EQ4PM

Forrester Research Puts Emotional Intelligence At Top Of List of PM Capabilities

A recent article in CIO magazine emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence to IT project managers.  The article refers to a recent report from Forrester Analyst Mary Gerush titled, "Define, Hire and Develop Your Next Generation Project Managers".  As a result of her research, Analyst Gerush published a list of the top 10 Capabilities of Next Generation Project Managers.   

I am not sure exactly what Ms. Gerush meant by "Next Generation Project Managers" or how helpful I find that distinction.  In my experience, these key capabilties apply to all project managers, current and Next Generation. 

Strikingly, emotional intelligence dominates the list of 10 capabilities needed by these Next Generation Project Managers.  Not only was Emotional Intelligence listed as the #1 capability, the next three were all part of the Framework for Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers.  For more background on emotional intelligence for project managers, read these previous posts. 

#1 - Emotional Intelligence: The ability to pick up on events and interactions (both verbal and non-verbal) and to process those inputs in the context of the project plan.  (Note:  These are addressed in the framework in the domains of Self-awareness and Social Awareness.)

#2 - Adaptive Communication: The ability to articulate one's ideas--whether orally or in writing--to a range of individuals, groups and cultures using the most effective communication techniques for each group. (Note:  This is addressed in the framework under the domain of Team Leadership.)

#3 - People Skills: The ability to quickly build and maintain positive relationships with team-members and stakeholders. (Note:  This is addressed in the framework under the domain of Relationship Management.)

#4 - Management Skills: The ability to serve, motivate and focus a team and to foster collaboration among team members.  (Note:  This is addressed in the framework under the domain of Team Leadership.)

If you want to immediately make an impact on your own capabilities in these 4 areas, you can read through the previous posts on this site and boost your understanding of emotional intelligence and how to apply it to project management.

Here are the rest of the 10 capabilities of Next Generation Project Managers as defined in the article at CIO Magazine: 

#5 - Flexibility: The willingness and ability to change one's approach to project management and/or course of action in response to business needs.

#6 - Business Savvy: Knowledge of the organization's business, strategy and industry. Ability to understand a strategy and align tactical work around that strategy.

#7 - Analytical Skills: The ability to think through problems and decisions.

#8 - Customer Focus: The ability to understand the end-user or end customer's needs and the drive to ensure that projects meet those needs.

#9 - Results-Orientation: The ability to get things done efficiently and effectively.

#10 - Character: The project manager should have an appealing personality and a strong moral and ethical character.

You can order a copy of the report from Forrester here:  Define, Hire and Develop Your Next Generation Project Managers.  Just be prepared to shell out $499.  As an alternative, you could buy my book (Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers) at Amazon.com for $13.57 and save yourself $485.  That seems pretty intelligent to me.  But then again, I think I might be a Last Generation Project Manager.

Cheers!

Anthony

Build Effective Relationships...with Everyone

This post is part of my series called "Soft Skills for Hard Time; How to be Your Best When the Economy is a Mess".  My goal is to get you to appreciate that your security comes from within and you can increase your security and value to the marketplace by investing in your soft skills.

In the movie the Godfather II, Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, says that his father taught him to "keep his friends close and his enemies closer".

 

I think the point he was trying to make is that we need to build effective relationships with others.  In particular, we need to be attentive to building relationships with those we don't consider our friends, who don't like us or we don't like, those who are different from us, or those who intimidate us. 

Think about the spectrum of people that you interact with on a regular basis.  At the highest level, you have the ones that you like and the ones you don't like.  Of that second group, you have people that you don't know very well, people that you are sure don't like you, people that are too busy too spend time with you, people that are self-focused and disinterested in you and your success, and the people who for any reason seem to send out a signal that says "please go away and stay away".  (BTW, I used to send those signals myself.) 

It is natural for us to spend the majority of our time with people we DO LIKE and that LIKE US and to avoid or spend no time with people that we DON'T LIKE or DON'T LIKE US.  While it might be natural, this may be the exact opposite of how we should approach relationships.

In the past year, I worked for 3 different companies and led 2 different projects and 3 programs.  With the exception of two people, every resource on those 5 teams was a brand new relationship for me.  I am probably unique in terms of project managers.  But I think I know something about building stakeholder relationships and doing it quickly and effectively.  I make relationship-building a priority because it is critical to my success.  

I still struggle though when it comes to building relationships with certain people.  I put them last on my list when returning calls. I dread my next interaction with them.  I grind my teeth when they speak up at meetings.  My stomach turns when I see their caller id on my phone.   

The Godfather knew what he was talking about when he said to 'keep your enemies closer'.  I admit that I struggle with this but I do know the way out - we need to invest in those relationships that are difficult.  This means to invest in getting to know the people that are tough instead of avoiding them.

There are a couple of tools that I use to help with this - a strengths and weakness assessment and a stakeholder matrix.  I will talk about strengths and weaknesses in an upcoming post.  Read on for more information about using a stakeholder matrix.

The stakeholder matrix is a helpful way to collect and organize information about our team, sponsor, key contributors and any other stakeholders involved in our projects and programs.  Some of the key pieces of information I recommend collecting includes:

• Stakeholder Priority 
• Position toward you (positive, neutral, negative) 
• Role on the Project 
• Stakeholder Objectives 
• Facts, Passion, and Areas of Interest 
• Communications Style

The key benefit that I see in the use of the matrix is to keep us honest.  By putting it together in one place, we can get a clear view of the state of our relationships.  When we begin to look across our projects and programs and compare our relationships, we can see the patterns where we have inconsistencies in relationships.  Sometimes we think we do a good job with all our relationships, however, without some sort of tracking mechanism, we don’t really know. 

I often have workshop participants complete the stakeholder matrix as an exercise.  Inevitably, they are surprised at how little they know about specific team members or other stakeholders. 

 

You can download a blank stakeholder analysis template from my website here.  Use it to catalog your current relationships and identify those that are in the most trouble or are the most challenging to build.  Then, one relationship at a time, take steps to address those relationships that are hardest for you or in the worst shape. 

Action Steps:

1. Download the stakeholder analysis tool and complete it for your current project or team.
2. Identify those relationships that are difficult for you and what it is that makes them difficult.  It is because people don't like you, they avoid you, you are intimidated, or they are too busy?  Try to be as specific as possible.  Rank order the relationships from best to worst.
3. Pick just one of those relationships to start with and make an investment.  There are plenty of posts on relationship building here on this blog to give you ideas.  But the simplest way to build the relationship is to spend some time with the other person.
4. Treat your relationship building efforts as a game.  Give yourself points every day when you do well and deduct points when you don't.  Have fun with it.

Please stop back and post a comment about your relationship building struggles and successes.   

Cheers!

Anthony

 

More Research on Emotional Intelligence and Project Management

Last week I wrote about a couple of research projects that are currently underway to study the relationship between emotional intelligence and different types of leadership in project managers.  I encouraged all project managers to participate to help with the research.

       

These were only two of six research projects that I have learned about.  Two other projects that have not yet reached the survey phase are described below.  I have requested that Chris Haigh and Donnisha Beverly please let me know when they enter the research phase and I will post the links to their survey and any relevant updates here.

#3 - Benefits of Emotional Intelligence in Project Managers

This research is on emotional intelligence in project management, the benefits that can be offered, and how much is intuitive.  The objective is to determine whether emotional intelligence is an intuitive ability amongst skilled project managers, must it be taught or trained, or is it an application of common sense?
 
There are two two key objectives to this study:

1. To determine how many project managers are aware of emotional intelligence, and how many deliberately use it as a tool.
2. To discover if project managers not aware of emotional intelligence as a concept, still intuitively perform the same basic principles.

Researcher:  Chris Haigh

Warwick University, UK
chris.j.haigh@googlemail.com

#4 - Perception of IT Leaders' Emotional Intelligence

This research will help to evaluate the employee's perception of IT leaders' emotional intelligence and the influence of IT leaders' EI on employee job performance.

Researcher:  Donnisha Beverly

University of Phoenix
grafixdzyner@comcast.net

I look forward to hearing more about these research projects and I will keep you posted.

Cheers!

Anthony

EQ Research - Surveys Underway Now

I am honored that recently several different individuals have contacted me about research projects being conducted on emotional intelligence and project managment or leadership.  There are currently six different studies on these topics and I am excited about the findings that will come from this work.  Some of the research has been completed and the findings will be made available here on this blog in the near future.  Other studies are just getting underway or are in the survey phase. 

It is that second group of researchers that could use your support as their surveys get underway.  This is where you get a chance to participate, to learn more about yourself, and to get insights into how you compare with your peers.  So I would like to invite you (even challenge you) to participate in the following two studies that are currently underway.

#1 - Emotional Intelligence and Transformational Leadership for Project Managers

The research study focuses on identifying the relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Transformational Leadership for Project Managers.  The outcome of this research will address the knowledge gap that exists around the relationship between our emotions and the type of leadership we exercise in our work place and our projects.  The survey is currently active – please visit the following link to participate:  http://www.emotionsandleadership.com

Researcher:  Dereje Tessema, PMP, CFEA, dereje.tessema@waldenu.edu

#2 - Emotional Intelligence, transactional, transformational, and laissez-faire leadership within a virtual team environment of IS project managers.

In today’s information systems (IS) environment, the projects become intricate making the project managers as change leaders instead of task masters. Despite the rich literature on management and leadership, the current project management framework does not underscore the importance of project leadership for success. Besides, the project manager’s role is further compounded in the virtual team structures enabled by collaboration tools like video and telephone conferences, Internet messenger (IM), email, and online meetings. Therefore, this study attempts to evaluate the relationship of the various dimensions of emotional intelligence and the laissez-faire, transactional, and transformational leadership styles of project managers.

This survey is currently active.  If you hold the PMP certification and work in the IS field with virtual teams, Sriram would very much appreciate it if you would take the survey at:   http://www17.brinkster.com/shreesundar/survey

Researcher:  Sriram Rajagopalan, PMP, sundarinusa@yahoo.com

I am going to be posting more about the other research projects in the very near future.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Cheers!

Anthony

Go for Personal Satisfaction, not Comfort!

This post is one of the first in a new series that I call "Soft Skills for Hard Time; How to be Your Best When the Economy is a Mess".  My goal is to get you to appreciate that your security comes from you and you can increase your security and value to the marketplace by investing in your soft skills.

Given the choice, many of us orient to comfort as a primary objective.  Our natural tendency is to try to make ourselves comfortable.  This is counter to what is actually good for us for our own growth and our own long term job security.

This post is very closely related to my previous (The Sum of All Fears = Stunted Growth).  As mentioned in that previous item, I have found that I grew the most when I pushed through my fear or put myself in tough situations.  Conversely, when I was comfortable in a job, such as at IBM, I was not learning and growing.  And more importantly, not adding as much value to my customers. 

So I have learned that for me, feelings of comfort and familiarity are not desirable, in fact, they are dangerous to my career.  That is one of the reasons that I grew to love project management so much – projects have a beginning and an end.  Even long projects will come to an end and I will need to seek out something new.

Think about what happened with Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars movie.  Was he living up to his potential on that remote planet with his Aunt and Uncle?  No; he was destined to be a star figher and a Jedi Knight.  But what did it take for him to leave his sleepy home planet and join the resistance?  He was forced to do this when his enemies killed his family and burned his home.  They had essentially burned his boats behind him leaving him little choice but to move forward, out of his comfort zone.

A parallel for me is when I left very comfortable consulting positions because I recognized that I was no longer being challenged.  I have done this three times in the last six years.  In two cases, I even left those comfortable PM consulting engagements without having another engagement lined up!  I literally left the projects without having another job.  Here is the irony - in both of these cases, the very next opportunity I landed were the best two opportunities of my career.  These two projects remain the highlights of my career and my resume.  If I hadn’t quit the comfortable jobs, I would not have landed either of these great projects.  This was essentially burning my boats behind me – quitting these jobs without having an alternative.

The choice is obvious then if you want to grow as a project manager and a leader and to become more valuable to your employer and customers.  You need to stop seeking comfort.  You may even need to push yourself out of your comfort zone even to the point where you are burning your boats boats behind you (though stopping short of killing your family of course).

What is it you are most afraid of losing right now?  Do you have a comfortable management position with a safe and stable company?  I have come to believe that our security comes from our capabilities and our resume, not from our employers or our stock accounts.  Your comfortable position with a large stable company may actually put you more at risk than those of us who are uncomfortable on a daily basis on our consulting engagements.

You may have heard of the list of 100 Lessons Learned for Project Managers that was written by Jerry Madden, former Flight Director of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.  In his list of 100 lessons, Madden makes the following point about comfortable project managers:

“A comfortable project manager is one waiting for his next assignment or one on the verge of failure. Security is not normal to project management.”

Instead of seeking comfort, we should seek our own satisfaction.  In every situation, we should be monitoring our own level of satisfaction and using that as an internal gauge for whether we are doing the right thing.  My mentor Rich Blue calls this going for our 100% satisfaction.  If you seek to get 100% satisfaction out of every meeting, presentation, project assignment, and workshop, you won’t have to worry about feeling comfortable.  Being satisfied is a higher value than being comfortable. 

Action Steps:

1. Evaluate, on a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable you are in your current position?  Is your comfort justified?  What is the cost?
2. On that same scale, what is your level of satisfaction with your current job?
3. What are the boats that you need to burn?  What is it that you have that keeps you from going for more? 

Cheers!

Anthony

[Apple – (Steve Jobs) = Dell]

I don’t normally follow the market too closely but recently noticed that the value of my Apple stock was declining faster than the overall market.  Analysts have speculated that concerns over Steve Job’s health and lack of viable successor have caused the decline.  The thinking goes like this: with Jobs, Apple is able to produce hot-selling products, such as the MacBook, that sell for 2X what competitors like Dell are able to charge.  Without Jobs, Apple’s products (and stock value) are on par with Dell’s.

If the analysts are correct about the reasons for the drop in stock value, the market has placed the cost of the lack of viable succession plan for Steve Job’s in the range of $5B to $8B.  Forks, that is a lot of iPhones and iPods.

The articles I read reminded me of the value of succession planning for project managers and other leaders.  Do you have a viable succession plan?  Do you recognize the cost to you and your team if you don’t?  If you are the one indispensable part of your team, then you limit the team’s ability to take on new challenges.  You have also limited your ability to take on new challenges. 

For those of you who do not have a succession plan, my guess is that you are scared.  I know for me, I like to be perceived as the guy who gets it done.  My dark secret is that I fantasize about being so important and valuable to the team that they cannot live without me.  I want nothing more than to hear, “we couldn’t do it without you Anthony”, or, “you are the key to our success”.  This line of thinking believes that if someone else could step into my shoes, then I must not be very valuable. 

Of course, that is really just my ego talking and that would be a very foolhardy approach.  I probably acted that way when I was in the early part of my career, but now I know better.  I don’t want to be the critical linchpin of the team.  What I want is to create the most effective team possible and turn them loose to achieve the goals of my customers.  In the process, I want them to grow in their abilities and I want to continue to grow as a project manager and leader.

I think I am doing a pretty good job of succession planning.  For example, I have been leading a large IT program since June of this year.  Two weeks ago, I offered to take on a leadership role for two troubled projects and I transitioned the IT program to my deputy.  We made the transition in a week with very little formal communication. 

I think the reason for the smooth transition was that we had prepared for this.  I had delegated a large share of the project management and leadership responsibilities to him.  I let him lead; rather, I expected him to lead and supported him to step up to leadership in various areas.  He ran the daily standup calls.  He ran the overall program schedule.  And he was my backup when I was not in the office.  Even though he was my subordinate, he was able to quickly step up to overall leadership for the program because we had shared the leadership and program management roles.

I challenge you to pause and to evaluate your own succession planning.  Are you grooming the team under you so that one or more of them can take over for you?  Are you delegating work, giving them assignments, and assessing their strengths and weaknesses on a regular basis?

If you are not, evaluate what it is that you fear.  Do you fear being replaceable or being replaced?  Do you fear not being perceived as valuable?  The cost to you and your team may not be in the billions of dollars, but I guarantee you that it is pretty high.

Cheers!

Anthony

You Can Do Anything You Want On Your Last Day at Work – Part 2

A couple of weeks back, I posted about Bill Gates and the video he made regarding his upcoming last day at Microsoft.  I complimented Bill on his self-confidence and his willingness to have a laugh at his own expense.  I also noted the importance of being able to laugh at ourselves as a sign of strong self-confidence. 

Bill’s video and his willingness to show his flaws demonstrates another key aspect of leadership – selectively revealing weaknesses.  This may seem like a rather minor leadership trait but one that has been shown to be important in leadership studies conducted by Victor Dulewicz and Malcolm Higgs. 

You may remember my previous posts (1, 2 and 3) about Dulewicz and Higgs and their work with the Leadership Dimensions Questionnaire.  They have shown that revealing weaknesses is a key aspect of  effective leaders.  It relates directly to the managerial competencies of Engaging Communications and the emotional intelligence competencies of Interpersonal Sensitivity and Self-Awareness.

This finding of Dulewicz and Higgs is based in part on the 2006 book, Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? , by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones.  In their book, Goffee and Jones talk about the importance for leaders to communicate to their followers some form of personal weakness.  Effective leaders show who they truly are, warts and all.  This serves to make the leader more human and therefore more approachable and likable.  It serves to establish trust and credibility with followers.  The leader seems more authentic than they would if they were not revealing any weaknesses, and that is desired (or perhaps demanded) by followers.

"The desire to be led by a real person demands that we know something of a leader's human foibles and shortcomings." 
- Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

This runs counter to our natural inclination to build ourselves up and try to look our best.  Goffee and Jones say that those leaders that don’t let themselves show any sign of weakness are either perceived as a phony or as someone that doesn’t take any risks. 

What Bill Gates did in this video, and has done over his tenure as CEO and Chairman of Microsoft, is to show that he is fallible and human.  It’s not that he isn’t brilliant or that he doesn’t take his work seriously.  It is because he is able to show that he isn’t superhuman; he is a human like the rest of us.

Those leaders who are unwilling to reveal a weakness may find that their subordinates make one up for them.  It’s like the celebrities and stars being followed around by the tabloids and papparazi; if they can’t find something to write about, they will fill in the blanks or make something up.  Don’t leave your subordinates in the lurch; give them something.

Part of our communication challenge as project managers and leaders is to let people see the real us at work.  We need to show them that we have weaknesses too.  Here are some examples from various leaders in the public realm:

• As President, Bill Clinton revealed a weakness for junk food and women. He probably should have just stuck with the junk food.
• Ronal Reagan was also a very popular President despite his confessed lack of memory and details and his love of jelly beans.  

A leader that I respect and admire is Bill Hybels, the senior pastor at my church. He has done a great job of sharing flaws that make him human without diminishing his leadership abilities.  Here are some of the weaknesses he has shared:

• He says he is of Dutch origins and therefore very cheap
• He is a complete pushover for his new grandson
• He lacks artistic talent even though he frequently makes flip chart drawings during his talks
• He is not a "hugger"

As Bill has shown, the key is to reveal weaknesses that make you human without taking away from your leadership skills.  It is similar to the challenge you face when you interview for a job and the interviewer asks about your weaknesses.  This is not the time to share that you frequently “borrow” company supplies for personal use, that you sleep late and miss important meetings, or that you have a string of sexual harassment suits pending against you.  This is the time to share some real but not lethal weakness.

Goffee and Jones say to never expose a weakness that would be seen as a fatal flaw.  In other words, it needs to be a real weakness but just the right weakness. 

"Knowing which weakness to reveal, and when, is often a highly honed art closely linked to the ability to sense the requirements of different situations." 
- Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

This is time to share something that is an understandable weakness and one that is tangential to your work efforts.  As a project manager, you would not want to say that you are disorganized or that you have poor people skills.  If you are in IT, you would not want to share that you are not good with technology. 

Here are some weaknesses that I have heard people share:

• They are uncomfortable speaking in front of large groups (unless you are a speaker or trainer)
• They sometimes get so involved in the details that they lose track of time
• They collect porcelain pigs
• They can not remember people’s names
• That they are scared of heights or hate to fly in airplanes

One more caution about these flaws; the flaw must be real and genuine, otherwise the leader will be perceived as inconsistent or dishonest.  For example, I once saw a senior executive in an organization who broke into tears during an emotional discussion.  His employees viewed his tears as manipulative and didn’t trust him.

My challenge to you is to determine if you are trying to be too perfect.  Are you showing your weaknesses to your followers or trying to be a super-project manager?  Let me know what you think.

If you didn't see Bill's video about his last day, here is the link.

Cheers!

Anthony
 

I'll Give You Something To Cry About and Other Emotional BS

It's a wonder we are as emotionally healthy as we are when you consider that the primary way that most of us learned about emotions was from our parents.  Some of the things our parents taught us about emotions or modeled for us were just plain wrong and unhealthy.  While I think my own case was perhaps extreme, I have talked to enough people to believe that MOST of our parents unwittingly taught us things that were worthless and in some cases counter to what would be healthy.  Just like the rule about waiting an hour after you eat before swimming, our parents simply taught us what they thought was right.  Or they modeled what they had learned from their parents.

Here is a list of some of the things I heard growing up as well as some things that others have told me they heard. 

Common Parental Messages about Emotions

Sadness

• I'll give you something to cry about
• There is no crying in baseball
• Don't cry, everything is going to be OK
• Big boys don't cry
• Don't be sad, everything is going to be OK
• Stop it you big crybaby

Self-Confidence

• Don't brag
• Don't be too cocky
• Who died and put you in charge?

Fear

• You better be scared!
• I'll give you something to be scared about
• I am going to send you to a juvenile home / call the police
• If you don't do this, I am going to beat you!
• Come on, don't be a scaredy cat.

Happy / Excited

• Why are you all happy?
• Calm down / quiet down / quiet down right now or else
• Take it easy

Anger

• Don't get angry
• Don't let anyone get to you
• Don't let them get your goat

Expressing Emotions

• If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
• Children should be seen and not heard.
• Don't say that or you will upset your father/mother

So learning about emotional intelligence often starts with unlearning what we were taught, and breaking unhealthy bad habits.  It is not easy work.  Sometimes these patterns and reactions are so deeply ingrained in us that we don't even recognize them.  In their book Promoting Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, Gary Cherniss and Mitchel Adler contrast emotional with cognitive learning and the challenges of emotional learning.

"Emotional incompetence often stems from habits learned early in life.  These automatic habits are set in place as a normal part of living, as experience shapes the brain...When habits are strong, the underlying neural connections become the brain's default option- what a person does automatically and spontaneously often with little or no awareness that a menu of possible responses is available."
-Gary Cherniss and Mitchel Adler 

The only way to break these patterns and improve our emotional intelligence is with the help of someone else; a friend, spouse, classmate or coach.  I learned through a mentor and a group of 10 men and women that I met with every week for four and a half years!  Though I consider my case an extreme one, we all need feedback to see that we are acting in unhealthy ways and support to make the necessary changes.

I'd love to hear what you think.  What did you learn from your parents?  What are you teaching and modelling for your children?

Cheers!

Anthony

People Hate Their Jobs?

I read a post over at Ellen Weber's Brain Based Business blog that made me sad.  The post was called Top 10 Reasons People Hate Work.  It talks about some of the challenges that people face at work, like relationship problems, lack of problem resolution and goal achievement, negative and verbally abusive people, and stress.

I don't take exception to any of these problems.  Nor do I believe that these types of work environments don't exist because they certainly do.  What makes me sad is that people continue to work in these types of environments or in environments that they hate.  That is depressing.  That sounds like poor choices, victim-hood, or self-abuse.  Why would people do that to themselves?  It is a choice, after all.

Ellen closed her post with a challenge: What other reasons do people give for hating their work – that you could suggest a strategy to solve?

In the spirit of the current presidential debates, I am not going to answer the question that Ellen asked.  I don't want to think about other reasons that people give for hating their jobs.  I think it gets us to focus on the negative. 

Instead, I would suggest that we re-frame the question by moving from victim-hood and self-abuse to responsibility.  Here are some questions we can use to shift the focus from victim-hood to responsibility:

• How am I contributing to the current situation at work?
• What can I do differently to make a positive impact?
• How can I manage my emotions to stay positive in a negative or toxic environment?
• How can I change the tone or mood at work?

The key to moving away from victim-hood is to focus on the positive steps that we can take.  These may include personal stress management, cutting back on work hours, and avoiding or confronting negative and verbally abusive people.  We can also seek help from our manager, the HR department, or even reach out to co-workers who want to stay positive and healthy.

As a last step, consider a job change.  If you have done what you can to stay positive, manage yourself, and change your work environment, then you should seriously consider changing companies or jobs.  Why would you want to work at a place or job that you hate?  Doing so says a lot more about you than those you work with.  And if you are attracted to that environment or choose to stay even when you hate it, it would lead me to believe you were part of the problem.

Emotional Boundaries Paper posted on www.ALLPM.com

The theme of the month over at the ALLPM.com newsletter is "Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers".  I was delighted to be invited to submit an article on the topic and to get to know Judy Umlas, co-Editor of ALLPM.com, publisher at IIL, and executive director of learning innovations at IIL.  If you are reading this blog, this topic is probably of interest to you and I want to encourage you to check out ALLPM.com.

Though I didn't meet him, Dr. Al Zeitoun submitted his paper for the current ALLPM.com newsletter titled, Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers.  Dr. Zeitoun is a senior executive of IIL and frequent speaker at PMI events worldwide.

The article I submitted was about emotional boundaries for project managers.  The paper discusses what emotional boundaries are and then shows how they can cause conflict in the project environment.  It provides some indicators or warning signs of when there are boundary issues and concludes with six tips that project managers can use to improve their emotional boundaries.

I have also been supplying ALLPM.com with a steady stream of project management "Tips of the Day" related to emotional intelligence.  You can check out the current emotional intelligence tip of the day here or see all of the tips that were provided this month by going to the emotional intelligence tip archives.

Finally, I wanted to share the current results of the mini-poll that ALLPM is running on their site.  The question was, "How Important is emotional intelligence to your success as a PM"?  Here is a snapshot of the results after 13 days and 77 votes.  Not surprising, the majority of project managers felt it was either critically important or very important (68 of 77 votes).   If you have not already voted, please visit ALLPM.com and place your vote.

 

As always, I welcome your comments and questions.