Program Management and Leadership

Susanne Madsen, is a professor of Leadership and Ethics, at Utah Valley University. LinkedIn indicates that she has more than 7 years’ experience in teaching project leadership. She uses this book to successfully draw out and convey in laymen language and non-technical language theory how an individual can expand a career from project manager to project leader. In essence, the title for this book should have been titled “7 Keys” or “7 Keys to Transform Oneself.” 

It is a great guide. There is not a pill that someone can swallow and become a great leader, let alone a project leader. It can take a lifetime of learning and experimenting to become a successful project leader.  Can one read this book and automatically become a great leader? Can one read a book any book and become a leader? In this case, Susan Madsen presents 7 KEYS, somewhat intuitive at best. One can argue whether there are 7 or 8 or 10, but these cover the breadth and depth of the landscape:

1. Be authentic,
2. Lead with vision,
3. Improve and innovate,
4. Empower the team,
5. Get close to your stakeholders,
6. Establish a solid foundation, and
7. Work with intent. In other words, the project leader has to learn to maximize the use of time and delegated skills.

Can these skills work for an individual who is a manager or executive in a setting other than business? The answer is yes. The author presents the “how” to be authentic with your team, “how” to lead with vision, in other words, the “how’s” and “whys” the 7 keys are important. She does not mention how long it takes for the 7 keys to succeed. It is a matter of application of key by key, principle by principle. In what sequence should the 7 principles be executed? The author does not indicate and it should not matter. Instead, collectively, these traits represents skills that one needs to change one’s behavior and succeed as a leader. Aren’t all people authentic? Don’t all people look to overcome the status quo? Don’t we all attempt to recognize our mistakes, understand our personality type, and word to overcome roadblocks whether at work or in their personal life.   Either way, the author, has created a masterpiece because she lays out a set of questions to get one started in changing or enhancing their behavior, presents quotes from people in the field, regarding a key or principle, and a checklist of the end state. The author presents the roadmap. The “how” and the “end state”, what the future good project leader can look like in terms of personalities. The key is that this list as I have found has to be customized for the persona and place of employment. There are proverbial roadblocks no matter where one works. There is a multitude of people who have different career goals, personality traits and learning habits. It can take a lifetime to learn these skills, let alone implement these skills. The author does not mention any expectation that perhaps the reader already has several of these skills. I would. I recommend this book, since I have used several of these traits and not in the order presented by the order to enhance my leadership skills.

This book is presented as the “Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us.”  Is it? The answer is that it depends. Things are never as clear as they appear. The principle of decomposing an issue into its component parts will tell you that there are many different approaches and opinions. For every “zig”, there is a “zag”. In this case, the well-researched results can be used to initiate a conversation on how to motivate employees and consultants as well as senior management. However, the author does not discuss the skills that can be used to motivate senior management and C-level personnel. 

The author presents three (3) attributes that encourage an employee to feel motivated at his or her place of employment. These are:

1. Autonomy – The employee must inherently feel “empowered” to accomplish a goal of either the project, department or enterprise to the extent that he or she can cut across cross-departmental rules or silos, or barriers within the department to accomplish the goal.
2. Sense of Accomplishment – The employee must feel that the objectives have been successfully accomplished, regardless of the money or extra benefits that are received.
3. Training or Continuing Education – The employee must inherently believe that he or she can continue to obtain new skills or “brush up” on existing skills. They can reinvent themselves and continue to ensure the firm as well as the individual is successful.

The author mentions that these attributes based on decades of scientific research which are described in the book are contrary to the existing approaches of work today. For example, firms are expanding the ability of their employees to work remotely from home. They are providing their employees with flex-time to enable them to accommodate a work-life balance. Besides the amenities such as gym or healthy food in the firm’s cafeteria or expanded vacation time, firms believe that these attributes will motivate an employee to succeed. Hence, the dichotomy. Which is the correct or apropos approach to motivate employees? The author does not provide the response nor describe that the response may differ from the corporate environment, employee or industry, another words, external factors which may affect every aspect of implementation and transformation. There is a basic assumption about people in whatever environment that people want to be accountable. The bottom line is that people hold different mindsets of their human capital capabilities. In fact, Robert Reich states “figure out for yourself what you want to be really good at, know that you’ll never really satisfy yourself that you’ve made it, and accept that that’s okay.” [i]

The inspiring point of this book is that the author presents a provocative approach that firms may want to consider in these times where millennials are requesting the external amenities and work-life balance in addition to  - autonomy, sense of accomplishment and training -  the same 3 attributes that the author is presenting. Can a millennial employee have it all? Remember we are seeing that people are not working at the same employer for a significant number of years as their predecessors. Nor do they want to. They want to take a break, and travel or just explore new experiences. People are not working to live, but living to work. The author presents significant ideas for senior management to consider, and how about startups. Is this the new model?

[i] Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, RiverHead Books, 2009, page 119

Marshall Goldsmith has written a book on Leadership from a different point of view. As a subject matter expert on leadership and management coaching, Marshall Goldsmith has conducted private sessions with CEOs and others to improve the quality of their leadership development, and to be better positive role models to their employees.  In this recently published book, Marshall identifies the following:
1.    13 qualities which can help you improve for the better
2.    21 habits and other personal qualities which can deter one from success as a leader.  
These personal characteristics were not developed in a project management lab at a university. Instead, they were developed based on his experience and supplied guidance to other CEOs or leaders. The great feature of this book is that these checklists can be posted on your wall as a “cheat sheet” of reminders to keep you on track. What is unique about this book is that he mentions that you have great qualities of commitment, excellence and understanding and communication. So, the glass is half full. He wants to supplement this glass with other qualities that can assure success. But, as he mentions this is a sprint and not a race, a journey for success and not a race to the top, for this is not for the weary or faint hearted. He expects or assumes that the project manager has a commitment and drive to succeed. He does not expect that the project manager has obtained a PMP, or an MBA or masters in Management. Instead, he takes the reader from a given spot to a different spot on the leadership ladder. Yes, there are other leadership books and the field is very vast with different approaches for success. But this can function as a guide with the qualities that one can succeed. Does one need to have all 20 or can one have 1 or 2 are the questions that he does not answer. What is the magic formula? We are human with frailties and emotions and desires which impact our remediating of the negative habits.  Page 40 the book which delineates the following 21 habits is one of the most important pages:
1.    Winning too much
2.    Adding too much value – Knowing when to stop in the conversation and one up someone. 
3.    Passing judgments
4.    Making destructive comments
5.    Starting with “No”, “But,” or “However”
6.    Telling the world how smart we are
7.    Speaking when angry
8.    Negativity or “Let me explain why that won’t work”
9.    Withholding information
10.    Failing to give proper recognition
11.    Claiming credit that we don’t deserve
12.    Making excuses
13.    Clinging to the past
14.    Playing favorites
15.    Refusing to express regret
16.    Not listening
17.    Failing to express gratitude
18.    Punishing the messenger
19.    Passing the buck
20.    An excessive need to be “me”
21.    Goal obsession
Again, one’s 21 habits are someone else’s 15 habits. These are Mr. Goldsmith, but there are others too which deter one’s success. 
5    ways to get feedback from others to help you succeed:   
1.    Make a list of
2.    Turn the sound off
3.    Complete the sentence
4.    Listen to your self-aggrandizing remarks
5.    Look homeward
 Do you have any others that are missing? 
 

Book Review: Antifragile, Things that Gain From Disorder

There are many levels to understanding and application for this classic, if not already, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.  A book published several years ago, that is, in 2012 has much relevance to traders, financial services professionals, managers and chief executives from large, small and medium size firms.  And, it was written with that audience in mind. Nassim Taleb was a derivatives trader, academic researcher and now teaches Risk Engineering at New York University. He has spent his career discussing and researching probability, managing uncertainty and risk management.   However, as the Black Swan that he mentions, this book has great reference and highlights guide posts in this gem for program and project managers. These will be covered in future blogs on Project Management.com. However, to start, the concept of antifragile and its application to program leadership. Antifragile flows from the definition of fragile. As fragile is expressed by Taleb as what does not like volatility and that what does not like volatility does not like randomness, uncertainty, disorder, errors, etc. Antifragile likes volatility and managing combustibility. It likes time and the non-linear.

Antifragile or Fragile Leader: Which Is More Successful?

 In Antifragile, Taleb discusses the concept of teleological and optionality. And, I ask which program manager are we? Which will succeed? Does one have to be teleological in several circumstances and project and exhibit optionality in others, or be true to form antifragile and be optional consistently?  These are not discussed. As a project manager, portfolio manager or program manager or on a higher level, a leader, for short, the antifragile leader will look at the future and then re-engineer the project or deliverable to the milestones and tasks documented in the project plan to determine the gaps in coverage. Further the antifragile leader will be an opportunist or risk-taker. But this has to be conditioned based on the budget, schedule and support from the stakeholders. The leader or program manager has to aggressively manage the risks on the project as a badge of honor. The leader recognizes a sense of thrill and adventure on the project, knowing that he or she is learning something new, taking the first in a different course, or is charged with additional responsibility to be on a mission, such as a captain of a starship. The successful leader can be an academic, but has to have some skin in the game, and be well versed in the practices, tools and technology of project management.  The leader has to use the objective and narrative of the project to drive success and use it for motivation. He or she is not there to use scare techniques to obtain success. Instead, due to the significance of the project, he or she has access to the broad domain of the business and resources that have been assigned to the project or group of projects to succeed.

Another question, must the successful program leader have a very deep background of the business? Is it necessary to have training or a knowledge of project management principles? Can the leader succeed without an in-grained understanding of project management? If I can paraphrase, Taleb, it is my understanding that little understanding of the business or project management is necessary for the antifragile leader. In fact, it is the broad and vast extensive knowledge of business management or life’s’ experiences which can be used to ensure success.  However, the leader must be able to use rational thought to compare and evaluate outcomes of requirements and be able to take risks by explaining to the stakeholders and developers the outcomes and impact of their coding? As a team, they have to look at the big picture. The leader has to look at the tasks, deliverables and milestone, work with the given resources and know how to evaluate using a methodology, Taleb expresses the risk-taker, to exercise the better option. The project becomes an exercise by the leader in weighing each of the options whether to use this material or not, whether to put these deliverables before or after these, when to take risk or not and how much risk is enough to get success? His trader methodology and approach to project management appears to be “No risk, No reward”,  and “Make today count”. These are my words, and not his.

On the other hand, Taleb does not mention that the fragile leader will not succeed. Instead, The fragile leader can succeed as long as they confine themselves to the story, the requirements, scope creep is a “no-no.” They are not aggressive in taking risks, and are guided by the stakeholders and politics of the environment. They are co-pilots in the ship. The pilot is the stakeholder.  However, they need to understand the business theory, environment and project management and their narrow domains. The successful fragile leader can be an academician who views the project as an experiment on a higher calling and uses the enterprise as an experiment. They have to look at the past, subject to overfitting to the past and hate uncertainty. They mine the knowledge base of lessons learned maintained by the project management office or group within the enterprise to provide guideposts to the manager and resources on the project.  Learn from the prior risk takers, and do not fail.

Which leader are you? Do you believe that both types of leader can succeed?