Ok so all of us have heard the illustration of the professor that took a bottle and filled it with rocks. His question to the class was if the bottle was full to which they replied positively. So the next thing that went into the bottle was the smaller pebbles and again the question. Then the sand and later the water. Well the story would have had a very different turn if the professor started by filling the bottle with water. Nothing could have been added to it without causing an overflow. You see it was not so much about space and having the ability to always do more, than it was about the sequence of events. So often we start doing the unimportant things first as they are easy to do and procrastinate on the more difficult assignments. The reality is that there are ALWAYS unimportant things to do. If I paid myself for every time that I have picked up a document and decided to do something else, I would have been rich. Needless to say that prioritising the right things at the right time is quite important. Not only in the life of projects, but also in the world of being. When we get older we look back at our lives and wonder why certain things that currently looks so unimportant, was so overly important when we were young. But hind sight is an exact science, and so at that moment we did not know and we made the best decision with the information that we had, so our error is excusable. There is a lot of areas where we are misinformed however and where we do not get sufficient guidance. But for some it is just a matter of not listening to the wise words of the older generation. What do they know right? If your life could be represented by a bottle, what of all the things on your plate would you start to pack….and would you spare an ear to a few wise words by those that had to deal with the consequences of bad prioritisation?
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Your life in a bottle
Posted in People, Uncategorized
Tagged Character, Important things, Prioritisation, project management, Unimportant things
Feeling threatened are you?
Forming a team and getting it to operate and function effectively is one of the key success factors of any project. A lot of work has gone into defining the various stages that a team goes through and helping the project manager to understand team dynamics and how to deal with each phase. However reality can sometimes be very far removed from theory. Getting beyond team storming is sometimes a bigger challenge than what we realise, and the quicker we move the team beyond that stage the better we can function and get to what is important in the project and that is delivery.
Team storming for me constitute a lack of trust and a lack of trust implies an over active impulse to self-persevere and a destructive perception of feeling threatened by others in the team. This is further heightened by a struggle for power and a fight to be high enough on the pecking order.
Stephen Covey wrote a book called the Speed of Trust. For those of you keen on reading PD(Personal Development) books, do yourself a favour and read this one. Its fresh look on business politics clearly identifies the cause of many a struggle. That lame feeling of frustration and discouragement felt by so many trapped in a net of political games, who truly just wants to get on with it.
So why is bridging and building trust such a difficult thing for project managers and team members alike? Where did this lack of trust start and how can we build trust quicker? The answer to these questions is not an easy one, and I would love to hear your views on it but I think that we are coached in mistrusting. From an early age we were instructed by our parents not to trust strangers and rightfully so. It is just not safe to trust anybody and for so many, when we found it in our hearts to trust somebody, were badly hurt. Unfortunately the scars left by those we trusted are deeper than those we expected deceit from.
In the book, Stephen talks about the 5 waves of trust as a mechanism to deal with mistrust and again I encourage you to read through it in detail. It obviously starts with yourself first, moves to what is called relationship trust and then works towards organisational trust. If we want to move through to trusting one another quicker we need to work at building trust and that cannot just be done by getting everybody into a room and hoping for the best. You know the “pickup sticks” model where we throw everything on the floor and hope to move the individual elements later without upsetting the balance of the rest. Surely we cannot be that naïve.
It requires a concerted effort from a project manager that lives a life of integrity. It requires solid characters with confidence in themselves and their team mates. It requires hard work and sometimes calls you to lose yourself for the good of the entire team and doesn’t come without sacrifice. Trust, unfortunately doesn’t happen by itself but requires some out of the box thinking and lots of character building. Your views?
Posted in People, Uncategorized
Tagged project management, project manager, Storming, Team building, Trust
This time of year…
Normally at this time of year we are faced with the reality of things in the past and a sense of excitement about things planned for the future. We long for a well deserved break and often imagine ourselves a lot more exhausted than what we truly are. For some, the holiday season has already begun and for others, less fortunate, we are still at work trying exceptionally hard to get some work done and our desk is some sort of order.
This year however the sense of reality is heightened in the aftermath of the death and marmoreal services of Old President Nelson Mandela. He has been considered one of the best leaders the world has ever seen. A man that were able to influence a nation to unite in the face of huge uncertainty. And as we pay our last respect to this man of note, we realize that our time of departure would also come at one time or the other. With this reality in mind, the question that we need to ask ourselves is what legacy am I leaving behind. What difference would I have made in the lives of my team, in the lives that I touched during my short encounter here on earth?
Every engagement with your project team is an opportunity to make that difference and to contribute in each of their lives, to change the world one project at a time and to be a man or women of integrity, good standing and exceptional leadership.
And with this being said, we at The Project Hub, would like to use this opportunity to thank each and everyone of our friends, clients and partners for the investment made in our lives, their contribution towards our products and effort in strengthening our friendships. We truly appreciated each and everyone of you and look forward to working alongside you in 2014 with all the new opportunities … and challenges we are going to face.
We wish you a wonderful and peaceful Christmas and a prosperous 2014. May you truly experience God’s grace and be thankful for the privileged to be with family and friends at this special time of year. May we not waste time anymore in things that are trivial and non nonsensical, but may we use every opportunity to leave behind a legacy that witness a person of strong character, integrity and a humble heart.
Posted in Uncategorized