do your project managers have to fill out this form?” Perhaps a response would be, “Because we’ve found that the extra step helps make sure we don’t start projects without a business rationale. A couple years back we found that we were wasting too much money on different executives’ pet projects.”

What We Assume

Yet beyond what we see and what is said, there are underlying assumptions that drive what and how things get done in an organization. They are not even stated—just assumed—as if they are obviously a fact or a matter of truth.

All these factors are like an iceberg. Above the water we can see the artifacts and discuss beliefs and values. But below the water we have the underlying assumptions. As with icebergs, these remain unseen and yet can be deadly if not taken into account.

Let’s say your executive team regularly sends e-mails late into the evening. It might be assumed by others that such activity is expected from everyone. There’s not a policy in writing (artifact) that directs people to do so. If you asked someone in HR whether employees are required to be on e-mail until midnight, they could not point to such direction in an Employee Handbook. Yet there’s this underlying assumption of the expectation, which leads to overflowing inboxes and red, baggy eyes amongst a workforce assuming that sleep is not a priority.

In a previous post I wrote about the written and unwritten rules. When considering culture, think of Dr. Schein’s artifacts and espoused values as the written rules—those things above the water. The underlying assumptions are the unwritten rules, those drivers that we cannot see under the water that drive everything above it.

In our next post, we’ll talk about how to make some progress in changing your project culture. But for now, here’s my challenge for you: take some time to consider your current project culture. What is above the water, so to speak, when it comes to projects? What are the written rules? The artifacts? The stated reasons for why things are done?

When we talk about this in our workshops and keynotes, people often reply with things like tools (e.g. Microsoft Project, Asana, XMind, etc.), their Project Management Office (PMO), templates, processes, executive level support, stated expectations, etc. How would you resond?

In addition, what are those factors under the water, so to speak: the underlying assumptions? What are the unwritten rules at your organization regarding how projects should be managed? See how many you can identify. I invite you to share your observations and questions in the comments below.

You can’t sustain a culture of mass hallucination. Hope is a wonderful thing for humanity but’s a lousy strategy for delivering projects. Let’s start with diagnosing your current culture. Next time we’ll talk about how to change that conversation with Maria.

If this post was helpful, I invite you to share it with your connections and LinkedIn groups.

Listen to the interview with Dr. Edgar Schein athttp://www.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/25.

“I always hit my dates and budgets…”

Please.

My company helps people learn how to improve their ability to deliver projects and lead teams. If we’re facilitating a multi-day workshop, we often have a round of introductions, which helps build some initial context and rapport.

Occasionally someone introducing themselves will say something to the effect of “I’ve been running projects for x years and I’ve always delivered on time and on budget.”

What I want to say is, “Seriously? Never had a project that struggled or failed? Never?”

The Odds are Stacked Against You

Let’s talk about the project you’re working on right now. Depending on whose research you look at, the odds of successfully delivering the project aren’t great.

It’s not my intention to discourage. It’s just that successfully delivering projects is challenging work.

So what can you do to increase the odds of success? There’s no silver bullet that guarantees project success. But there’s one factor that almost always makes the difference between success and failure: the support of your project sponsor.

Your Number One Stakeholder

Think of the sponsor as the person who funds your project. When done well, the sponsor is there to support you with resources to enable you and your team to deliver. Done poorly, they are absent or even obstacles to project success.[i]

Why are they so important? Many times a project manager is stuck between two or more stakeholders with conflicting demands. We often aren’t empowered or have the political influence to make the decision on our own. Some would argue we should never be the decision maker.

Regardless, how can the sponsor help?

They can make the decision. They can ask questions or coach you on how to make the decision. They can facilitate a meeting. Or talk to other people’s bosses. They can use their political capital to help keep the project in motion.

Or not.

How else can they help? They can be a voice for the project. When a sponsor speaks up about the importance of an initiative, people notice. Conversely, if they rarely refer to it, people catch on—it’s not important.

Sponsors advocate for the project across the organization, including the senior management. They set priorities, garner support, evaluate trade-offs, share their expertise, and monitor progress. If you escalate an issue to a sponsor and they respond quickly, your project keeps moving.

If they fail to do these things, the project suffers.

Experts confirm what you and I know intuitively: if your sponsor is actively, vigorously supporting the project, your likelihood of success skyrockets. If they are absent or unsupportive, nearly all the other factors we could talk about are irrelevant.

Your sponsor is your number one stakeholder.

The View from Your Sponsor

At this point you might be thinking, “Well, I guess I’m doomed because I don’t have executive support!” If that’s the case, I need to ask, “What are you doing to get it?”

I ask this because I get to spend a lot of time with executives. Let’s re-frame the issue, from the sponsor’s point of view. Guess what some of their biggest complaints are about their project managers?

It’s often related to communication. “The project manager hasn’t talked with me for 2 months, and now she’s waving paper in my face, demanding that she needs more time or money!”

This reinforces the importance of regular communication with your sponsor. You never want to blindside them with bad news about the project. One of the biggest complaints from sponsors and other stakeholders is, “I don’t know what’s going on! They never talk with me!” Never let that be true of you when you’re running the project.

Or here’s another communication complaint from sponsors: “Every time this project manager starts talking to me about the project, my eyes start to glaze over! They get WAY too into the weeds!”

It’s important to remember that presenting up—to those higher in the organization—is different from presenting to peers or members of your teams. Most executives want the headlines, not the details. Be careful about technical jargon. Get to the point, then let them drill into whatever detail they want through their questions.

A final recurring complaint I hear from sponsors sounds something like this: “The project manager seems to think this is my only job! If I don’t get back to them right away, they complain I’m not being responsive!” This is a good reminder that your project may not be the sponsor’s top priority.

Getting Support from Your Sponsor

It can be very helpful upfront on a project to talk with the sponsor about how this initiative fits in with all their other priorities. Find out how often they want to hear from you, and in what ways (e.g. face-to-face, e-mail, scorecards, etc.). Learn what success on the project means to them. Know what their worries are about this project.

In theory, it should be a given that your sponsor will enthusiastically support your project. But in the real world, project managers (regardless of title) often have to actively go out and get that support.

We often think of networking as something you do when searching for a job. Yet I would argue that it’s foundationally important for all of us, all the time. In fact, I assert that the dirty little secret of business is that it’s all done on relationships. If you have strong rapport and support with a sponsor and walk into their office needing something, it’s an entirely different discussion than walking in and hearing, “Um, who are you?”

Whether you're two days or two decades into your role leading projects, make sure you are actively developing relationships: up, down, and across the organization.

The lesson: Your sponsor is your number one stakeholder. If they have your back, you have a significantly higher probability of successfully delivering your project.

What have you learned about engaging your project sponsor? Please share your insights in the comments below.

Footnote:

[i] For an interesting description of different sponsor personalities, check out The Standish Group’s CHAOS Manifesto 2012. They range from “Deadbeat dads” and “Drifters” on the uninvolved end and “Nitpickers” and “Mother Hens” on the too involved end. “Captains” provide the perfect middle ground.

Do you ever have to rely on someone to finish a task who doesn't have the same sense of urgency as you?

Whether it’s someone in a different part of the business or outside the walls of our organization, project managers and other leaders regularly depend on other people. Since we often don’t have positional power over those people, we’re left trying to influence them without authority.

It’s one of the great frustrations in corporate life, resulting in missed deadlines, increased stress, and strained relationships. What’s a project manager to do?

Waiting for a Sign-Off

Let’s say you need a sign-off on a document in order to proceed. Let’s also say you allocated 8 days for the other person to review the document and provide their sign-off. To raise the stakes, let’s also say this sign-off is on your project’s critical path.

Here’s how I used to deal with this situation: “Please! I need you to sign off on this document! It’s really, really important! I need this quickly!”

Sometimes it worked, but often I was stuck waiting for the other person to deliver. Tick tock. The clock keeps ticking, delaying my project while the other person drags their feet.

That was old Andy. New Andy does it this way: “Here’s the document for your review and approval. You don’t need to get back to me today—we've allocated 8 days to the task. However, I need to let you know it’s on the critical path, which means if it takes you 9 days, the project slips by a day. Can you sign-off in 8 days? (pause)”

How would you characterize old Andy from new Andy?

The first approach communicated urgency, which can be good. But it dripped with emotion. It was just another crisis. In retrospect, it probably felt to others like the cliché “Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part!” It’s like the person who uses High Priority on every e-mail (don’t be that person). What happens when every email comes with a red exclamation point in the inbox? It becomes invisible, right?

The same could be said for my first approach. Others could easily respond: “It’s just another day with Kaufman’s hair on fire. Get in line.”

Contrast that to the second approach. There’s a sense of urgency, for sure, but it also communicates the consequences of inaction.

That’s not a small point.

Many people, on a practical basis, start their week trying to put out the biggest fires. Hopefully, by the end of the week, even the smallest fires are out. Regardless, communicating urgency without the consequences of inaction is not as effective.

Delaying the project is not a threat, especially if you are careful with your vocal tone and body language. Sometimes people don’t necessarily want to do the work in the time you need, but they certainly don’t want to be the reason for a project delay. So make the consequences of inaction clear.

Reservations and Task Commitments

What about that last question: “Can you hit 8 days? (pause)”

This comes from Dr. Robert Cialdini’s research on influence. He relates the story of Gordon Sinclair, the owner of a prominent Chicago restaurant. When guests would call for reservations, his receptionists would end the conversation by saying something along the lines of, “OK, we have you down for a party of 2 on Saturday night at 6:30pm. Please call if you have to change your plans.”

Seems reasonable. But approximately 30 percent of those people never showed up on Saturday night, and they didn't call. In the restaurant business, that can add up to real money.

Sinclair proposed a slight change to the script. His receptionists began ending the call like this, “OK, we have you down for a party of 2 on Saturday night at 6:30pm. By the way, will you please call us if you have to change your plans?” Pause.

How would you respond if a restaurant asked you that question? They weren't asking for a credit card number, phone number, or first-born child! They just asked a simple question, “Will you call?” Most people would reply, "Sure" without much thought.

The result? The no-shows without a call dropped from 30 percent to 10 percent.

Could it be that we don’t ask for a commitment often enough? It's one thing if we're the boss. But what if we’re depending on a peer or someone higher in the organization? Could it be that we too often back away from asking for a commitment?

I think so. Start asking for the commitment. And pause (while they squirm) before responding.

Possible Responses

In our sign-off example, what are the three possible answers to the question, “Can you hit 8 days?”

Yes. No. Maybe.

If they say Yes, Cialdini’s research suggests they’re more likely compelled to finish the work on time, especially when that commitment is made publicly.

What if they reply with a No? At the very least, you benefit by knowing about the situation now instead of 8 days from now. You can ask questions, such as “What’s getting in the way of hitting that date? What would it take to turn this to a Yes?”

Since their inability to commit will delay the project, you likely have to escalate the issue to the sponsor. Before you do that, ask, “Since I have to escalate this as a delay, would you like to join me in the status update?” or “Is there anything I should be requesting for you when I present this to the sponsor?” Dr. Allan Cohen suggests you should never blindside someone with an escalation. Always give them a warning first. It could be that the threat of an escalation will change their priorities.

What if they reply Maybe? I suggest that Maybe is the same as No. Ask the same questions to see if you can turn it to a Yes.

It gets a bit trickier if they reply with Maybe’s more optimistic cousin Probably. In this case, you might want to set a tripwire, say, 3 days into the task. If they’re on track at that point, you can keep the date as scheduled. But if they’re behind by that point, it trips an escalation.

Ask for a Commitment

Since learning this principle, I've used it with colleagues and customers with great success. I can assure you my children hate it!

Sales professionals understand it: Ask for the sale. For the rest of us, when you’re depending on someone to deliver their task, start asking for a commitment.

What questions do you have about this? What other ways do you work to get commitment from stakeholders who are dragging their feet? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

NOTE: Cialdini explains the science behind why this works in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, calling it the weapon of Commitment and Consistency. Click here for my interview with Steve Martin, one of Cialdini’s co-authors. Steve talks about the weapons of influence and other applications for project managers and leaders.

(Photo credit: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

NBC News anchor Brian Williams has been recognized as one of “the most trusted journalists of our time.” His viewing audience knows “his values, his continuing recognition of everyday heroes, and they trust him to help them make sense of the world.”

It’s not been a good week for the number one news anchor on network television. It’s understandable to misremember what he ordered at a restaurant last month. It’s more difficult to imagine the fog of time clouding whether he was in a helicopter hit by rocket fire.

Should Williams be fired for this violation of trust? That’s up to NBC News management. There are consequences for making mistakes in any job. Get a little angry at work and yell at some folks? Let work fall through the cracks often enough to develop a reputation? Get caught playing online during the workday? These are just a few examples of mistakes that can get you fired.

Trust is crucial for any leader, not just news anchors. It’s not clear how Williams recovers from this, especially with allegations of other fabrications.

But let’s bring this from the television screen to you and me. Science finds plenty of evidenceto suggest that we humans misremember more than we’d like to admit. And it’s not just an immoral few. This is not at all to suggest we give Williams a pass on his conflating of facts. But knowing that we have a tendency to explain things in ways that make us feel good about ourselves can at least keep us a bit more humble as the accusations fly.

When We’re in the Hot Seat

In business as well as in life, it’s not just what we do—it’s also how we react to what we do.

A friend was slapped with a frivolous lawsuit years ago. His lawyer warned him, “You’re innocent right now. But if you’re not careful, you can easily respond in a way that gets you in trouble.”

That’s good advice for when (not if) you and I screw up. Chances are we won’t be caught exaggerating about escaping death in a helicopter, but our next mistake is nonetheless around the corner. The way we respond can make all the difference.

Here are five ideas to keep in mind:

Call for help. Too often we try to fix things ourselves. The idea is that if we hide the bodies long enough, so to speak, the problem will go unnoticed. One of the first steps of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is to call for help, and that’s good advice when we’ve made a big enough mistake. Don’t try to tackle the problem on your own. Keep your management in the loop.

Get low. When we’re in the wrong, it’s tempting to come up with excuses in an attempt to explain why you’re not to blame. One of my favorite senior leaders suggests a different approach: “get low”. That phrase is his way of suggesting that humility goes a long way in starting to fill in the hole instead of digging it deeper. Parents understand this. We typically change our approach when it’s clear a child shows they understand what they did wrong (as opposed to just getting caught). Though there may be some cultural exceptions to this advice, sincere humility is almost always the right place to start.

Don’t blame others. Part of getting low is taking responsibility. In my post on Pete Carroll’s fateful play call that lost the Super Bowl for his team, I pointed out how he took responsibility for the decision. He didn’t throw his offensive coordinator under the proverbial bus. He didn’t complain about his receiver’s lack of aggressiveness or how his quarterback should have thrown lower. When you take responsibility, people see that you get it, which is an important step toward getting beyond the mistake.

Don’t make it worse. Brian Williams eventually gave an on-air apology. Some of the people involved in his Iraq incident were satisfied with it. Yet it seemed to create even more questionsbecause he didn’t exactly set the record straight. When you get low and accept responsibility, it’s still possible to try to put yourself in the best light. Attribution theory says we try to explain the world in ways that make us look or feel good. Watch out for that temptation. Acknowledge what you did wrong, clear the record if necessary, and apologize. It’s completely possible to make it worse by appearing insincere or giving an incomplete version of the story.

Be part of the solution. Mistakes provide many opportunities for lessons learned. How can you and others avoid this misstep in the future? Offer to make amends and be part of the solution in some way. This moves the conversation from excuses to what should we do about it.

Not Just a Brian Williams Issue

Years ago, I was hired as an executive coach to help a senior leader not get fired. John* made a questionable decision that exposed his organization to financial and legal liability. It was not a characteristic mistake for him and he was a valued leader. Yet the mistake was big enough that it could not be ignored.

In the initial days after the mistake, John tried to fix it himself. That may sound like being part of the solution, but in doing so, he didn’t keep his senior leadership in the loop so they were blindsided. This made the initial violation even worse.

When his senior leadership got involved, John didn’t get low. He was defensive—even accusatory. He was convinced that he was being unfairly targeted. His version of the story dripped with attribution theory.

I wish the story had a happy ending. After weeks of effort, I recommended that John be released from his job. As a leader once told me, “A person has to see it. If they can’t see it, they have to hear it.” John clearly didn’t see it and he wasn’t hearing it.

We’ll find out in the days ahead how NBC News handles Brian Williams. But I’m more concerned about you and me. When we inevitably make mistakes in the days ahead, start by getting low. Don't hide the bodies--give the mistake visibility. Take responsibility. Be sincere. And help make the next steps easier by being part of the solution.

What lessons have you learned about how to react to a mistake? What do you agree with in this article? Disagree with? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

*Name changed