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?
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
Let’s take some heat
With temperatures scorching outside and the severe drought in South Africa, many a province has been declared a disaster area. Our food security is in jeopardy and consumers are expecting a hike in food prices next year. This contributing to an already strained economic climate and so, when things gets hard, it is easy to really get discouraged.
But it is times like these that really allow true leadership to blossom. Let’s face it, leading in good times is easy, but leading a team that feels the heat requires not only a lot more skill, but also a lot more self-motivation and discipline. You need to dig really deep to that part of your character that never gives up, that does not allow anything to get you under and that looks at life in a positive way. As a project manager you need that tenacious personality that leads the team against all odds, the “die hard” attitude that picks you up even when severely injured.
You cannot afford your project to be declared a disaster zone and neither can you afford to lose hope in your team. John Maxwell stated that one is too less a number to achieve greatness and keeping that in mind is the key to project delivery success. So often, when we feel the heat, some of us really goes into “lone ranger” mode. Taking work out of the hands of some of our team members and trying to do everything on our own is not conducive to the team’s morale and neither is it healthy for the already overly strained project manager. You need your team and they need you.
Need I say how important it is to rally up support during these times? Make sure you have the ear of those who will stand firm in your corner and work your stakeholders. Ensure that you know what they expect and keep these expectations within the boundaries of the agreed scope of the project. Sell, sell and sell the project whilst keeping track of opportunities generated from new requirements that cannot be incorporated immediately. It is the constant drip of water that at the end of the day will not go unnoticed.
So when we feel the heat remember that change is your friend and hard times is the catalyst that takes your leadership ability to the next level. Embrace it, stand up, take a stand and lead.
Posted in Past Events, People
Tagged attitude, Catalyst, Delegation, Leadership, Motivation, project management, Team Work