Colin D. Ellis's Blog, page 26

The Four Personalities Of A Project Manager

When speaking with new clients one of the challenges they consistently face in delivering their projects is a lack of collaboration. Upwards, downwards, sidewards… you name it, it’s just something that doesn’t happen very often.

It is something that’s talked about a lot. Often it’s even included in organisation values or money is spent on moving to an open plan office, introducing an activity-based working environment or simply a declaration of ‘going agile’.

Despite this, there is still siloed working, too many unproductive meetings, and long unread emails. Most of all there is a lack of progress, especially in projects.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that one of the the most popular modules when I run my Conscious Project Leader program is the one that deals with personalities. How to get the best out of people, regardless of personality and create an environment in which everyone can feel at ease  and therefore do their best work. In other words, how to collaborate properly.

The importance of understanding personalities in creating collaborative cultures is seldom discussed and invested in (as I wrote about in a blog earlier this year).

To foster a culture of collaboration you need leaders who understand that different people are motivated by different things. Leaders need to be able to adapt to their audience and be consistent in their messaging and behaviours.

It’s one of the hardest things to learn and yet all the great leaders have it. You’ll hear phrases like ‘they just got me’ or ‘they really knew how to motivate me’. It’s not accidental, it’s a choice that people make once they understand their own strengths and opportunities for improvement.

Our personality is evident in the things we say, the way we express our feelings, the way that we write, how we dress and, of course, in the work we produce. It’s also evident in the things that we avoid doing.

Once we understand ourselves, it’s much easier to understand others and develop the skills to motivate them.

As an extroverted project manager, my preferences always favoured action, trust and being social. It took me about six months to realise that not everyone was motivated by my flapping arms, one liners and high energy style. I got frustrated and wondered why, when I’d put my trust in others, they hadn’t delivered. Frustrated that no-one really understood or welcomed my trademark changes of mind. Frustrated that no other team members wanted to chair a meeting or present to senior management. I was also frustrated with myself for losing interest once the initial ‘buzz’ had worn off.

So I had to learn some other personality styles. Three to be precise.

Who I was, the values and goals I had, my behaviours and the professionalism I demonstrated for my role didn’t change but my style did, depending on the people I was working with.

So here are the four project manager personality styles that I observed on the road to becoming a Conscious Project Leader. As individuals we are a mixture of these elements but we have a preference for using some of them over others:

 

By learning these other personalities I was able to better understand:

The motivation and emotions of others

How to communicate what I needed

How to encourage accountability

How to make people feel part of something special

How to promote the exertions of the team and protect their time and opinions

How to manage poor performance

How to gather and present data

How to manage upwards

How to give and receive feedback

How to keep stakeholders happy

When it was appropriate to be light-hearted!

As Anthony Mersino said in his excellent book Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers, “To excel on projects we need to be able to switch and adjust our leadership style to the needs of the situation.”

This means adjusting your personality towards that which will most motivate the individual or team you’re working with at the time... and sometimes that will require more work than others.

Which personality best describes you and which elements do you need to work on to become a Conscious Project Leader?

Find our more about The Conscious Project Leader Program I'm running a very special Conscious Project Leader public course in October, I'd love to see you there. 

Your Project Management Certificate Is Worthless

In 1985 I was in the midst of the Duke of Edinburgh program in the UK, a fantastic program for developing young people (I highly recommend it).

Anyway, as part of the program I had to learn a new skill; I chose canoeing. It was something I really fancied doing and something I thought I’d be good at.

I spent six weeks practising on a local lake, culminating in a 3km paddle down the Leeds and Liverpool canal. 

At the end of the 3km, we were presented with our certificates. The week after, we were invited back to the local lake to take the first class of the intermediate program for free (a clever marketing ploy!), so as a certified canoeist I headed back.

Twenty minutes in I toppled over, promptly panicked and forgot everything I had learned. I was about 15 seconds from drowning – in the most disgusting dirty water, it has to be said – before being pulled out by two instructors.

I never canoed again. But I still have the certificate.

The Forgetting Curve, developed by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885, demonstrates that most people forget an average of 70% of what they’ve learned within 24 hours of learning it. Within a week, 90% of it is gone. By those statistics, I was lucky that I was able to remember how to get into the canoe.

The thing is, learning how to canoe by rote wasn’t the thing to get a certificate for. Quickly applying the knowledge that I’d learned, bouncing back from mistakes and becoming a role model for others should have been what I demonstrated in order to get a certificate.

Yet all too often, particularly in project management, we make it about the piece of paper.

‘Are you MSP registered?’ ‘Have you got your agile yet?’ ‘Do you have letters after your name? You’ll get enhanced recognition if you do’.

At an event I spoke at recently – about the need for project management to get its act together – I chatted to two project managers about the challenges they faced. When I asked them to describe their project management style they both said ‘I’m a PRINCE2 project manager’. I died inside a little bit, then recovered to tell them that they were much more than that.

I reminded them that they were a complex web of feelings, emotions, relationships and knowledge. That they didn’t yet have all the answers, but that they should never stop looking. That a single course about a method was the least important thing they could do to improve their chances of delivering projects successfully (though still important). And that the method they were championing was taking all the credit for the work that they’d put in over the years.

Having a certificate is great on your CV or LinkedIn profile, in that it shows you’ve invested in your development, but unless you’re a role model for others it all counts for nothing.

Vacuuming up certification courses is all too common in the project management profession and the lazier organisations still use them as a way to recruit. Having armies of ‘certified’ professionals hasn’t improved the rates of project delivery in the last 11 years, yet it’s still the default action organisations take when they look to bring in new people or develop their existing ones.

I’ve recently started working with a client on improving their project delivery culture and the first thing we’ve done away with is ‘hiring by certificate’. The best way to fill your organisation full of good people is to hire them for exactly that first, not their ability to pass a multiple choice exam. Demonstrate the behaviours, be accountable, use common sense!

Now of course I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do these qualifications. It would be fairly hypocritical of me given that I’ve got lots of them and we give one out as part of the Conscious Project Leader program (although ours are ‘accountability statements’ – check it out here). I’m simply saying that if they’re not accompanied by a willingness to change some things immediately, having the courage to be different, developing the ability to build lasting relationships and to contribute positively to the organisation’s culture then they are not worth the card they’re printed on.

Changing your approach, your language, your ideas, your contribution and your personality should be the thing that you get rewarded for. That’s the stuff that people want to see when you’ve spent two days out of the office. However, more often than not, people blame their workload, culture or line manager for not taking action and quickly slide on down the Forgetting Curve.

In project management we need inspiration over certification, perspiration over accreditation and letters of recommendation not letters after your name.

Your project management certificate is worthless, however the immediate action you take from the course you’ve been on can be priceless and a demonstration that you take your personal development seriously.

Project management is a service, not a process

‘How will we work together?’ always comes before ‘what do we need to do?’

A vision provides inspiration, but only when done well.

Values are lived, not pinned up.

Cultures need to be unique, not replicas.

Behaviours need to be agreed not tolerated.

Expectations need to be set in order for them to be managed.

Communication is a skill not a document.

Planning involves collaboration and can’t be done in isolation.

Collaboration is everyone’s responsibility, not just the leaders.

The project team is a collection of networked humans not a hierarchical diagram.

Empathy is critical not optional.

Risks require action over registration.

Budgets need to be forecasted and spent.

Issues need attention not inaction.

Innovation requires time, not funky furniture.

To be more agile you have to be less rigid in your thinking.

Dependencies require interaction, not ignorance.

Reports need to be written not avoided.

Schedules need to be updated not neglected.

Benefits need to be monitored not delivered.

Confidence is earned through honesty not deception.

People need to be led, then managed, in that order.

Generosity trumps meanness.

No-one is perfect and everybody knows this.

People respond to humour over temper.

Integrity is achieved through actions, not years of experience.

Collaboration tools are enablers, but only when everyone uses them.

Stakeholders need care and attention, not a place on a matrix.

Saying sorry demonstrates humanity not weakness.

Lessons are only learned when mistakes aren’t repeated.

Projects end when the stakeholders are happy, not before.

Projects transform organisations and create new leaders.

Continual improvement is only achieved through continual feedback.

Project management is a service not a process.

Are Your Project Managers Sheepwalkers?

There’s a phrase that I love in Seth Godin’s book Tribes where he talks about staff who are sheepwalkers. A sheepwalker is someone who has been raised to be obedient. To follow orders or the herd in the mistaken belief that this is what will make them successful.

I mentioned the concept of sheepwalking to a client last week.

We were talking about the prevalence within project management for organisations to ‘mandate’ process and methods as a mechanism to achieve consistently good project delivery.

In designing the program for the year, to take their people from administrators to leaders, we talked about the challenges we’ll face in creating a project department that is seen as unique, energetic, collaborative and a force for good within the organisation. My client summed up by telling me, “The challenge is to move them away from the process and over to their emotions.”

This challenge is not unique to project management. There’s a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things in every profession. It’s just that, in my experience, project management seems to be the only profession where project managers have to be continually reminded about the ‘right’ way to do things. However, the ‘right’ way isn’t right at all.

This ‘right’ way - often written in a handbook or as a process on an intranet page - almost never describes the behaviours project managers need to exhibit, the collaboration methods they need to employ, how to include time for innovation or why making the team smile every now and then is great for morale.

Predominantly in project management, the ‘right’ way is to meticulously follow a process. This is sheepwalking in action.

In the PMI Pulse of the Profession Survey earlier this year, only 18% of organisations said that they had ‘high project management maturity.’

Achieving a high level of maturity should be the goal of every project management function and I don’t mean maturity of process, I mean emotional maturity of people. After all, this emotional maturity is one of the three most important factors in project success according to the 2015 Standish Group report (executive sponsorship and user involvement are the other two.)

To achieve this high level of maturity you need to lose or retrain the sheepwalkers.

You need personality, individuality, creativity, inspiration, uniqueness and a determination to be the difference. Project managers need to choose to be leaders, to set the best side of their personalities free and to take on board feedback about the stuff that isn’t working.

Project managers not asking stakeholders about the service they’re providing? Sheepwalking.

Project managers should be spending quality time building relationships with the people they’ll be working with and employing different communication approaches for each.

Sending emails to everyone all the time? Sheepwalking.

Project managers should know why it’s important to create a team, a culture and a plan before the work starts, not during the implementation phase. And they should know how to do it well.

Writing a schedule in isolation after the project has started? Sheepwalking.

Project meetings need to be the best you attend all week. Detailed agenda, action focused, no distractions, inclusive and respectful of time.

Meetings that start and end late with people on their phones the whole time? Sheepwalking.

Project managers should build in time for innovation and to encourage people to be creative in their solutioning.

No time for the team to challenge existing ways of doing things? Sheepwalking.

Project managers should take time out of their week to assess progress against their plan, ensure there are no new threats to delivery, that the existing ones are being dealt with and that their reports are honest.

More truth in the kitchen conversations than in the reports? Sheepwalking.

In his book Creativity Inc. Ed Catmull talked about how slavishly following process created big problems in the early days for Pixar Studios: “Trust the process had morphed into assume the process will fix things for us.” This is where project management is today.

Sheepwalkers believe that only through following a process can you be successful, however don’t let them pull the wool over your eyes. Only through individuality can project managers ever hope to lead the team to success.

Doing more with less, better project management

Whenever I meet with clients, there are usually two things they’re looking for:

To do more with less
orBetter project management

My answer is always that with the right investment and the right people with the right mindset, both are achievable. The value to the organisation is measured in an increase in engagement, a lift in productivity and an improvement on the number of projects delivered in line with stakeholder expectations. 

In short:
Doing more with less requires inspiration and motivation.

Better project management requires project managers to make the choice to be leaders and role models.

Doing more with less needs a vision that people believe in.

Better project management requires you to deliver products that match the intent of the vision and see the benefits realised.

Doing more with less means focussing on that which is needed, not that which is wanted.

Better project management needs stakeholders to be actively involved in the building of the plan and the products.

Doing more with less requires empathy, understanding and compassion.

Better project management requires that project managers serve others, not themselves.

Doing more with less means finding better ways to do things.

Better project management means planning in time to let people try new things, even if that means failing.

Doing more with less requires priorities to be clear and decisions to be quick.

Better project management requires active sponsorship and a willingness to support those delivering.

Doing more with less means stopping a project when it’s no longer viable.

Better project management requires courage and the ability to manage upwards.

Doing more with less means hiring people who will help you create the culture you want.

Better project management means praising good behaviours and performance, and actively managing the bad.

Doing more with less means creating something that everyone is proud to be part of.

Better project management requires an understanding of how to use the skills and personalities of the team to create a culture that delivers.

Doing more with less requires people to work together.

Better project management provides an environment that makes it  easy to collaborate.

Doing more with less means that rules are a guide.

Better project management tailors approaches to suit the project, not the department set up to monitor them.

Doing more with less is easier for those that value project management.

Better project management is easier for those who value people.

Doing more with less through better project management should be the goal of every organisation. What are you doing to give your people the choices and skills to achieve it?

Leadership tips for kids that work for adults too

It’s been school holiday time here in Australia, so I thought in this week’s blog I’d combine my love of family and leadership.

When I was young my parents taught me the value of manners and being nice to people. Saying 'please', 'thank you', 'excuse me' and waiting my turn to talk. They taught me about treating people in the right way and about having the patience to listen to my many aunties and uncles, who 'knew better'. Thinking back I don't consider this to be 'of its time', I think of it as the perfect message to give our children.

I always wanted to be a father as I enjoyed being around the constant energy, excitement, curiosity and possibility that children bring. I like to think that I'm a good Dad because I encourage all of that.

Every day as a parent brings a new situation to deal with. Whether it’s bike chains sticking, broken toys, tears at hearing the word ‘no’, poor choices of behaviour, smuggling Nerf guns to school (see also ‘poor choices of behaviour’), angst about friendships, despair over solving equations or just the endless mountain of belongings that fail to come home from school. What can seem like a minor incident to me can be a devastating setback to a child. 

Each of these things tests me as a father and as a person. I must continually look at who I am and how I react. The same is true of how you evolve as a leader within your organisation. Not that you should treat your staff like children, you should instead encourage those childlike qualities that were the foundations for your career today.

Regardless of age or gender, here are five leadership tips that I teach my kids that are great for adults too:

1. Fun is good!

We all love to laugh and when I mean laugh I don't mean a cynical smile, I mean a full-on, eye-watering, 'can't get my breath' laugh. They happen when you least expect them and you never want the feeling to end. 

2. Bullying is never acceptable

Human beings are vulnerable things and that should never, ever be taken advantage of. Being a bigger, taller, more driven, angrier person doesn't give you the right to impose yourself – physically or verbally – on anyone else. Ever.

3. There's a reason that Listen and Silent have the same letters

In our device-driven world, active listening is a skill we should all learn. The ability to listen to not only what is being said but also how it’s being said, before processing the meaning  and crafting your response is so important (see Tanya Drollinger - Active Empathetic Listening). Your turn to speak comes after they've finished.

4. Keep your promises

If you say that you're going to do something you should do it or else don't make the promise. As soon as you make a promise you create a level of expectation that – when met – will prove to the recipient that you understand how important it is to them. As soon as you let them down you have double the work to do to regain their trust. 

5. Never stop learning

Every day we learn something new, so we should open ourselves up to that and soak up as much as we can. We should be relentless in our curiosity to find out more, to better our knowledge and ourselves. We won't always understand something first time around, so we should carry on until we do.

Whether you're five or 65, life is full of choices. As a parent I see it as my role to guide my children so that they can make the best choices in their lives. I want them to reach their full potential and I want that for myself too. Right, I have to go now, I’m being asked a question by my son and it wouldn’t look good if I carry on typing...

Is Your Organisation Heading For A Prexit?

There are only two choices. Do you continue using project management as a means of delivering transformation or do you disband what you have and place your faith in something else?

Much has been said about the value that project management provides, however for the last 15 years (at least) there has been little improvement in the project success statistics, stories and experiences.  We continue to make the same mistakes. Not only that, most employees are losing hope that it can ever achieve what it gleefully sold us, post Year 2000 (Y2K).

Prior to Y2K, project management relied on the skills of individuals who’d largely learned their trade by following the examples of others. These were people who used influence, personality and humour to get things done. People who knew how to build teams that worked together and played together.

However, not long after Y2K, there was an influx of people keen to seek their trade in pastures new. These people were new to project management, but had a certificate of entry.

The certificate of entry quickly became the most acceptable way to get a job and partly as a result of this, the profession has suffered. It lost its personality, influence and its sense of identity. Crucially it lost its ability to deliver to stakeholder satisfaction.

In the face of this decline some organisations want out and are looking for a project management exit (PREXIT). Which is understandable in some instances given what they’ve seen.

They’ve seen an influx in paperwork, bureaucracy and rules from those not qualified to enforce them.

They’ve seen good people leave their organisation as a result of not being able to create something that they want to be part of. They’ve seen time and money wasted in the hands of those who don’t know what it means to deliver a plan against a strategy. And they’ve seen a rise of arrogance and lying.

Worst of all, they’re not getting either the returns that they expected or seen their organisation progress in the way that they hoped. So they’ve started to look elsewhere.

They’ve turned to change management as a way of dealing with people and also to ensure that outcomes are achieved. They’ve turned to agile software development as a method for getting things done quicker.

But here’s the thing.

The only things required to make project management work and to avoid a costly and unnecessary PREXIT, is more leadership and better cultures.

People are sick of being lied to. Sick of being told something is good when it isn’t. Sick of seeing individuals elevate themselves above all others, rather than creating an environment where everyone is equal.

And they’re tired. Tired of listening to the same old project management rhetoric about what works and what doesn’t. Tired of being told to skip the things that add value. Tired of doing less with less and tired of investing energy into things that were never going to add value.

These fractions, these divisions, these unhealthy and unnecessary tensions can be resolved with a determination to do what’s right.

Bring back people we can trust. Bring back people who have integrity. Bring back people we can hold up as role models. Bring back people who try different things and hold their hands up when they get things wrong. Bring back people who challenge the status quo and call out when things aren’t right.

Then let these people build teams that understand what it means to treat each other in the right way. Teams that don’t wait to be told what needs to be done. Teams that are invested in the future of the organisation. Teams that find the fastest way to do something really well and aren’t held back by what’s considered to be ‘best’ or ‘the way we’ve always done it’.

These leaders and teams exist. They exist in organisations that listen, change and challenge their people to be great at what they do.

We don’t need PREXIT, we need more authentic leadership and better project cultures. History will then take care of itself.

Disclaimer: This blog in no way represents my view on BREXIT.

IS YOUR ORGANISATION HEADING FOR A PREXIT?

There are only two choices. Do you continue using project management as a means of delivering transformation or do you disband what you have and place your faith in something else?

Much has been said about the value that project management provides, however for the last 15 years (at least) there has been little improvement in the project success statistics, stories and experiences.  We continue to make the same mistakes. Not only that, most employees are losing hope that it can ever achieve what it gleefully sold us, post Year 2000 (Y2K).

Prior to Y2K, project management relied on the skills of individuals who’d largely learned their trade by following the examples of others. These were people who used influence, personality and humour to get things done. People who knew how to build teams that worked together and played together.

However, not long after Y2K, there was an influx of people keen to seek their trade in pastures new. These people were new to project management, but had a certificate of entry.

The certificate of entry quickly became the most acceptable way to get a job and partly as a result of this, the profession has suffered. It lost its personality, influence and its sense of identity. Crucially it lost its ability to deliver to stakeholder satisfaction.

In the face of this decline some organisations want out and are looking for a project management exit (PREXIT). Which is understandable in some instances given what they’ve seen.

They’ve seen an influx in paperwork, bureaucracy and rules from those not qualified to enforce them.

They’ve seen good people leave their organisation as a result of not being able to create something that they want to be part of. They’ve seen time and money wasted in the hands of those who don’t know what it means to deliver a plan against a strategy. And they’ve seen a rise of arrogance and lying.

Worst of all, they’re not getting either the returns that they expected or seen their organisation progress in the way that they hoped. So they’ve started to look elsewhere.

They’ve turned to change management as a way of dealing with people and also to ensure that outcomes are achieved. They’ve turned to agile software development as a method for getting things done quicker.

But here’s the thing.

The only things required to make project management work and to avoid a costly and unnecessary PREXIT, is more leadership and better cultures.

People are sick of being lied to. Sick of being told something is good when it isn’t. Sick of seeing individuals elevate themselves above all others, rather than creating an environment where everyone is equal.

And they’re tired. Tired of listening to the same old project management rhetoric about what works and what doesn’t. Tired of being told to skip the things that add value. Tired of doing less with less and tired of investing energy into things that were never going to add value.

These fractions, these divisions, these unhealthy and unnecessary tensions can be resolved with a determination to do what’s right.

Bring back people we can trust. Bring back people who have integrity. Bring back people we can hold up as role models. Bring back people who try different things and hold their hands up when they get things wrong. Bring back people who challenge the status quo and call out when things aren’t right.

Then let these people build teams that understand what it means to treat each other in the right way. Teams that don’t wait to be told what needs to be done. Teams that are invested in the future of the organisation. Teams that find the fastest way to do something really well and aren’t held back by what’s considered to be ‘best’ or ‘the way we’ve always done it’.

These leaders and teams exist. They exist in organisations that listen, change and challenge their people to be great at what they do.

We don’t need PREXIT, we need more authentic leadership and better project cultures. History will then take care of itself.

Disclaimer: This blog in no way represents my view on BREXIT.

The Answer To Your Project Management Problem Is More Leadership, Not More Process

During a conversation with a client a couple of weeks ago, they brought up a topic I hear all too often. 'How do we get our project managers to use our process?'

It's something I've been hearing for the last year whenever I talk to organisations about project management capability development. My answer is two-fold:

1. If they're using their own tools to capture the information and are successfully delivering projects (to the delight of their stakeholders), then does it really matter that they're not using your branded templates? (Actually, this is more of a question than an answer. It's designed to get them to see that getting projects delivered is what it's actually all about.)

2. If they're not delivering projects (and the stakeholders are unhappy), then they either need to be performance managed - capturing information is what project leaders do - or else shown the value of it.

Yet, upskilling our people to give them the knowledge of what it means to be a leader in project management is continually overlooked. Instead, more method-based textbook learning is seen as the answer. Phrases I hear include:

'We need more standardisation of our project management'

'If only they'd follow the process, they'd be successful every time!'

'Our projects continue to fail, so we're implementing a PMO'

'Once I've completed my [insert certificate name here] I'll gain the team's respect'

Yeah, nah. As they say in New Zealand. None of these things are true, no matter how many times people tell themselves that they are.

The only things that need to be standard and consistent about project management is the way that people lead. As I said to a client recently, if you get this right, then the rest - the culture, the commitment to stakeholder satisfaction, the methods and techniques used - will take care of itself. That's the thing about leaders. They see the value in things being done in the right way and if they think it can be improved, they'll let you know.

They know how to build a team and take none of the credit for their work. They know how to build in time to innovate. They know how to manage their disengaged sponsor. They know how to communicate to different personalities, in different cultures, often in different countries. And they definitely don't need to be told how to use a project management process by someone who's never managed a project.

So why do we continue to underinvest in leadership training for our project managers and sponsors?

Here in Australia, leadership was cited as the number one reason for project failure by the Victorian Ombudsman in their 2011 report into failed ICT projects.

In its Inquiry Report into the Queensland Health Payroll System in 2013, the Commission found ‘there was plenty of active oversight of the program, however successful governance is not just about having processes, but about how governance processes and tools are used to get the result.’

In his 2014 report entitled 'Learning From Failure: Why large government policy initiatives have gone so badly wrong in the past and how the chances of success in the future can be improved', Peter Shergold said ‘valuing leadership in program and project management will strengthen the [Australian Public Service] as an effective, professional and resilient institution.’ Mr Shergold also said, 'Program and project management are too often seen as control activities based on templates and Gantt charts. They are actually creative processes.'

Wise words, that continue to go unheeded.

In the latest Victorian ICT strategy released earlier this year, the word leadership is mentioned once in the entire document and if there's a strategy that needs more leadership, it's this one.

Of more concern - to me at least - is that their answer to continued project failure is a 'dashboard detailing the status of  ICT projects with a budget over $1 million' (expect lots of traffic lights about the things that naturally change in projects - time and cost) and more independent quality advice.

How about instead we spent some real money on developing the leadership skills of project people who can get the job done, so you don't have to line the pockets of your preferred consultants?

Even the Project Management Institute, the global body for our profession, is admitting the way that we develop project managers is broken. In his introduction to the latest Pulse of the Profession, PMI President Mark A. Langley said "we saw declines in many of the success factors we track [last year]. Even more concerning, the percentage of projects meeting their goals which had been flat for the past four years took a significant dip."

When the global professional body starts questioning itself in public, you know it's time for things to change.

It's time to give project people the choice to be leaders and the knowledge of what it takes to build cultures. It's time to sort the project management avoiders ('I don't need to use a process'), administrators ('I only need a process') and managers ('Let's get this done at all costs') from the builders ('Let's work together to create something unique') and leaders ('I'll empower you to deliver something special and remove the things that stand in your way').

It'll cost a lot less than $2500 a head and the only downside is that your people won't get a certificate. On the upside, they'll get the information they need to decide whether to become a leader and the skills to create something that will be talked about for years. They'll become role models for others to follow and these organisations will continually attract the right kind of people.

It's really not that hard to invest in the right program for your project people. So what's stopping you? Oh wait, is it your procurement process?

To find out more about The Conscious Project Leader program click here

How to be a great communicator at all levels

Every resume that I read when I was hiring new project managers had two common items:

Delivered a $1.5m IT projectGreat communicator at all levels

The thing about point number one is that great project managers - Conscious Project Leaders - would never claim responsibility for delivering a $1.5m IT project, regardless of whether they had or hadn't. They would say that they were part of a team (it wasn't 'theirs') that delivered the project, thereby taking none of the actual credit for the project being a success.

The thing about point number two is that very few people actually know how to do it, never mind how to do it well.

When quizzed on what it means, interviewees would typically give me the 'well, I can have a conversation with the CEO and the cleaners' answer. To which my response was 'what kind of personality did they both have and how do you change your approach for each based on the mood you were in at that time?'

*Silence*

*Tumbleweeds*

*Grabs jacket, folder and printouts of the website and sprints out of the room*

My intention was never to embarrass or catch anyone out, however, having spent 20 years trying to master how to be a great communicator, I know there's more to it than simply having a conversation.

Interpersonal Intelligence

I know that around the next corner is someone I've never met before and I'm going to have to work harder than I've ever worked to understand how they like to communicate. Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence calls this Interpersonal Intelligence, and it involves - but is not limited to - ascertaining the following:

        What are they saying and how are they saying it?        Are they formal, informal, direct, or sociable?        Do they respond best to facts, stories about people, actions or pictures?        What are their priorities, challenges, and opportunities for improvement?        What are their passions?        What are they responsible and accountable for?        What do they most enjoy?        What do they most regret?        What are their expectations?        What are their interests outside work?

These questions often take weeks and months to answer and throughout that time I would never stop working, or seeking feedback, on my communication approaches. What worked? What didn't? What can I do more of? What can I do less of?

You see, being a great communicator at all levels is a complicated business and understanding someone else might actually be the easy part. To be truly great at it, you need to understand yourself as well.

Intrapersonal Intelligence

Goleman calls the ability to understand yourself, Intrapersonal Intelligence. Explaining that it is 'the capacity to form an accurate, veridical [truthful] model of oneself and to be able to use that model to operate effectively in life.' In other words, you're able to confidently answer the following:

        What do you stand for?        What are your values?        What's your vision for yourself?        What emotions do you feel right now?        Why are you feeling them?        What can you do about them?

In Emotional Capitalists, Martyn Newman says 'If you are not fully aware of what emotions you are feeling and how it affects you, you lose a crucial piece of feedback to inform your actions.' This is what we see when relationships breakdown. The inability to read ourselves and others and to fully understand what is needed to make it work.

In a paper entitled 'Introverts vs. Extroverts: Do office environments support both?', researchers Cushman and Wakefield stated that 'if organisations want to change how teams/departments with synergy collaborate, they must recognise the differing communication preferences in the workplace.'

Becoming a great communicator

Being great at communicating is a never-ending journey of discovery and is something to be enjoyed. However, it's also something that you may never master.

So before you write 'Great communicator at all levels' on your resume, first ask yourself: are you both interpersonally and intrapersonally intelligent? Or is there still some work to do?

I'd love to hear about your techniques for becoming a great communicator.