Colin D. Ellis's Blog, page 22

Leaders Do Good Things When No One Is Looking

At the weekend, the Australian cricket team were caught cheating. I'm not going to go into the boring details of it all, but essentially, there's a rule that says that you can't tamper with the ball and they decided – as a team – that they would do it.

This wasn't the errant action of an individual, but of a group of players who felt that rather than compete within the rules and take the loss (if that's what it meant) they would instead look to deceive their own management team, their opponents, fans and the cricket authorities and try to gain the upper hand through unfair means.

They devised a plan that aimed to evade the TV cameras watching their every move. The plan, somewhat inevitably, failed (pause here to invoke the proverb ‘cheats never prosper’).

And everyone is to blame. However, as captain of the team, Steve Smith is wholly responsible for this sorry episode. He should have put a stop to it the minute that the conversation was started by what he calls 'the leadership group' [sic].

He should have been the voice of reason, the guiding ethical light and the person who empathised with but ultimately dismissed the idea. For his inaction, he should resign; if he doesn’t he should be sacked and sent home from South Africa. (Which as of updating this blog on Monday at 4.40pm, has yet to happen.)

Now before you stop reading and dismiss this blog as yet another story of privileged sports stars doing what they want to gain an advantage (see also sprinting, cycling and anyone who takes a dive in soccer), it's worth pointing out that this kind of thing happens all the time in the workplace, often without consequence.

Indeed the global financial crisis in 2008 was caused by high-profile executives trying to cheat the financial markets and the more recent Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal is an example of politicians trying to cheat the system too (although that's been happening since politics first became a thing).

This willingness to deceive when you don’t think anyone is looking is one of the differences between leaders and those who merely occupy leadership positions.

I've long spoken about the fact that just because you're a C-Suite member, on the 'leadership team' or a senior manager, it doesn't actually mean you're a leader. It means you have a privileged position and must act and behave accordingly.

It's been proven that those in senior positions who don't perform are those who aren't able to keep their toxic tendencies in check. Indeed one researcher found that 40% of Fortune 100 companies 'had engaged in misconduct significant enough to be reported in the national media'.

What makes you a leader are the things that you do when no-one is looking or listening, which includes your ability to change some habits and keep your toxic or unethical tendencies in check.

Want to lie in order to avoid getting found out?

Want to talk about a member of staff behind their back?

Want to circumvent a process in order to get what you want?

Want to use the 'power' of your role (or others) to get something done quicker?

Don't want to have a tough conversation or performance manage someone with poor behaviours?

Want to do 'more with less' without looking at yourself first?

If your answer is 'yes' or 'maybe' to any of these questions, then you're not a leader, regardless of the position you hold.

Leaders are people that do good things when no-one is looking. They say nice things behind people's backs. They build relationships so they can be more empathetic. They use processes and tools then seek to improve them. They confront poor behaviour or performance. They drive hard for results and they take all of the blame and none of the credit when things go badly or well. They would never lie, cheat or seek to gain advantage in unethical ways.

They enrich our lives in ways that we don't understand until they're not there anymore and we realise what we've lost.

Regardless of whether you're in a 'leadership' position or not, you can be this person and show others how the game should always be played.

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Are You Still Relevant?

One of my favourite books is Emotional Capitalists by Martyn Newman. Like Daniel Goleman before him, his research is extensive and categorically proves that the organisations outperforming their competitors are those where emotional intelligence is highest.

As he puts it, ‘In the last 10 years the most sensational strategy for achieving goals has been to focus on developing emotional intelligence. It is an indispensable set of social and emotional competencies for leveraging knowledge and emotions to drive positive change and business success.’

I frequently reference this book when I’m talking to individuals about the need to ensure that their emotions and behaviours are relevant for 2018, not 2010.

Often when we think about staying relevant, we look to skills first. Am I qualified in the latest method? How can I prove that I fully understand (and can use) the latest tools?

Of course, this is good stuff, but it is – and will always be – secondary to having the right behaviours and attitude. If you have the right attitude, then learning any new skill is possible.

Where organisations get transformation wrong time and again is that they focus on the tools to seemingly transform the business, not giving employees the insights into the behaviours they need to change.

It’s only through the latter that transformation can be truly successful and a business can remain best-placed to maintain relevance and market share. Or as Newman puts it, ‘Emotionally intelligent leadership, with its focus on people and skills is the key to competitive advantage.’

Deloitte and MIT forecast that more than 70% of companies today are transforming into digital businesses, with research organisation IDC, in its Worldwide Digital Transformation Guide,  estimating the spend to reach $2tn by 2020.

Deloitte/MIT also found that 70% of CEOs say their people do not have the behaviours to adapt.

And yet, when it comes to development, the dollars are always spent on technical skills rather than supporting the behaviour change required to build an organisation of the future. One where there’ll be less of an emphasis on prescriptive process, hierarchical structures and long-term projects, with the focus instead being on self-organising individuals and teams who start and stop things quickly.

These people need to be self-aware, flexible in their thinking, create psychologically safe teams, and be able to readily accept responsibility to lead and collaborate with others. And to do all of that, they need to choose to behave differently.

Behaviours such as courage, empathy, kindness, loyalty, enthusiasm, creativity, determination and care are needed to build the multi-generational teams required to transform. Creating cultural ‘plays’ that describe the behaviours we expect of each other, provide a perfect foundation from which to transform and create emotional (or social) contracts for staff to honour.

I’ve seen this play out in the work that I do.

Organisations that take the time and spend the money to develop these social contracts will always outperform their competitors because they understand that these agreements enable staff to hold each other to account and drive the business forward, not hold it back.

The organisations that don’t do this, the ones  who decide that doing things with the same old people in the same old way, is the way to go, will fail. Choosing to do this sends the message to the staff that the behaviours at the top haven’t changed, so the staff choose not to make the decision to change either.

Your behaviours define who you are. Your happiness, resilience, motivation and ultimately your success.

In order to achieve this you have to continually ask yourself, ‘Are my behaviours still relevant?’, if not, then you have to develop the courage to change or find someone to help you do it.

To get insights like these, exclusive content and links you’ll love sign up to my dapper fortnightly newsletter Pocket Square here www.colindellis.com/boom  BONUS 2 Free Ebooks when you subscribe: How To Hire Great Project Managers and How Are You Measuring Your Project Managers? 

Are you a responsible employee?

Do you stand behind your words, actions and the quality of your work?

Are you accessible or prepared to find some time for those who need help?

Are you able to say that you don’t understand something or admit fallibility?

Can you listen first and speak second (or not at all)?

Do you respect the rights and opinions of others regardless of their sex, race or beliefs?

Do you make decisions based on ethics and values rather than self-interest and ego?

Are you able to make time to celebrate success?

Can you make people smile?

Do you create safe spaces for others to talk and work?

Is empathy something that you continually practice and strive to get better at?

Can you be kind and caring without expecting anything in return?

Are you prepared to challenge those that behave or speak inappropriately?

Do you do what you say you will?

Are you prepared to put your device away and listen to what’s being said?

Do you make time to understand your emotions and biases?

Can you roll your sleeves up and be one of the team without being asked?

Do you set boundaries and hold people to them?

Is your mindset open to the possibilities of the future rather than fixed on the past?

Do you use money and resources for the good of the organisation?

Do you invest time in building lasting relationships?

Can you execute a plan?

Do you avoid pet projects that don’t benefit the organisation?

Are you able to switch off and find 15 minutes of peace?

Do you embrace failure and ensure that mistakes aren’t repeated?

Do you give others an equal say in the culture without trying to exert influence upon it?

Do you share your knowledge so that others may benefit?

Are you a responsible employee?

To get insights like these, exclusive content and links you’ll love sign up to my dapper fortnightly newsletter Pocket Square here www.colindellis.com/boom  BONUS 2 Free Ebooks when you subscribe: How To Hire Great Project Managers and How Are You Measuring Your Project Managers? 

Your PMO Doesn't Suck, But Your PMO Manager Might...

I recently had a candid and energetic conversation with someone looking to bring me in to help change the way they deliver projects. This person talked at length about the PMO and what it wasn’t doing. The unit they described contained four people and its role is one of support, guidance and coaching – agile and waterfall – to those who have the responsibility to deliver.

Like most organisations at the minute, the PMO in question was implementing a new way of working and used words like agile, scrum, squads, stand ups and so on. All good words and approaches that are proven to work by organisations that are staffed by people with growth mindsets and a willingness to get things done in the right way.

This PMO is not that. It is beholden to its process. It doesn’t understand the mindset of getting things delivered. It pumps out reports that provide little value. It (collectively) sits at its desk with its headphones in and has no capacity for listening or evolution. And it is fighting progress every step of the way. In a word, my frustrated contact said, the PMO sucks.

I listened intently, made a few notes and then replied: ‘Your PMO doesn't suck, but your PMO manager might do.’

Like anything, implementing new ways of working in the wrong hands will very quickly become ‘existing ways of working with new names and job titles’.

PMOs (project/program management offices) became en vogue post-Y2K, when organisations were looking for consistency. At that time the PMO management community (of which I was part) learned the method du jour and duly created templates and guides for project managers telling them how to do their jobs.

Consistency became about application of a process rather than the behaviours and skills required to get projects delivered. It became about hundred page business cases to justify projects to ourselves. It became about filling in a plan document, but not creating it collaboratively and revising the estimates post-completion. And it became about sending everyone on a method course and expecting an immediate change.

In short, project management in the hands of the wrong person became about paperwork and bureaucracy, not leadership and culture.

The PMO was central to this and, in the right hands, great PMOs and the delivery functions they served flourished. The PMO anticipated changes in the way projects got delivered and were open to new ideas and behaviours.

They were implementing agile when it was still new (please note: it’s now 17 years old), provided development for project managers so they had a skill set fit for the future and ensured the support systems that were in place for those delivering projects were lean, fit for purpose and added value.

They didn’t engage in agile vs. waterfall type arguments or avoid performance management of people whose behaviours were at odds with the future ways of working. They recognised that on time/on budget delivery wasn’t as important as the service being provided or meeting customer expectations. And they understood that published was better than perfect when it came to delivering products.

These people are now in executive positions and are seen as role models for transformation. Unfortunately, they are few and far between.

There are still far too many PMO Managers who are beholden to their process, wedded to their templates and that don’t understand that theirs is a business of relationships, communication and getting things done.

They display old fashioned behaviours, get in the way of progress, engage in long-winded arguments of who’s right and who’s wrong and see any new ways of working as threats to their ‘power’ not opportunities for improvement.

They love nothing more than a method argument or to write War and Peace-style responses to LinkedIn articles that dare to suggest the PMO may finally have run its course.

Like any function in the business world, the PMO needs to change and evolve to meet the delivery needs of the business today. If it’s not going to do this, then it has no future and neither do the people leading them.

The PMO manager (or whatever it’s called) should be at the forefront of project management cultural evolution not stymying progress in the name of process consistency.

If your PMO manager isn’t doing that, then it’s not the PMO that sucks.

Perspiration Beats Inspiration, Every Time

I read a book recently that was full of theory, the latest buzz words and ‘social-media-ready’ quotes. You know what I mean, right? Things like:

‘Be your authentic self’

‘Let your passion drive your dreams’

‘Say what you want to say, but say it with your heart’

‘You are not required to save the world with your creativity’

And my personal favourite:

‘Trust me, your soul has been waiting for you to wake up to your own existence for years’

It’s all good stuff, I suppose, and if reading these kinds of things is your bag (particularly on Instagram), then that’s great. But just remember that inspiration will only take you so far, it’s perspiration that will actually help you achieve your goals.

Getting into theoretical arguments about how much of both (inspiration and perspiration) is required is just another way of putting barriers in the way of perspiration, so you should avoid that one. As is taking your inspiration from someone who has never actually done the thing that they’re inspiring you to do.

Leadership is a great example of that.

The world seems to be full of leadership ‘experts’ at the moment who haven’t actually been leaders. They’re just great at producing quotes and one-liners to inspire others to do the work they’ve never done themselves. 

I wonder how many have tried to be their authentic selves whilst being bullied by a senior government official? How easy they’d find it to let their passion drive their dreams when they have to work every hour of every day in order to survive? Or when confronted with someone who is ordering you to do something when they clearly don’t know what they’re doing, think ‘now, how do I say this with my heart?’.

Serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck says, ‘You should only take the advice of entrepreneurs or business people who have actually built businesses, not people who have just talked about it.’ 

You probably wouldn’t take parenting advice from people who don’t have children. Or decorating advice from someone who’s only ever lived on a boat. Or exercise advice from someone out of shape, would you?

What the world needs more than inspirational quotes is actual practical advice on what to do and what not to do from people who have done it. Give me a ‘top three tips’ over a saccharin-laden, ‘please re-share me’ quote anyday.

Something from someone’s experience, good or bad, that you can have a go at. Something that will force you to think differently. Something that will actually put you to work.

Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos and someone who has built two hugely successful companies from nothing), said in his book Delivering Happiness, ‘Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience.’

These are the people to follow and the kinds of people that you need around you. People who don’t constantly tell you that you’re amazing and you should keep following your dreams, but instead use their experience to tell you (or remind you) what you should be actually and practically doing.

Things like:

‘Start every morning by making a list and putting three things on it. Then, sit down and do one thing. Feel the sense of satisfaction for having completed it, then do another. Take a break, then do the third.’‘Not feeling energetic? Go to the gym. Or out for a walk or do some yoga. Don’t watch TV.’'Difficult conversation on the horizon? Be clear on the issue and your expectations and then agree an action plan.'

Practical real world advice that’s helpful and helps you get motivated.

Because once you’ve actually done something, you want to do something else. Maya Angelou (relentless civil rights activist) once said, ‘Nothing works unless you do’ – which is why perspiration beats inspiration, every time.

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Here's why you should start the year with a party

Each new calendar year generally starts with a bang. Fireworks, drinks, laughs and then it’s back to work to pick up the paperwork you hoped would have magically gone away whilst you were out of the office.

The Christmas decorations are down (if they were even up) and so is the mood, with most people counting the weeks to the next holiday. There’s nothing to celebrate because nothing has been achieved yet. But celebrating shouldn’t be wholly dependent on the completion of something, should it?

I have worked at a number of organisations during my career who were rubbish at celebrating at any time of the year. It’s not that they didn’t want to do it or that they didn’t see the value in doing it; often it was just, well, not a thing they remembered to do. Not with any regularity at least. Which is like me and my relationship with flossing. I know it’s important, it’s just that it’s not part of my routine, ergo, I always forget.

The problem is that in both of these scenarios, it often leads to unnecessary (and avoidable) pain.

Celebrating success in work is something we only ever do at the end. The end of a project, the end of a week or the end of the year. Everything has to be absolutely final before people are afforded a celebration. In most cases it’s often too late. By that time, people are tired, feel under appreciated or, worse, have already left.

Wouldn’t it be nice then if we got into the habit of celebrating before we start? Or as Simon Dowling suggests we do in his book Work With Me: ‘Throw a Starty Party’.

Bring everyone together and celebrate the fact that you’re about to embark on something new. A year, a project, a team… anything. Talk about the plans ahead, the risks faced, the personal change you’d like to make and agree the social calendar. Set some group goals, instigate something enjoyable to bring you together (it could be a book, yoga, walking or coffee club) and start as you mean to go on.

Imagine the emotional capital that would be built over waffles and ice cream, a treasure hunt around the city or (my personal favourite) Rick Astley hits at a karaoke bar?

Organisations would be making a statement that coming together as a team at the start is just as important as celebrating the achievements throughout the year.

James P. Carse said in his book Finite and Infinite Games: ‘Just as it is essential to have a definitive ending, it must also have a precise beginning.' And that precise beginning starts with celebrating what was learned from previous initiatives. What went well in order that it can be repeated? What went badly so that it can be avoided? And what needs to be done to build and maintain a vibrant culture throughout the year?

According to Dr. Gert-Jan Pepping, Sport Scientist and lecturer in Human Movement Sciences at the University of Groningen: ‘The more convincingly someone celebrates their success with their teammates, the greater the chances that team will win.’ And winning at culture is what every team and organisation should strive for at the START, not something they try and fix in the middle or at the end once everyone is completely burnt out.

Taking the time to celebrate is important throughout the year, so why not start as you mean to go on? I can’t think of a better way to kick-off the year.

If you're not going to project manage properly, please quit

New Year, New You! 

It's tempting to start my first blog of 2018 in this way. But here's the thing. For the most part, you already know that you don’t need to be a new version of yourself, you just need to do the things that you should already be doing. So the big question is, how badly do you want to do them?

It's all there in black and white. In your job description, your performance reviews and the emails that you received over the last 12 months where people have expressed their concerns, disappointment or provided suggestions.

It's also in the textbooks that you have studied, the blogs that you have read, the TED Talks that you’ve watched, and the things that your partner and friends have told you when you moaned at them in coffee shops and bars around the world.

The start of a new year, of course, provides you with an opportunity to reflect, then make the decision once and for all on how much you want to change in order to be successful in your job? A couple of weeks in, however, and it's very easy to come up with excuses as to why you can't be that person.

Any of these sound familiar?

It's the person that you report toIt's the people in your team It's the never ending stream of paperworkIt's the organisation's fault for cutting corners or wanting to embrace new ways of workingIt's the meetings you have to go toIt's the hours you don't have in the dayIt's the remuneration package that you do or don't haveIt's the opportunity for advancement that you think you’ve been denied.

But these are all just excuses for lacking self-awareness, knowledge or the courage to be the person that can overcome these and other challenges to do the job well. And if your first thought is ‘that’s easy for you to say, Colin, but…’ – that’s an excuse too.

Mastery of any job – project manager, project sponsor or otherwise – requires dedication, commitment and a desire to be different. It requires all of your energy every single day and it demands that you constantly strive to develop the skills to be the best version of yourself to keep you at the top of your game. Whether you like it or not, you are a role model for transformation and it's important that you act like one even when you don’t think people are watching you.

The success of any project or initiative starts with you and your behaviours. It starts with you understanding who you are, how you communicate and what you build.

If you don't know who you are, what you stand for or what you want to achieve then spend some time reflecting on that and set some personal goals.

If you aren’t able to treat people with kindness, empathy and respect then get yourself a mentor or insist on a development program that can give you these (real) skills.

And if you don't know how to build, coach and support a team of people who want to do the right thing in the right way,  invest time with them at the start of the project to collectively build something you can all be proud of.

You can't be the perfect employee every single day of the week, nobody can. You're a human being and you will makes mistakes. But you have to have the intent to be the best you can, learn from your errors and never lose the courage to keep trying different things. 

Support productivity by: 

not working long into the eveningtaking breaksnot having back to back meetingshaving funcelebrating success. 

Most importantly, create a plan – no matter how big or small – that people feel part of and that is achievable. 

Create an enviable culture that supports great work by being:

approachableopen to new ideascourageous when things aren't going as well as they should be willing to manage someone who isn't performing (even the senior manager to whom you report).

All of these things are your job as a project manager, and in order to be successful you need to know how to do this all really well and then, crucially, you've got to do it every single working day of every single week throughout the year.

And if you don't want to do all of this then please, PLEASE, quit.

Quit for your own quality of life, health and future prospects. For your organisation that is about to invest millions of dollars in testing and implementing new ideas. For the people who want to do something different. For the team who look to you as a role model for change. And for the next generation of people who are eagerly waiting for an opportunity to demonstrate that they have what it takes to get things done.

Project success rates have been too low for too long, so either get yourself the soft skills to remain relevant, make a difference to people's lives, enhance organisational cultures and to safeguard competitive advantage. Or do us all and yourself a favour and move on.

It may just be the making of you. 

Will you make 'more kindness' a new year's resolution?

Last week I was singing along to ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ by Band Aid. It’s that time of year and I love a good singalong to some Christmas classics.

It sent me back to 1984. I was 15 at the time and music was a becoming a big influence on my life. But more than watching the likes of Bono, Sting, Paul Weller and er, Marilyn, together in a recording studio, it was the first time that I’d seen a group of famous artists publicly come together in this way to help others. Dad donated to Band Aid because he said that Christmas is a time to show kindness to others not as fortunate as us. That song went on to raise over $150m for famine relief in Ethiopia.

The start of a new year provides an opportunity to review the behaviours we have demonstrated the previous year and decide on those that could be improved. Our behaviours are the things that our work colleagues (and friends) talk about when we’re not in the room, good and bad. One thing we can all strive to do better is to show a little more kindness – not just at Christmas, but throughout the year.

Kindness is the foundation of empathy, and provides greater psychological security in the workplace, a key trait that all successful teams have, according to a Google survey earlier this year. It also provides other benefits too.

According to the Science of Kindness blog it not only helps you to age slower by reducing cortisol (the stress hormone) but it also produces oxytocin which aids in lowering blood pressure and improves our overall heart health too.

And researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky also recently found that when people were randomly kind to others it ‘increased happiness, connectedness, flow, and decreased depression, not just for the givers, but for the receivers and even for observers’.

No wonder it feels good to be kind.

Kindness is a behaviour that is motivated by relieving the suffering of others or else to bring them pleasure, without the need for recognition or reward. When we’re kind towards others we experience a feeling called ‘The Helpers High’. Giving someone directions, helping someone across the road, giving up your seat for someone more needy or giving up your time to help a colleague. All of these things create a state of euphoria that is caused by the release of endorphins in the brain.

It may be hard to believe, but showing a little more kindness isn’t always welcomed.

Only last week there was a story in the US where a police officer decided to show kindness to a homeless person caught shoplifting and is now facing an internal investigation. Whilst I don’t condone breaking the law, I believe that if we treated more people with kindness and tried to help them, maybe there’d be a little less anger and desperation in the world.

Being kind doesn’t always come naturally or can feel awkward, which is why we should resolve to do something small every day of every week. It can be random – buy someone a coffee, shout them breakfast, send them a blog you think they’d find interesting or simply say something kind. It could also be knowledge that you have that you’d like to share with others or simply giving up your time to help someone out.

Whatever you decide to do, make it a new routine and enjoy the good feelings it provides.

Albert Schweitzer said, ‘Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes the ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.’ There is much hostility in our world right now and one way to combat it in 2018 is with a little more kindness.

Thank you for reading my blog this year. We're taking a blogging break and will be back with new content on Tuesday 16 January 2018. Have a safe and happy holidays. 

Transformation starts with you

Every time I started a new job, I did three things:

I reviewed how I’d grown as a person during my last job, specifically what new knowledge and skills I’d gainedI reviewed any feedback that I’d received on my behaviours and also thought about the times I wasn’t being the best version of myselfI looked at the different things I’d tried in building teams and wrote down what had worked and what hadn’t (and why).

Once I’d done those three things and made some notes about what I would change in my new job, I did a fourth thing: I bought a new suit.

Now, on the face of it you could argue that I was simply following a process to justify buying a new set of clothes for myself (if you know me, you know that there’s more than a grain of truth in this!). Or else that I was starting a new job, so why wouldn’t I buy something new to look good in on day one? Both are valid points.

The thing is, I bought the suit to demonstrate to myself that I was starting a new chapter of my life and that in order to continually be the best version of myself, a new version of me had to show up. The suit embodied that new version of me and served as a reminder of the notes I’d made prior to buying it. (If you're not a suit wearer it could be a new bag, or a pair of shoes – it's not the item so much as what it symbolises.)

Our work and life never stops moving and changing. In order to stay relevant, evolve our language and to be able to inspire and motivate a new generation of people we all have to move with it regardless of where we live, where we work or what our job title is.

It’s not good enough to say ‘that’s how we used to do things’ or ‘in my day it was easier’. It’s also not good enough for organisations to accept this kind of behaviour and too many have tolerated it for far too long. The organisations that don’t deal with this behaviour quickly find that their attempts at change fail, whilst those who demand something different, thrive. As I frequently say in my keynote speeches, simply saying you’re going to be more agile doesn’t make it happen. Instilling a different set of expectations and behaviours and daring to fail is how you get the change you’re looking for.

High profile cases such as Kodak and Nokia are consistently rolled out as examples of where intransigence and a lack of foresight led to failure. Even now there are thousands of retailers ready to be consumed by the continuing digital revolution because they are too afraid to look for alternate ways to combat the Amazon juggernaut.

Any business transformation or evolution starts with the people leading it. It starts with what they know about themselves, how they behave and the things they do to build an environment where great work can happen.

This Transformation Triangle is critical for success and should any one of these sides not be addressed the whole structure is weakened. Not only will transformation not be achieved, but the organisation itself may be undermined.

Marketing expert Simon Sinek famously talked about the need for organisations and individuals to articulate what they stand for and that they should ‘Start with Why’. However, no transformation is possible, unless you start with you.

Who You Are

In their book First Break All The Rules, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman found that self-aware individuals are the building blocks of great teams. These are the people that seek feedback on their performance and are consistently challenging themselves to learn new skills, knowledge and communication techniques. They never stand still and can talk about the current zeitgeist with ease. They share what they know and go out of their way to build relationships with others.

Everything from the way they dress to the way they speak is thought about in the context of today and they support political and moral issues that enrich the lives of others. 

Chade Meng-Tan in his book Search Inside Yourself said that ‘self-awareness is the key domain of emotional intelligence that enables all the others.’ Whilst a survey in the Huffington Post last year found that poorly performing organisations were more likely to have employees with low self-awareness. Mckinsey went one further in its Culture for a Digital age survey earlier this year by saying ‘The narrow, parochial mentality of workers who hesitate to share information or collaborate across functions and departments can be corrosive to organisational culture.’

Leaders need to find out what they don’t know in order to keep pace with the world and foster approaches that encourage collaboration, not fear.

How You Behave

People who have used their power and influence to destroy the lives of others are being called out around the world. This is – and will continue to be – a difficult, painful but necessary process. These kinds of behaviours have never been acceptable and we need to create a safe space for courageous people to be able to come forward without judgement and share their stories. This also needs to happen in our corporates.

A recent survey commissioned by Allianz found that only 38% of millennials believe their leader is skilled at responding to changing circumstances, the behaviour that they valued the most. Whilst 65% of respondents in the New Rules for the Digital Age survey from Deloitte said that their organisation had no program in place to instil the different behaviours and skills required for digital transformation programs. And make no mistake, the behaviours demanded by today’s workforce are quite different than those that have gone before.

For organisations to deliver digital or cultural transformation programs successfully, leaders must role model the behaviours they expect of others. Never has the mantra ‘You’re only as good as the behaviour you walk past’ been more true than in this age of continually evolving ways of working and communicating.

What You Build

An organisation’s culture is the biggest determinant of any success or failure. Or as Mckinsey put it in its Culture for a Digital Age survey, ‘shortcomings in organisational culture are one of the main barriers to success in the digital age’. 

Culture is still the thing that companies spend the least amount of time, money and effort on.

Organisations whose leaders have the right mindset and behaviours are always going to be ahead of those who don’t. The latter often settle for the quick-fix actions of implementing the latest method, restructuring, changing the names of job titles or doing an office refurbishment.

Whilst these are all important in a larger culture evolution program, they often fail because what they build doesn’t address mistakes that have been made before, the behaviours of leaders that are currently holding good people back or the fact that they’re just trying to do too much with the people they have.

General Electric and Nordstrom are two examples held in high esteem by Mckinsey of organisations who are trying to do it a different way. By providing their staff with regular continual improvement programs, giving regular feedback and treating culture as the most important tenet to success, they are reaping the rewards in terms of growth as well as staff engagement and retention.

It should come as no surprise that the organisations that are flourishing have leaders who understand who they are, how they behave and what they need to build to attain continual cultural evolution and, ultimately, success in their sector.

They work hard for their new suits and look great in them.

 

Photograph by @igorovsyannykov via unsplash

How to stop your projects failing in 2018

By the end of this year, I will have delivered training courses and speeches in 15 countries across four continents. Given that my work is always tailored to my clients needs (there’s no such thing as ‘standard’ when it comes to development), I build a picture of what works well and what doesn’t in order to retain the things that work and address the root causes of failure.

What I’ve found is that the problems encountered with project delivery are almost universally the same around the world. They’re not different by gender, age, country or continent. They’re not more or less prevalent depending on where the organisation is during the financial year and they’re equally the same in the public and private sector.

Here’s a snapshot of them:

Project managers are hired in the wrong way - People are hired for the project management ‘badges’ that they hold (‘Must be PMP certified’) and for the subject matter expertise that they have (‘Must have Sharepoint knowledge’). Whilst these things are important they will always be secondary to the ability to lead and build great teams. As one client said to me: ‘We have created a culture of know-it-all-ism that doesn’t lend itself to getting things delivered in the right way.’

Project managers don’t know how to motivate and inspire - The one thing that ‘standard’ certification courses don’t do is perhaps the most important part of being a project manager! They don’t provide project managers with the knowledge and skills of how to be emotionally intelligent and to be able to motivate and inspire a team of people to do likewise. The best projects are always led by the best people who create the best teams. This point was reinforced by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their book First Break All The Rules, who found that ‘Self-aware individuals are the building blocks of great teams.’

Planning is poor - Despite the fact that project managers have been on courses to understand the different techniques for planning projects, the level of detail is still poor as is managing the risk to it. Project managers (and scrum masters) have three jobs: build the team, build the plan, deliver the project. Always in that order. Too often planning is done at a high-level or, worse still, not done at all. If there’s no plan, there’s no project.

Senior managers don’t understand the value of good project management - Often it’s because they’ve never seen what it looks like, but often it’s because they don’t insist on it. In most of the organisations I’ve worked with there are too many projects being undertaken which serve on to demoralise those that are working on them. There’s also a false notion that being a project sponsor is an extension of business as usual, which is dangerous and wrong. Without the right level of input and commitment to a project from senior managers, it’s doomed to failure from the start, which - according to one survey - could be as high as 75% for some organisations.

Process is used as a stick - Nothing says, ‘We’ve got our approach wrong’ than project management process being mandated. If plans aren’t produced, reports aren’t submitted on time, risk registers and schedules aren’t updated, then it’s a performance management issue not a process adherence one. Having said all that, the process that I encountered in most businesses was good enough to support the business of good project delivery and in some cases was fantastic. It just wasn’t being used. PMOs need to ensure that project managers see the value in the organisation’s approach and have the capability to produce ‘minimum viable documentation’ in order to get projects delivered. 

Where transformation has been most effective, the following have been true:

A new culture was defined - Not just defined, but clearly articulated and understood. A culture that describes the vision that project managers have of their own function, a set of behaviours to role model and some principles of what great looks like. The service they provide should always go to 11 and the culture will determine that.

Senior managers were part of the program - Often, with project management development programs, the focus is on those responsible for delivery, not those accountable. In order to transform the culture of delivery, it needs to encompass both – preferably with senior managers being trained first so that they understand their role in supporting the transformation.

Project managers changed their mindset - The biggest changes I’ve witnessed (and been proud to be part of) are those where project managers decided that in order to be successful, they needed a different mindset, not a new process. They became more self-aware, changed some of their fixed ways and embraced an ‘anything is possible’ mindset. They also worked hard on the mechanics of their role, and shared information with others on how to do it well. Abraham Maslow once said that ‘Self-development takes great courage and long struggle’ but no-one ever says it isn’t worth it.

Development activity was undertaken every month - The old adage of ‘little and often’ is never more true than with personal development. Whilst it’s important to gain a blast of knowledge at the start and an agreement on how to move forward, only through continual improvement can you provide people with the skills they need and, by doing this, evolve your culture from good to great.

There was accountability - Great project management cultures don’t have to be told to follow a process, plan well, be the best version of themselves or to role model behaviours. In these cultures the individuals hold themselves to this standard. They challenge each other to be better, find innovative ways to share ideas and lessons learned (that aren’t spreadsheets!) and never stop asking for feedback. Only through continual feedback can any of us ever hope to improve and where there’s a culture of courage, there’s a team of accountable people who want to make a difference to the world.

Any project function, regardless of sector, country or continent can become world class and deliver projects consistently well. You have to stop making the same mistakes and invest in a different approach. If you’re up for the challenge next year, I’d love to work with you, wherever you are in the world.

I’m delighted to announce that I’m now taking bookings for 2018 for the following programs: 

The Project Leadership Academy - an intensive immersion for project managers and sponsors that redefines and captures the new delivery culture and provides everyone involved with the leadership and team-building skills to be successful, every time. 

The Conscious Project Leader - a program that provides project managers, scrum masters and team leaders with the emotional intelligence skills required to be the best versions of themselves and create teams that everyone wants to join. 

Sponsoring Projects to Success - a program that provides those that sponsor projects with the practical knowledge of how to become a role model for transformation. From behaviours to running great steering committee meetings, successful projects start and end with the commitment of the sponsor. 

Getting to Know You - a program to lift collaboration of any team, anywhere. From flight crew to engineers, this program raises self-awareness, provides an action plan for improvement and transforms communication. 

If you would like to know more about these programs and the benefits they deliver head to my programs page

To arrange a chat with me to discuss your organisations requirements, please contact Jodie at hello@colindellis.com

Transform your project delivery current

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