Learn and Lead

Art Petty writes an interesting post about project managers not being liked by anyone. I quite agree with him. I believe that project manager's lack of popularity is their occupational hazard. Project managers have a tough job on their hands. They have the responsibility without always having full authority, whether it is the SME, or other members of the virtual team who report to their functional mangers. At the end of the day if the project fails, overruns or is delayed, it is the project manager who has to take the flak first. That is the nature of the role and the earlier project mangers realize it, lesser the heartburn they might go through.

So what how can a project manager succeed in this situation? Here are some things I have seen successful project managers do.

Respect the expert. I have seen successful project managers recognizing the expertise the experts bring to the table and giving them due credit. This also includes recognizing the gaps in their own knowledge and skills.

Lead. Don't boss around. Project managers are in charge of the project but they aren't necessarily the "boss". Successful project managers lead the project and the team without attempting to display their authority or their position.

Communicate. Share the goal of the project with everyone and keep them informed. Keep everyone informed of not just the respective assigned tasks but the progress of the overall project. Share and celebrate successes as a team. Share the concerns and risks and seek support. I have seen many managers sharing only the assigned tasks with the respective team members completely under utilizing the team's potential and not getting the required buy in and support for them when it is needed the most.

Listen. Listen to what team members are suggesting, listen to their concerns, listen to what makes them enjoy what they are doing and what turns them off. And then do something about it.

Empathize. Specially required when you have many team members who might be junior to the project manager in experience, position and designation.

Learn. Most successful project managers know the project/product they are managing. This does not mean they can do all the tasks in the project, or are experts in all skills. However they do appreciate what it takes to do the tasks and can contribute by sharing their insights and ideas. Assuming that as a project manager your only responsibility is to create a project plan / schedule and then following up with team to tick off completed tasks or updating the plan is a sure way to undermine your chances of success. Successful project managers attempt to learn about the project tasks and contribute to the end product.

A recent situation in workplace made me think about the importance of building a performance bank account on lines of emotional bank account. Or perhaps performance bank account is a subset of emotional bank account.

When you join a new organization, the organization’s evaluation of your skills is based on the few interactions had during the interview. In spite of the psychological tests, aptitude tests, and two or three rounds of interview that one goes through, it is at best a judgement to hire you based on limited interactions. Some organizations also do a reference check depending on the level you are joining the organization. It is then up to you to start building your performance bank account with the organization. You build your base by learning quickly and demonstrating execution excellence. You build your deposits by exceeding expectations, going beyond the call of duty, volunteering for challenging tasks.

Building a performance bank account helps you in getting new opportunities within the organization. It also helps when you are assigned to a new role or assigned a new manager. But more importantly, if you take longer to understand the task, or are faltering initially, the past performance bank account provides the cushion of tolerance and the much required support. You can’t bank on your performance at your previous organization. It is important to build a performance bank account at every organization you work with. And of course, like EBA, when you withdraw from your performance bank account, make sure you deposit back in it by improving your performance.

Clark Quinn makes a great point about the fact that innovation and execution are interlinked and organizations miss the point by focusing on these separately. In Clark’s words:

I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about how to improve organizational performance. It’s part of thinking broader about how technology can be used to support performance, but then you have to have a picture of organizational learning as a whole. As I look at organizations, many are focused on excellence in execution, and quite a few have recognized that the competitive advantage comes from continual innovation. What I’m not seeing enough of is recognizing that the two are intimately linked. They’ll focus on innovation in engineering, and execution in customer service, but not connect the two across the organization.

For example, I’m seeing organizations supporting execution with training, and supporting innovation with knowledge management or eCommunity. I’ll see training groups supporting execution, and management invoking innovation exercises, but management not worrying about training, and training not worrying about innovation.

What I have experienced is that usually if execution excellence is achieved, it is easier to focus on innovation. And innovation is required to gain competitive advantage as well as achieve execution excellence. Personally I have found hard to innovate to gain competitive advantage (let’s create a new product offerings) when my nose is to the grind attempting to achieve execution excellence (let’s get the projects out of the door successfully, meet the quarter numbers etc.). I do need to innovate and find new ways to ensure that operations are executed flawlessly.

Innovation to achieve execution excellence depends a lot on the culture of the organization. While there are many methods to provide channels for people to innovate or try out new things, ultimately the culture of encouraging new ideas, openness and trust between teams and developing base skills are critical for innovating for execution excellence.

Innovating for competitive advantage can be achieved through organizational structures. It is important to have teams focusing on incubating new ideas, products etc. And as Nicola shares in Clark’s post comments, it is a great idea to involve customers in building new products. There also needs to be method of transferring new products to production line/operations.

Tony Karrer’s blog had this very hilarious take on technology adoption. Karl Kapp follows it up with another one. And there are many more that provide the humorous side of tech support calls. Sometimes I wonder if the incidents narrated in most of these conversations are actually urban legends. Do such users actually exist who would ask there is the “Any key” on the keyboard? And what assumptions do we make of our users when we create a learning module? I wonder if there are any foundation courses that use these tech support memes to tell the users that there isn’t any key labeled ANY (or NE for that matter) on the keyboard. In most cases elearning courses are expected to be designed and developed for minimum levels of audience knowledge, which can easily lead to the pitfall of mistaking about our audience's pre-requisite knowledge. The key is to understand your audience and build content that doesn’t insult their intelligence.