Have You Got Plans?

Last week my daughter and I were sitting down to breakfast. I asked Shannon what her plans were for the day and she told me. Then she asked me the same thing.

I said, "I plan to have x results."

Shannon retorted, "That's not a plan!"

"What?" I asked.

She reminded me that a plan has to do with what you are going to do, not the results you want. Touche, Shannon! (I should know better. 😉)

Projects: Helping Others Become Successful

I just read an article by Ross Simmonds on creating blogs. Most of it was about technical aspects of blogging - distribution and the like. But the last point struck me. It was general good advice for anyone at any time, and especially for project teams. He said:

"I’ve noticed something in the last few years that I wish I knew when I was 19:
It’s easier to become successful when you’re committed to helping others be successful.
When you make a commitment to helping the people around you achieve their dreams, the people around you tend to help you back."

I believe humanity is getting better and better at helping others become successful. The marches worldwide show how people from all over the word are attempting to help others achieve their dreams.

Nurses, healers and teachers often show a commitment to helping others. Project managers do, too, after all, that's what we do: help our customers achieve their goals (dreams) - big or small. We help our customers figure out what they really want when we clarify their requirements - defining the dream. While we are ensuring the project stays on track, we are helping customers in goal realization. Incorporating changes along the way is important, too - the refinements in the dream need to be made as the picture becomes more clear.

So, congratulations to project managers and those working on projects for making dreams come true!

The Best Kind of Goal for Managing Change

I attended a workshop recently which was about change and how people deal with it. My goal in attending was mainly to learn more about myself and how I react to change that I didn’t originate (that is, a change imposed upon me).

I learned much from this workshop. One key point was to focus on learning instead of on performance during such a time of forced change.

Here is a tip I found useful: If your first reaction to something unfamiliar is, “I can’t do that,” instead say, “How do I learn to do that?”

The course taught*: “When facing a challenge, some people adopt performance goals which focus on demonstrating a certain level of competence. Others adopt learning goals which focus on increasing their capability. Learning goals are generally more helpful than performance goals during periods of change.

People with learning goals tend to see setbacks as information about the effectiveness of their strategies and become motivated to keep trying. They understand that learning new skills often requires going through a phase of awkwardness, confusion and failure.”

Knowing that on the other side of confusion and awkwardness is the learning, keeps me keeping on learning.

I hope you found this useful. Please let me know how you implement it in your work.

* excerpt from Developing Resilience During Change by Gregg Brown, Tidal Shift Inc. - for more info contact gregg.brown@tidalshift.ca

That's When We All Win

I have been reading about the upcoming American election with some interest. So much so that I only recently realized we were having a local (Halifax, Canada) municipal election and voting at the polling station is on Saturday.

One of the things that elections usually centre on is change for the better. Citizens take responsibility by electing officials who will represent them to take action.

I believe in the power of the democratic process. But related to that is our own power to change our own world. Two songs that I enjoyed about taking self-responsibility are Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror and Nickelback’s When We Stand Together.

The Focused Florence Foster Jenkins

A few nights ago I went to see the movie about Florence Foster Jenkins. I was inspired by how she carried through on achieving what she set out to do. Another thing remarkable about Ms. Jenkins was her ability to ignore what was going on around her while achieving her goals.

I am not so sure she was as oblivious to others' reactions -  to her singing or what was happening in her personal life - as the movie shows. Maybe she chose to ignore those things in her focus to create what she wanted?

Projects can be like that. Lots of distractions, things we could pay attention to that can lead us off our goal. I'm not saying we should always ignore distractions, but we should be aware of what is a distraction and what really needs our attention.

Thank you, Ms. Jenkins...