Positive Questions

Have you ever used affirmations? Have they given you results? I have read lots on the power of affirmations but must admit I have never really used them.

However, when I saw “The Book of Afformations” by Noah St. John, I was intrigued. Mr. St. John came upon a realization that our subconscious mind acts upon questions. If we pose questions to ourselves, things happen.

I was happy to test out this theory. For the past few weeks, I have reframed my thinking to be in the form of positive questions. I think, along the guidelines provided by Mr. St. John, “Why do I provide such great service to my customers?” Interestingly enough, using this questioning technique has coincided with many opportunities to prove my customer service skills.

This questioning technique can be related to projects. For teambuilding, perhaps the project team could think this way: “Why do we get our work done so efficiently? Why do we provide such great value to our customers and company?” These questions are starting points. Your team will undoubtedly come up with excellent questions themselves. Then, it will be interesting to see what happens.

It doesn't cost anything to use the technique and I would encourage you do to so. Let me know your results!

Project Management Truisms Ring True

I went to a fascinating presentation on lessons learned from projects yesterday. The two presenters analyzed ten projects they had worked with and came up with twelve lessons learned. I listened intently.

Of great interest to me was that these were not project management professionals and did not even use the term 'project management' in their talk. What lessons did they come up with? Among them were:

1. Senior leadership needs to be committed to the process and open to the outcome.
2. Make sure the purpose and intention of your project are clear. If you are confused, everyone else will be too.
3. Go slow to go fast. Planning and implementing an effective and meaningful project takes time. Are you ready for this?

Do these findings sound familiar to you? The findings underlined for me that the theories of project management ring true. The personnel involved in these projects discovered these truths from their own experience.

So, I conclude that whether you think in project terms or not, having a sponsor you can rely on, having a clear vision and purpose for what you are doing, and planning are fundamental principles of success for any work.

Risk and Dr. Seuss

I was talking with a friend over Christmas who told me of a crisis she had been through. She was in a foreign country and received word that a large contract of hers back home was having major unexpected difficulties.

Here she was, far from home and her customer. What was her first thought? Panic. The second was “Hold on a minute, what can I solve by panicking?” So she called a colleague who helped her out, she put the situation in a positive frame in her mind, and let it go.

The result? The contract wasn’t cancelled, things settled, and my friend got to enjoy her holiday at peace. Whether the contract was cancelled or not, my friend had decided that it would all work out, so that was a success in itself.

As Project Managers, we have decisions to make all of the time. Some of these decisions may cause us stress if we feel out of control. So - what to do? Besides having a risk strategy in place, with risk responses planned for those potential threats or opportunities, having the mindset to deal with stress can go a long way. If we know that things can happen and frequently do (thanks Dr. Seuss!), then we can handle them. Of course, when we work out how to proceed if a crisis does occur, we don’t need to focus on the potential problems and can dig up the prepared solution when/if they happen. Like having the masks ready-to-go on the airplanes.

May you be off to Great Places!

I thought I was a good listener...

I always thought of myself as a good listener. But recently I realized I wasn't the great listener I thought I was.

In the middle of answering a question in a class, I realized I hadn't really listened. If I did, I would have asked more questions to understand what the person was getting at. I wasn't satisfied that I provided the best answer.

So I decided to focus more on listening. Something most of us do every day - and something most of us don’t take courses in, unlike speaking or even writing. Research (my focus group of my kids) seems to say that most of us think we are pretty good listeners.

I was a bit surprised to find out that there is an International Listening Association. Pamela Cooper, vice president of the association, said:

"There's a misconception that when we hear, we listen, but listening is really hard work, and it takes a great deal of concentration."

Malcolm Gladwell said that listening well is a gift and that listening is difficult because the more you listen the more unsettling the world becomes.

I would agree. The more I listen, the more I think outside of my comfort zone. The more I focus on listening, the more I realize I have much to learn, and that there is much to learn from everyone’s point of view.

So - here’s to listening and learning.

Make Sure Opportunities Find You

I recently conducted a global webinar for over 1300 participants and received some great feedback and questions. One repeated question was: "How do you ensure opportunities do not pass you by?"

1. You need to ask. Easy to say, difficult to do. We seem to hesitate for fear somebody will say no. But if you don't ask, it is a definite no. Believe in yourself, your capability, and that confidence will prompt you to ask and open up opportunities.
2. Focus on your strengths. It is easy to let our weaknesses hold us back. A weakness is only defined because it is somebody else's strength. I'm not sure why - just because somebody is great at something, that defines us? Define yourself, focus on your strengths, and tell everybody.
3. Learn to say YES. We all have opportunities that come before us and many times it is easy to make excuses as to why we cannot partake. Although these excuses are valid short term, they will hold you back long term. This implies that you need to raise your level of risk tolerance but your increased confidence from focusing on your strengths will offset that.

Managing Your Multiple Projects - Get the Exec on Board

Project Managers know that executive support is crucial for successful projects. But did you know that senior management support and organizational culture are especially important for those project managers who manage multiple projects?

A study done on team culture in managing successful multiple projects found that organizational culture was more important, by far, than the culture created by the project managers and teams. This may seem a bit counter-intuitive. Wouldn't you think that it was the environment created within the project teams that made the most difference towards the success of the project?

Commitment, communication and rewards for performance were the signifiers of a strong organizational culture. In organizations with a strong culture, project team members felt committed to their projects, contributed strongly to project development, communicated with each other to transfer information and knowledge, and were recognized and appreciated for performance beyond expectation.

Senior managers are usually the ones who lead the development of organizational culture. To create this multiple-project-supporting culture, the study found that senior management established a group-oriented organizational culture. That is, they supported project teams and valued working in groups as opposed to individually. They “walked the talk” in leadership by setting in motion policies for team rewards, as opposed to individual ones, and supported group decision-making techniques.

Senior managers developed a collective sense of mission and good relationships with those who followed them.

Organizations that support teams in policy and action = strong success for multiple projects run by one project manager. If you are an executive, are there policies for rewarding group performance that you can introduce? If you are a project manager, how can you incorporate the strengths of the organization, for example, in relationship building or how teamwork is supported, to improve the success of your projects?

Thank you for the research done by:
Managing a Group of Multiple Projects: Examining the Influence of Team Culture and Leader Competencies, Peerasit Patanakul and Zvi H. Aronson, Stevens Institute of Technology - Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management, January 23, 2013

Unglamorous work?

Bill Gates is famous as the founder of Microsoft. Today, he spends much of his time and considerable money on the eradication of polio in the underdeveloped world.

With his great help, polio has been eradicated in India. This effort has taken a lot of hard, unglamorous work. All by his own choice. The man who has enough money to do whatever he would like.

Most of us have nowhere near Bill Gates’ money. We imagine, if we did, how we would buy a castle or travel the world a few times over, or some such lofty indulgence.

However, Bill Gates has gone from Head IT Manager to working for the underprivileged.

If we think we are doing something not as significant in the world, it might be worthwhile to think about what Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great” says:

The truth is, few people are working on the most glamorous things in the world. Most of them are doing real work - which means that most of the time they’re doing a heck of a lot of drudgery with only a few moments of excitement. The real work of the economy gets done by people who make cars, who sell real estate, and who run grocery stores or banks. One of the great findings of this study is that you can be in a great company and be doing it in steel, in drug stores, or in grocery stores. 

The basic message is this: Build your own flywheel. You can do it. You can start to build momentum in something for which you've got responsibility. You can build a great department. You can build a great church community. You can take every one of these ideas and apply them to your own work or your own life.

Bill Gates built his own flywheel a few times over. But we can all do it.

And while you are it, remember: project management principles will help with all that building!

Click here for more information on Bill Gates’ work on the eradication of polio. Click here for more on Jim Collins and “Good to Great”.

Nagging, Tracking, Monitoring and Control

Next week I am giving a session on Managing Multiple Projects. Tracking is a major part, so I have been researching this topic. As well, as these things go, I have had a few conversations with project managers on the topic of “nagging” (ahem... “tracking”).

Do project managers like to nag? Of course not. Do they? Very often.

The Harvard Business School and Northwestern University did a study on “managerial nagging”. They tracked project managers in 6 companies across 3 industries. What they found:

The researchers shadowed these managers at meetings, followed them around the office as they dropped in on subordinates, and sat for hours at their desks looking over their shoulders, recording their phone calls and e-mails. (Hey, talk about nagging!) They ultimately collected 256 hours’ worth of observations.

Their findings, published recently in the journal Organization Science, show that in a typical 4½-hour stretch, 14% of all communication was redundant. In other words, managers spent a fair chunk of time following up with employees to reiterate information they had already explained.

Frequency mattered more in convincing employees to get working, and managers who were deliberately repetitive from the start tended to move their projects along faster and received less resistance from their teams.

This all makes sense to me and agrees with the concept of weekly team meetings - of which I am a big fan - and daily contact, if possible, either through meetings or walk-abouts. After all, the project manager’s job is to manage. Helping the team get there is a huge part of that.

Of course, other project management practices, such as having team members define their work and provide estimates, creating a Communications Plan that identifies when, how and what to communicate with stakeholders (including team members), and creating a Roles and Responsibility matrix, also help with reducing the need to nag.

(Credit for some of this article goes directly to canadianbusiness.com/business-strategy/how-to-profit-from-strategic-nagging/. Go there for more information on the study.)

Small Businesses and Project Management

This week is Small Business Week in Canada. Coincidentally, this week I had discussions with a couple of small business owners who were wondering if what they did was project management. Both of my friends, who work in totally different industries, said the same thing. They asked, “I think what I do is project management, but I’m not sure. What do you think?”

Well, I said, "Do you have goals that you work toward with deadlines?" Of course they do. That was really the basis of their projects. One colleague is in the real estate industry. Every house for sale is a project. The other is an account manager. Each account has several projects.

It was interesting to talk about how project management principles apply across industries - and no matter the size of the business. Because I am a business owner myself, I knew my friends deal with budgets and schedules. They certainly consider risks. And communications is a huge part of their projects. Procurement also figured in there, as did staffing.

Another thing we discussed was our businesses’ visions and strategies. This reminded me of how projects should fit in with the organization’s vision and strategy, no matter the size of the business. I know that a few times I've gone off course from my selected vision and strategy - not a recommended practice.

So, are small business owners also project managers? Of course! It’s practically a way of life.

Reaching Project Goals and the Law of Attraction

Do you manage projects, large or small? If so, have you thought about how completing a project successfully and using the Law of Attraction are alike? Being interested in both topics, I have thought about this interaction quite a bit. And here is my view.

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), a project is “a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.” So, our goal in a project is to create a particular product, service or result.

How do we perform this creation? One of the main things we will do is to build a picture/description of the outcome, and get agreement on it. For example, if our project is to create a website for our company,  we define the overall look of the website, how many pages the site is to include, and the site’s purpose before we get down to work. Thus, we are defining the scope of the project. When we do this, we almost always visualize the end-result and work from there.

So, how is this similar to getting what you want through the Law of Attraction? The Law of Attraction is based on the premise that if we can see and believe what we want, we will attain it. So, like in a project, we are seeing and focusing on what we want.

In a project, this focus and belief in the end-goal provides not only a focal point for project team members, but also gives motivation – the team working towards a goal. If you have worked on a project where all team members had the goal in mind, you will know the feeling of synergy and excitement that can result from this “beginning with the end in mind” as Steven Covey says.

Why not try it, if you have not already, in your work and personal life? Imagine the desired results (outcome) to get results! As you do so, ideas on how these results may come about might spring to your mind, or maybe you will find yourself doing things that help bring about the outcome. Whichever way it happens for you, please email me with your results, I would love to hear your stories.