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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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. Micromanage: to manage or control with excessive attention to minor details Source: dictionary.com I’ve been a micromanager, been micromanaged, and advised clients on how to avoid micromanaging and being micromanaged. To help peel back the onion on micromanagement and what to do about it, I’d like to start with a concept in my book, Straight A’s, that empowers followers. The Straight A’s focus on five core steps, as follows:
For this to work, both the leader and the follower have to do their parts in each step of the process. For each of the steps, here are responsibilities for both leaders and followers: Read more at ProjectManagement.com. Feedback is a huge part of what I do in my daily life. I give feedback in my role as a consultant to help my client do something better or avoid something bad. Early in my career, I began learning about right and wrong ways to provide feedback. Sometimes I did it okay, other times I really booted it. As a professional, spouse, parent and now grandparent, I’m still learning about how to provide feedback—when to give it, and when to keep my mouth shut. I adopted the mantra, “My job is to tell you what I think; yours is to decide what to do with it.” It gives me freedom to constructively speak my mind, while acknowledging the recipient may or may not use what I told them. When I started writing, I got a better appreciation for the “yours is to decide what to do with it” part of the mantra. I get feedback from you as ProjectManagement.com readers, from book reviewers, and from my editor (who is also my wife). Patty edits virtually everything I write and does an outstanding job of making my work better. Through my career as an author, I had to learn how to be a graceful recipient of feedback—and constructively decide what to do with it. Regardless of how painful the feedback was to hear, I had to recognize it was for my own good. There are four paths a feedback recipient could take: Read more at ProjectManagement.com In my four decades as a professional, I’ve delivered many presentations and keynotes. Some went well, others totally bombed. Through my learnings about both the good and bad, I’ve identified key success factors necessary to create and deliver compelling presentations. The factors, which I call the “4 C’s of Compelling Presentations,” have helped me more effectively get my point across. Let’s dig right in… See more at ProjectManagement.com
Unless you excused yourself for whatever reason you were there for at least fifteen minutes listening to his philosophy. The problem was that Moe was friends with the person managing our contract so we had to put up with him.
Recently, my wife and I were on a social visit with a friend I’ll call Vick. We were enjoying beverages and light chatter when suddenly the topic changed to world events. It was like a light switch turned on, with Vick becoming very animated about the topic, spewing data point after data point, and aggressively quizzing me on whether I had heard about some of the points he was raising. When I replied “no,” his response was incredulous. “You mean you haven’t heard of _____?” he asked, as if I were the only person on Earth who didn’t know what he was talking about. This went on for about an hour before we resumed talking about lighter topics. I thought about the interaction that evening, and the next day texted him a follow-up question. The onslaught resumed, and after a while I decided to disengage because I saw that no good would come of the exchange. I later thought about both the face-to-face and the text interactions, and came up with some important elements that were there—and some that were missing: Read more at ProjectManagement.com
So everything isn't always peachy keen when it comes to working together. At times co-workers are going to get in each others' face and have some conflict. As a bystander, there's some things you can do and not do to help put out the co-worker fire:
Some time back I spent about three hours writing and doing emails at one of our local malls. I love this place because there are lots of tables to sit at and the mall has free wireless access so I can be online all the time. As I was exiting the mall I noticed a woman about 20 feet away from the entrance heading into the mall. As I walked out the door I held the door open for this woman for a few seconds. As she walked by me into the mall she said "WOW!" She was surprised that I actually took three seconds out of my life to hold a door open for a complete stranger. Imagine what I could have done with those three seconds that I wasted :-).
Project management is changing….it's becoming more strategic, more mainstream, and not just synonymous with technology implementations. Today's PM needs to be more than technically adept or be able to whip out a gantt chart. Get a read on some of these crucial skills the everyday PM will need to succeed:
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