E.F. Hutton was a financial brokerage firm founded in 1904 by brothers Edward Francis and Frankly Laws Hutton. In the 1970s, E.F. Hutton created an advertising campaign with the slogan, “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” The slogan implied that E.F. Hutton didn’t mince words, and that any advice given was valuable. For me, it ranks right up there with “Two all-beef patties…” and “Plop plop, fizz fizz…” Now that I’ve planted a couple of commercial jingles in your head that you may be singing the rest of the day, let’s get into how this is relevant to being a great project manager. In my early days as a consultant, I mistakenly believed that my job was to tell, that the client was expecting me to talk on any topic and espouse my wisdom. As a result, I tended to use a lot of words to communicate what I thought needed to be communicated. As I grew, I noticed those who were particularly impactful at getting their point across. They didn’t simply fill the air with words; it was quite the opposite. They sat back and listened while others did the talking, then, when ready to speak, came into the conversation with a profound question or statement that caused others to think. What they said was concise, relevant and thought-provoking. I also noticed something else--whenever that person spoke, others generally stopped talking to yield the floor. People like that make their words count. They have what I call a high value per word. Read more at ProjectManagement.com.
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Mr. Creosote. Some of you may know the name. He was a character in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. Portrayed by Terry Jones, Mr. Creosote ate and drank massive quantities in a French restaurant. At the end of the meal, the server (played by John Cleese) offered Mr. Creosote a wafer-thin mint. After some objection, Mr. Creosote agreed to eat the mint, which caused an unfortunate reaction. Those of you who know the skit (or just searched for it) know my description cleaned things up quite a bit. While most could have easily eaten the small mint without any adverse consequence, for Mr. Creosote it was just too much to handle. He had hit a saturation point. This analogy applies directly to how much newness an organization can absorb before things start breaking. It’s the organization’s saturation point. Read more at ProjectManagement.com. Recently, my wife and I were watching a college football game between two highly ranked teams. Deep into the third quarter, only a few points separated the two teams. The quarterback took the snap, scrambled while looking for someone to pass to, and let the ball fly. The ball was intercepted by a linebacker and, with three teammates as an escort to block opposing players, made his way to the end zone. The linebacker, thinking he was in the end zone, dropped the ball to celebrate with his teammates. Upon replay, the linebacker dropped the ball at the 1-yard line—and a quick-thinking opposing team player pounced on the ball while the linebacker and his teammates reveled in what they thought was a touchdown. Then the referee signaled “fumble with recovery by the defense” at the 1-yard line. The look on the linebacker’s face was one of “Oh, $*&$!” after he learned his all-but-guaranteed touchdown would now go down as a fumble with a recovery by the opposing team. Even worse was the fact that two of the linebacker’s teammates ran by the ball bouncing at the 1-yard line, more focused on the celebration than the ball. Fortunately for the linebacker, his team still went on to win the game. Afterward, the head coach was being interviewed. He stressed the importance of doing the little things right—including not dropping the ball before hitting the end zone. I can only imagine the conversations that the linebacker had with his coaches after the game. Read more at ProjectManagement.com. Years back, I hired a person I’ll call Del who came highly regarded with a strong resume. Del went through an interview loop that included one of my peer directors. I got my peer’s feedback—along with a “no hire” recommendation. After talking with my peer, I decided to hire Del anyway. Del made an almost immediate positive impact with the client organization he serviced. Shortly thereafter, though, I started hearing rumblings from Del’s peers within my organization about how he constantly said how busy he was and that he should not have to do some of the things his peers were expected to do. Worse still, Del claimed that he should have special treatment because he was more experienced than his peers. Needless to say, this did not sit well at all with the rest of my organization. Del was very competent in his skills, but the negative impact he had on the rest of the team far outweighed the benefit he provided. I thought back to the discussion with my peer and her no-hire recommendation. She warned me that Del might be disruptive to my organization, which was the basis for her recommendation. The bottom line was that I should have listened to my peer and not hired Del. It wasn’t worth the upheaval in my org. Read more at ProjectManagement.com.
No show, third in a row. Anna, a PM, holds a weekly Zoom status meeting with Jade, the project sponsor. At the beginning of the project, Jade was a great partner and a strong supporter for Anna. As the project went on, Jade’s involvement became more and more sporadic. Sometimes she responded to emails, other times she didn’t. Anna sent Jade status reports and rarely got responses. The rest of the project team noticed Jade’s declining involvement and was growing concerned. “Does Jade still care?” Anna would hear from the team. Anna, a professional, did her best to keep the team motivated and engaged, but she too was wondering what to make of Jade’s disappearing act. *** *** *** I’ve been a sponsor, worked as a PM with sponsors, and advised both sponsors and PMs. By and large, sponsors and PMs are both trying to do the right thing—understand a problem, figure out how to solve it, and work together to implement a solution that addresses the problem. Even with the best of intentions of all concerned, the sponsor/PM dance can feel more like one is doing a jitterbug and the other a waltz. Often, it’s the PM who sees the difference and has trouble getting the sponsor to take the same steps. This is not only frustrating, but can materially impact—if not completely tank—the project. Before we get too far down the road on this topic, I’d like to lock down a number of assumptions regarding the sponsor: Read more at ProjectManagement.com
So let’s talk about over-used terms for a minute.
If you’ve been in the business world for any length of time you’ve likely heard your management espouse the desire for employees to achieve greater work/life balance. Many U.S. companies have adopted programs to help employees strike a better life balance by providing health club benefits, entertainment discount programs, and additional time off for events such as the birth of a child. Despite all this, Americans are of the most overworked and flat-out busy people on earth, recently surpassing the Japanese and long surpassing the Europeans. With all this discussion of work/life balance, how can we in the U.S. also be of the most overworked people in the world? The answer is pretty simple; many of us talk work/life balance, but don’t live work/life balance primarily because we don’t know how to do it.
As of this article, my wife and I are in process of buying a car. We are looking for a very specific model with “must-have” features, like exterior color and interior appointments. At one dealer in particular, the salesperson was clearly trying to endear himself to me, wanting to talk about things that I wouldn’t generally talk about with someone I just met—and had nothing to do with buying a car. Now, I’m a relational guy and love to learn more about people—but I can also tell when someone is manipulating me. His dis-ingenuousness made me not want to work with him. I was looking to buy a car and wanted to stay focused on what needed to be done to buy the car, but the salesperson was trying to work me. I ended up walking away and will avoid doing business with the salesperson in the future. You might be asking what buying a car has to do with being a project manager. So much of what a project manager does is about relationships—guiding and working with others to deliver something on time, on budget, and within scope. However, relationships aren’t one size fits all. Depending on the situation and the parties involved, I’ve found that relationships can take on one of three forms, as follows: Read more at ProjectManagement.com. |
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April 2024
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