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

Living the Dream

I have a bunch of friends who founded a consulting company called Junction Solutions about 6 years ago.  They worked hard and the company has grown exponentially.  As a result, they are all very successful and likely quite wealthy. 

One of the founders is named Jeff.  I talked with Jeff several times about the possibility of joining the company (a decision I sometimes question) and I'll never forget his signature line - "I'm living the dream".  These guys were all working like crazy and sacrificing a lot to make their company successful but they viewed it as fun and as living out their dream. 

I get a little jealous when I hear that they are living the dream.  As I think about my own life and career, more often than not I look like I am in the battle for my life.  I usually look more like I am struggling and fighting for survival than looking like I am thriving and at ease.

This is a lot like my running.  When I run I am generally pushing myself, tired, out of breath, and looking like I need a long nap.  Take a look at this picture below taken moments after finishing the Las Vegas Marathon in December of 2006.  Do I look to you like I am living the dream?

 

In short, no.  I look spent, completely used up, and nearly dead.  Which is exactly how I felt that day in that moment.  I was trying to get a 3:30 marathon time to qualify for the Boston Marathon and on this day, I came up short.  I was utterly exhausted and dehydrated as well.  I had my wife Norma, my brother Scott, and my friend Tim all there to support me and I felt like I let them down because I did not do what I came there to do.  I went all out and I did not achieve my goal.

The thing is, I often work like this as well.  I go all out and wind up looking like I am spent, used up, and just hanging on by a thread.  I don't imagine it is attractive to others and I don't believe it conveys an image of success.  It does not look like I am living the dream.

Or does it?  Is it possible to be spending yourself entirely, to be going all out, to go after your goals with abandon AND to be living the dream at the same time?  Is it possible that this look of exhaustion is also a look of living the dream?

What would living the dream look like for you?  Would it be a smile of contentment as you sit back and relax in a lawn chair sipping a cold drink?  Or would it be the look of near exhaustion as you strive for your goals - whatever they are - without looking backwards or to the side?  Can we be 'in the fight' and 'leaving it all on the field' and living the dream at the same time?

I have come to the conclusion that I am indeed living the dream and I want to be more comfortable telling people that.  After all, I am doing work that is satisfying and rewarding to me.  Like Winston Wolf, I have a reputation for fixing problems.  I am building relationships with people all the time and helping organizations to reach their goals.  I am using the unique gifts and talents that God has given me.  It is a wild ride that often leaves me drained, exhausted, yet somehow satisfied.  If that isn't living the dream, I don't know what is. 

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

 

Tell the Truth - Part 1

This post is part of 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 within and you can increase your security and value to the marketplace by investing in your soft skills.

People laugh when I say that we should tell the truth.  They say that of course you need to tell the truth.  I am not necessarily talking about telling the truth in big ways like, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”.  What I am talking about is truthfulness and integrity across all of our communications.  It also means being able to tell the truth in a way that is responsible and not mean-spirited.  And it means not leaving things out or telling only part of the truth.

I find that I really appreciate people that tell the truth.  In the movie Liar Liar, Jim Carey plays an attorney.  For a short period of time, he cannot tell a lie.  As a result, he finds that both his personal and professional life becomes untenable.  My favorite part of the movie is when he is asked to say something about each of his co-workers gathered together in a conference room.  Since he must tell the truth, he tends to say the things that everyone knows about each other but no one else is willing to say.  Everyone finds it hilarious as he goes around the large conference table saying what everyone has thought about but never said out loud. 

Unless you are ready to make a job change, I suggest that you think twice before you go into work and try to do the same.  But I would contend that people that can tell the truth in a direct and responsible way are valued.  Think about your close friends and co-workers.  Do you value the ones who "tell it like it is" or always let you know where they stand?  I know I do. 

Telling the truth is a key part of the emotional intelligence competence of relationship management.  Truth is critical to effective relationships. 

The challenge for many of us is that we have been taught that telling the truth is not a good idea when it comes to others.  Each of us were taught some rules about what is OK to say and what is not.  Take a look at the following spoken and unspoken rules from my childhood and see if you can predict the impact that the rule had on my ability to tell the truth as an adult.

1. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
2. Children should be seen and not heard.
3. Respect your elders
4. We don't talk about things outside of our family

Look at each of these rules from a “truthfulness” point of view - do you think that these rules would tend to shape children into truth tellers?  Well, no.  In fact, my tendency in the past would have been to say nothing so that I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.  Or, I would leak out my "truth" in a very sarcastic or mean-spirted way. 

If I want to be a strong leader and project manager, I need to be able to tell the truth as directly and responsibly as possible.  Tellling the truth makes me trustworthy, it attracts followers, and helps me to build strong relationships with others.  I know all that but I still find it challenging some times due to my early childhood training. 

Not long ago, I was responsible for a critical IT program and I reported directly to the executive sponsor.  One day prior to a large program review, I received an email from my sponsor's manager "Gary", who was also a critical stakeholder.  Gary said he wanted a program update directly from me.  He said he wanted the unfiltered truth about the state of the program.   

I was flattered and excited.  He wants to hear from me!  Wow, I must be important.  We had the call on a Friday morning, before a broader program review with my sponsor and other key stakeholders.   I was pretty blunt and straightforward when I shared my thoughts and recommendations with Gary.  I think I may even have quietly congratulated myself on what a good truth-teller I had become.  I did not, however, tell my sponsor about the call.

Later that day, in the middle of the broader program review, Gary dropped a bomb.  Out of nowhere he said something like "this was one of the things that I asked Anthony about when we spoke this morning".  Ouch!  I did not see that coming.  My sponsor didn't say anything (out loud), but his body language spoke volumes!  In fact, he did not say another word to me that day. 

It was clear that he didn't like being blindsided.  Duh!  I should have let him know I was going to talk with his boss about the program.  I went from feeling like someone important to feeling like a snitch.  I felt like a total schmuck for not telling the complete truth to my sponsor.  

Later that day, I caught up with my sponsor and I apologized for not telling him about the call.  I told him that I would always let him know whenever I had any type of conversation with his boss.  He said that it was OK and I think that I repaired some of the damage, but I know that my actions that day cost me big time in terms of his trust.

So do you think you are good at telling the truth or in need of some help?  Here are some action steps to help you improve in this area.

1. What are the spoken and unspoken messages you learned about telling the truth as you were growing up?  If you don't remember, call your siblings and see if they do.  Dig in to see how those rules affect you and your relationships now as an adult.  
2. What are those areas where you are challenged to be entirely truthful?  What can you do to be more truthful?

Go Ahead, Make Me Laugh

I have to say that I really appreciate my current boss.  And some of my key team members.  You know why?  They make me laugh.

The ability to make others laugh is a rare and valuable commodity.  I have never been more appreciative of this than lately in the zaniness of the real estate and stock market meltdowns and the crumbling of venerable financial institutions.  Someone who can see humor in the situation or create fun when others are getting tense provides sustaining value and a welcome relief. 

I talked about the importance of appropriate humor as a way to manage our emotions in my book.  It is a great way to reduce your stress levels which is a key to emotional self-management.  It is also helpful for building relationships with others when you show that you don't take yourself too seriously and are able to laugh along with others.  So it helps with relationship management as well.  Both self-management and relationship management are key competencies in the EQ framework for project management.

Do you encourage humor on your projects?  Have you enrolled someone on your project team to be responsible for humor?  Do you have someone in charge of making other laugh?  Have you made it part of their job description?  Perhaps you should think about it. 

On the flip side, do you have people on your team who cannot laugh?  Do you have people that think it would be best to eliminate humor from the workplace?  I had someone like this recently and I realized just how poisonous that one individual was to my entire team.  This particular individual's fear and anger prevented them from being able to laugh and in the process, they impacted the entire team.  Lack of sense of humor is not something you can fire someone for but perhaps you can find ways to get that person on board someone else’s team (hopefully a competitor).  Either way, it's best if you can prevent people like this from killing the spirit of fun and enjoyment of everyone else on the team.

I think this is important enough for me to make part of the screening process for new hires or when I am staffing up a new team.  That is, I need to figure out if the candidate has a sense of humor.  I need this attribute in the members of the team.  Don't get me wrong - I need people who are dead serious about their work and the success of the project or program.  And they also need the ability to laugh at themselves and not take themselves too seriously.

Happy holidays!

Anthony

Thanksgiving is not a Project Manager's Holiday

Thanksgiving is a great holiday.  I love all the wonderful food and the enjoyment of family and friends without the obligation of gift giving.  (As Seth Godin wrote, no gifts, no guilt, no doctrine.)  Most of us get a 4-day weekend away from work.  But it is not a holiday for project managers.  In fact, it may be the most stressful holiday a PM can experience.

First of all, you need some planning and organizational skills to pull off a good Thanksgiving event.  Thanksgiving is the superbowl of holidays in that it demands that you work in advance to make the day a success.  You have to plan out the attendees, the menu, the agenda, and even the seating chart.  You have to create a menu and then use that to create a master bill of materials for shopping and a cooking schedule.  You have to shop ahead of time and prepare some dishes days in advance.  How many of us have a story about waking up to a frozen turkey on Thanksgiving morning and doing everything short of microwaving it to make sure dinner was not delayed for hours?  We've learned to develop contingency plans for major risks like this.

Project managers also tend to be control freaks.  We want to make sure we control the event to get just the perfect outcome.  So we are challenged when we rely on others to make the day a success or when we have to give up control to others.  For the most controlling of control freaks, we choose to take on the entire event ourselves.  We want perfect and we don't want to put the fate of our event in the hands of others.  So we do it all ourselves.  We may wind up cooking all day and not really enjoying either the meal or being in relationship with others.  

Our desired to control can also play out when we visit others for Thanksgiving.  In fact, showing up for Thanksgiving dinner at someone else's house can be more stressful than hosting Thanksgiving at our own.  Should I eat beforehand because I never know when they are going to serve dinner and I fear starving to death?  What is the appropriate dish to add to the many that will already be there?  How will I make my dish stand out from the others, so that I can look good?  Are they going to burn the dinner rolls again this year or have the football game blaring so loud that nobody can talk?

The worst part for project manager is seeing others do project management so poorly.  Like not properly planning for the finish-finish dependency on the various cooked items with the turkey.  Or not planning for enough chairs around the table.  Or forgetting to plan out the menu to avoid the last minute trips to the store.  Good project managers are so accustomed to structure and organization that we erroneously believe we need to apply this thinking to Thanksgiving.  Bringing in Thanksgiving dinner on schedule and budget may not be necessary or even desirable. 

Take for example the argument my wife and I nearly always have about how to accomplish a group of tasks.  As a project manager, I recognize that the most efficient use of time and resources is to divide up the tasks and assign them individually so that many tasks can be done in parallel.  This runs me afoul of my wife's approach which is to do things as a group, which of course, is just not very efficient.  When she proposes that we all work together as a team to do this or that, I just want to scream at her about how dumb that is and how much better it would be to divide and conquer. 

Which brings me back to the reason I wrote this post.  Thanksgiving is not a holiday that you need to project manage.  Yes the day could benefit from some basic planning and organization concepts, but, for the most part it doesn't require any of that.  You don't need to labor over a plan and a task list worthy of a D-day invasion, you don't need to have bi-weekly conference calls with your family members and other stakeholders, you don't need to have the day scripted and timed.  Instead, you could ad lib, be spontaneous, and invite others to pitch in and help when and where it is needed. 

I am actually at my best at Thanksgiving when I take a break from those key PM skills to be a human, to engage with those around me, and to be in relationship.  With plenty of therapy and some coaching from my wife, I have come to appreciate that even as a project manager, I can let go a little bit and just enjoy Thanksgiving for what it is.  I have come to expect that I will be sent out on the last minute shopping trip on Thursday afternoon but I will do it in community with my brother-in-law.  In fact, this excursion has become a part of our holiday ritual and we joke around with the other men that we see out at the supermarket on that trip. 

I relax now and don't try to control the food as it is cooking or worry about whether they started the green beans too early or if the dinner rolls are going to burn.  I strive to be a good team player; supportive without being controlling.  And I enjoy doing the unglamorous work of cleaning up the dishes afterwards. 

I recognized how far I had come this year when I was able to laugh when my two-year neice smashed her plate of food on the floor right behind me during dinner.  Life is too short to freak out over that type of thing.  Instead, I am reminded of how grateful I am to have my health, my family, and a bounty of resources. 

Happy Thanksgiving!
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
 

You Can Do Anything You Want On Your Last Day at Work - Part 1

I stumbled across this funny video about Bill Gates and his upcoming last day at work at Microsoft (July 2008).  Bill is retiring from his full time job at Microsoft this year to spend more time on the Gates Foundation. 

In his video, Bill is hamming up the fact that he is a geek, he drives a cheapo car and is apparently forgetful, that he is a wannabee rock star, and even that he could be a potential running mate for one of the current presidential candidates.  He (or his staff) engaged the help of numerous celebrities, rock stars, and politicians to participate in the video.  The video came across as entertaining and wonderfully self-effacing.

The really cool part about the video is not that Bill is retiring or that the world's richest man (or second richest man, it's hard to tell) made a video about himself.  The really cool part is that Bill Gates has the self-confidence to poke fun at himself.  Bill Gates has the self-confidence to make a video that ridicules Bill Gates.  That is confidence!

Self-confidence is an emotional intelligence competency in the domain of self-awareness.  Here is how Daniel Goleman defines self-confidence:

Self-Confidence - "A Strong Sense of one’s Self-Worth and Capabilities."
- Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence

Why would anyone with a strong sense of their own self-worth and capabilities need to poke fun at themself?  They don't, of course.  But it is only those who do have a strong sense of their own worth and capabilities that find themselves able to joke about their short-comings.  Individuals that are lacking in self-confident don't give themselves the freedom to do that.  It is as if they are on the defensive all the time, trying to make sure no one sees through their facade  Even though the reality is, other people usually see us as we are, confident or not.

Consider the following questions for yourself:

1. Do you ever feel as if you wouldn't dare let others see how overwhelmed you feel in your job?
2. Are you aware of your weaknesses, or the areas where others might get a chuckle about you?
3. Are you willing to let others have a laugh at you about those areas?  Would you even make a joke out of it and let others laugh at you?

If you are too serious about yourself or feel threatened by the idea of laughing at yourself, perhaps this would be a good opportunity to lighten up.  Others certainly already know about our weaknesses, follibles, and blind spots, even if we don't talk about them or bring attention to them.  They may even see our weaknesses more clearly than we are able to see them!  Why pretend that they don't exist? 

It reminds me of Al Gore who, as vice president for 8 years and a presidential candidate in 2000, was seen as robotic, stiff, and boring.  Then, after losing in the 2000 presidential election, he started doing speaking engagements and he hosted Saturday Night Live and poked fun at himself and his situation.  Suddenly, he is more popular now than when he was when he was as a public servant.

So my advice to you today is to lighten up and be confident enough to have some fun and let others have a laugh at your expense.  It will make you much more human, and much more self-confident.

If you find that you need to boost your self-confidence, consider the following tip, from my list of 20 tips for improving your emotional intelligence:

Tip of the Day #10- Self-confidence is when we are grounded, secure, and self-assured. It’s easy to be rattled or thrown off our game by a recent setback or failure. One technique for overcoming a lack of self-confidence is to reflect on our past successes. Create a timeline on a piece of paper and mark on it the successes, small and large, that you have experienced over your career. By reviewing our past successes, we can put our current setbacks into perspective and see them as temporary.

And if I am wrong about Bill Gates and my judgment that he feels self-confident enough to make a joke, I will go out on a limb and offer my coaching services to him.  Heck, I am pretty sure that I can help him feel more self-confident.  Clearly, my exorbitant fee won't be an issue for him.  Hey, it may even make him laugh. 

In fairness, I guess I should also offer this same deal to Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim Helú, the other two individuals who collectively make up the three richest men in the world.  Warren and Carlos, if you have self-confidence issues, please feel free to contact me directly for help!  Go on, make my day.

Cheers!

Anthony

Workplace Stressors - What stresses you out?

I read an article by Dan Strakal called The Top Seven Causes Of Workplace Stress And Fifteen Ways To Get Rid Of Them.  I found that the list is not very complete and that one very important item is missing from the list. 

Here is Strakal's list of the top seven causes of workplace stress:

1. Being out of sync with one’s career values
2. Consistently applying burn out skills rather than motivated skills
3. Being delegated responsibility without authority
4. Being expected to produce more work with fewer resources
5. Job and career uncertainty and insecurity
6. The pace of change
7. Balancing family and work obligations

I had two reactions to this list.  First, as a project manager, I have found that most companies expect you to do #3 and #4 all the time.  This is just part of the deal. 

But the more interesting reaction to the list was the missing item - interpersonal conflict.  In my experience, interpersonal conflict is the single biggest workplace stressor.  If you reflect on what people complain about, I bet you would agree that people don't tend to complain about the things on Strakal's list; they complain about their idiot boss, that one annoying co-worker, or the incompetent person stuck on their project team.  In fact, in nearly all of my workshops, I get all kinds of questions about how to work with "difficult people" and deal with conflict.

I believe that if you were to ask people about what stresses them out about work, they would be much more likely to cite interpersonal conflict and other forms of relationship breakdowns than the items on the list above.  Many people have not learned effective skills for resolving workplace conflict so they simply shut down, withhold, or leave the organization.  In fact, the number one reason that people give for quitting their jobs is not even on Strakal's list.  That reason is the relationship with their immediate manager. 

I did like the suggestions provided by Strakal for getting rid of the stress.  These focus on how people can empower themselves and change their situation; to not be victims to others.  Great list!

1. Am I bringing any of this on myself?
2. Are there things I can be doing to improve the situation?
3. Am I blaming someone or something else (my partner, my company, my children, traffic, etc.) for the degree of happiness I am attaining or not attaining in my life?
4. Am I actually taking control of what I can control and accepting what I cannot control?
5. Have I lulled myself into a false sense that my work and my non-work lives are beyond my capabilities to handle – am I copping out?
6. Do I know what my career values and motivated skills are? If not, how can I find out?
7. If I am unhappy with my work situation, what is my short-term action plan to transition to something better? Who controls this decision?
8. What are my long-term career action plans?
9. Am I being as time efficient as I can? Am I looking for ways to integrate tasks and projects?
10. Am I focusing on what needs to get done so that I don’t have to take work home?
11. Can I form a support group (possibly made up of trusted coworkers, friends, clergy, etc.) where I can safely share my concerns, vent my anger, and deal with non-productive emotions?
12. Am I a Type-A workaholic? If so, can I admit it and ask for help?
13. Do I use work as a convenient excuse to not deal with other facets of my life? (Primary relationship, self image, weight challenges, etc.)
14. What would it take for me to turn off the TV two nights per week and do something more energetic or socially responsible?
15. Are my tears and frustration at work really a symptom of something else going on in my life?

So what do you think?  What are your top workplace stressors?  What is your number 1 stressor?  I'd love to hear about it.

Anthony

Nobody Really Manages Projects - Not Even You

That's right, I said it, nobody really manages projects.  Not even project managers.  Not even you.  In fact, the term project manager is a misnomer. 

• Project managers do not manage scope
• Project managers do not manage time
• Project managers do not manage costs
• Project managers do not manage projects

They also don't manage integration, risk, quality, communications, procurement or any of the other nine knowledge areas of the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) save one.  There is really only one of the nine knowledge areas that the PM actually does manage.

So what is that one thing that project managers do manage?  Project managers manage only one thing; people.  It is through people that all of those other things are managed.

Consider time management as an example.  How does a PM manage time?  What exactly do they manage when they manage a schedule?  You might argue that they manage the tasks on the schedule (they certainly don't manage the speed of time passing).  What exactly about those tasks do they manage?  The estimated or actual duration?  How would they "manage" that?  The sequence?  Perhaps.  But that is simply the sequence of when the tasks are performed, that is, when persons will work on them.  What else can they manage about a task?  Susan de la Vergne, a fellow fan of emotional intelligence, had it right when she said "You Can't Manage Time".

What about cost management?  The PMBOK® Guide breaks cost management down into the following three areas:  cost estimating, cost budgeting, and cost control.  What does the PM "manage" when they manage costs?

• Cost Estimating - estimating the costs of the resources needed for the project.  That is, the human resources (people) who will work on the project and the other resources that the people will install, use, or consume on the project.
• Cost Budgeting - Adding up the cost estimates to create a baseline.  How is that simple tabulation a "management" activity?  Answer- it isn't.
• Cost Control - influencing the factors (i.e. people) that cause cost variances and controlling changes (caused by people) to the project budget.  This is true management, however, the PM is managing the people, not the costs.

My point?  The PMBOK® Guide is long on managing all the wrong things, the things that cannot be managed, and short on managing people.  This is the inverse of what it needs to be.  Projects are completed by people first and foremost.  I dare you to show me a project that has no people on it - it doesn't exist.  Project managers manage people! 

Even the one section of the PMBOK® Guide that is reportedly about people (Human Resource Management) is weak on managing people.  The four parts of the HR Management section are:

• Human Resource Planning - Planning for the people we need on the project.
• Acquire Project Team - Get the people we need on the project.
• Develop Project Team - Invest in the people on the project.
• Manage Project Team - AHA!  Eureka!  I think I finally found what it is that PMs need to do on the project.

The HR Management chapter of the PMBOK® Guide is 21 pages long, representing just 6% of the PMBOK content (less back matter).  That is ridiculous!  HR or people management should be the largest section of the PMBOK and it should be first!

I know there are many of you out there who have drank the PMI Kool-Aid who I have completed offended.  Even now you are preparing to unscubscribe from this blog.  Before you do, I challenge you to show me where I am wrong.  I dare you to step up and point out how project managers manage anything but people, or how project management can be performed or separated from managing people. 

Show me and I will recant.  I promise.

Anthony