Way back when I was with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), our senior management became very interested in Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Every partner and manager attended an intensive five-day seminar on the seven habits and how to practically implement them into our daily lives.

Now, I have attended many seminars that I honestly got nothing out of. Not this one. This was when I experienced my first 360 evaluation. It was also during this seminar that one of the key concepts left a lasting impression: Habit 3, “Put first things first.” In this habit, Covey introduces the four quadrants of time management, as follows:

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Patty and I have two adult children. Briana, our eldest, is married and has a beautiful son & daughter. Trevor, our youngest, is single, and has a lovable dog.

At age 6, Trevor was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), a high-functioning form of autism. At the time, the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-4) divided autism into five categories (Source: Healthline.com):
* Autistic Disorder
* Rett Syndrome
* Asperger’s Syndrome
* Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
* PDD-NOS

The DSM has since done away with the categories and now just calls it Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), about 1 in 36 children have been identified with ASD and ASD is four times more common in boys than girls. More broadly speaking, the CDC also reports that one in four adults have some type of disability.

Before we had kids, we never envisioned having a child with a disability, and at the time very little was publicly known about autism. As a professional, I had grand plans for a career as a successful corporate executive.

Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men…

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Delivering effectively through others requires project managers to build trusted relationships, particularly when there are bumps in the road and the PM has to ask team members to do unplanned activities to keep things on schedule and budget, and within scope. I’m being intentional in naming this block Relate for Results. Building relationships with your team doesn’t mean you have to socialize with them or that some team members become personal friends. It means the relationship pillars are there to help you deliver what, when and how much you’ve agreed to.

There are common relationship pillars such as honesty, integrity, mindfulness and effective communication you can find in simple internet searches. I’d like to pose a slightly different lens on some pillars that I think are every bit as important, as follows:

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Some time back I was reminded about a crucial attribute that all seasoned leaders possess.  What surprised me was that it didn't come from what I do in my work life, it came from an interaction I had with my then 15-year-old son. 

Sparing you some of the gory details, we had a situation where my son and I had to have some "man talk" where I expressed some displeasure with his behavior.  It wasn't pretty and was very uncomfortable for him and not at all pleasant for me.  Given that I took some huge withdrawals from the emotional bank account with him I recognized that I needed to have a more grounded follow-up discussion with him the next day.  

You’ve likely heard the term reading the room, when a person observes words, tone and actions to get a sense of others’ sentiments and expectations. Most of the great leaders I have worked with and for in my career were exceptional at reading the room. They also used that sense to better understand others through employing empathy.

Dictionary.com defines empathy as the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the emotions, thoughts, or attitudes of another. It’s more than just reading the room, it’s taking what you can glean and adjusting your actions to better meet the situation.

When my father died, we held a five-hour wake for people to come and pay respects. When we first got there, my mother, siblings and I were very sad at losing my father. As the night progressed, we talked more about the good times with him, which was shown by smiles and some laughter. Most of those who attended the wake read the room and were sad when we were sad and laughed when we did. Reading the room was mirrored by empathy.

Empathy doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with the person you are empathizing with; it just means you recognize the person is feeling a particular way and your actions reflect the recognition.

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Paul was a hard-charging project manager who had a reputation with his management for getting things done. He knew the PM fundamentals cold and could use his knowledge to navigate through projects. Ninety percent of the time, Paul was easy to work with. Unfortunately, he was known among his peers and project teams for the 10 percent.

When things got stressful on a project, whether from not meeting schedule, conflicts among team members or unforeseen issues, Paul was unpredictable in his reactions. Sometimes he would be okay with things and manage through the problem; other times he would lash out at others. There was little rhyme or reason for his reactions.

As a result, his teams were always on guard, waiting for a possible bad reaction. Despite his knowledge and ability to deliver, his unpredictable flash points were significant enough that some refused to work on projects with Paul as the PM.

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Emotional intelligence (or emotional quotient, EI or EQ) is widely viewed as a skill that leaders need to master to deliver results through others. According to Harvard Business School (HBS) Online, EI is the ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as recognize and influence the emotions of those around you. The phrase was first used in 1990 by researchers John Mayer and Peter Salovey, and later popularized by psychologist Daniel Coleman.

In addition, according to the United States National Institute of Health (NIH), as of 2019 there were more than 30 different measures of EI. The NIH distinguishes between ability EI, which measures constructs related to an individual’s theoretical understanding of emotions and emotional function; and trait EI, which measures typical behaviors in emotion-relevant situations.

Quite honestly, much of the theory about EI and how it’s measured is pretty heady stuff and, unless you’re an EI wonk, you probably won’t take the time to make sense of it. My purpose in writing about the topic is to break it down to its core elements, apply it to the project management discipline, and help PMs be more effective at getting stuff done through others.

EI is what we as PMs do as a core job discipline; PMs need to focus on and master it early in their careers. I boil EI down to four crucial building blocks, as follows:

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I love baseball.  I love watching the strategies, the big plays, the colossal errors (anyone remember poor Bill Buckner?) and the dramatic finishes.  The Tampa Bay Rays, who in nine of their first ten years of existence finished dead last in their division (In 2004 they managed to beat out one team and finished fourth in their division), surprised everyone in 2008 by beating out such teams as the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees and made it to the World Series only to lose to the Philadelphia Phillies.  Even though they lost the World Series, they were heroes in the eyes of millions who rooted for them and their storybook season. 

One strategy that I particularly enjoy is the use of specialty players, of which the most prevalent is the "closer".  The closer is a pitcher who is brought in for just a very short period of the game (typically the last inning of a game) to shut down opponent hitters and either secure a win for their team or allow a team who is behind to catch up in their last at-bat.