Don’t Get Fooled Twice

Much has been written regarding how to conduct post-project assessments with the goal of gathering best practices and lessons learned. In future blogs I will add my own ideas and experiences regarding this critical process as well. But before we get there, I don’t think near enough has been written (or has stuck with us) regarding how to make sure an organization doesn’t learn the same lesson multiple times. Unfortunately I have seen this happen on too many occasions in the past, so here are some of my tips to prevent an organization from getting fooled twice.

Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies by Jim Stengel

Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies is a new book by Jim Stengel that provides a detailed review of how creating a stong brand ideal is correlated with long term organizational success, along with providing steps for implementing and maintianing a strong brand idea. I found this book to be an intriguing meeting of Jim Collins’ Good to Great (business success factors) and Martin Lindstrom’s Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy(study of neuromarketing). Unlike the Collins’ “Great” series of books which identify successful companies and then draws conclusions on what made them great, Stengel set out to prove that building a strong brand ideal is correlated to organizational success. The author approaches this goal by providing results of his research and several case studies which show the dramatic impacts of building or re-building a strong brand ideal.

Multipliers: A Q&A with author Liz Wiseman

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman demonstrates how Multipliers can have a resoundingly positive and profitable effect on organizations—getting more done with fewer resources, developing and attracting talent, and cultivating new ideas and energy to drive organizational change and innovation. I recently had a chance to connect with Liz and ask her a few questions about her bestselling book.

Thanks Liz for taking time from your busy schedule to answer these questions.

Q: In the "Instill Ownership and Accountability" section of Multipliers, you recommend letting people remain accountable for their actions and experience consequences. This is a message I experience difficulty in applying since typical management training says that managers should protect their staff. Under what situation, if any, do you believe managers should attempt to protect their staff from the consequences of their actions?

A: This question is at the heart of the art of good management.  It is certainly naive to suggest that managers should just let their people fail and experience the sting of real learning.  But, I find that in working with management teams on this question, they find that there is far more room for experimentation that they initially thought.  Here's a quick mental exercise:   Take out two pieces of paper.  On one, make a list of everywhere it is OK to let someone live out a mistake or fail. On the other, make a list of where it isn't OK and you need to intervene.  Focus on the criteria.  Challenge yourself by making the second list no more than half as long as the first list.  My guess is that two things will happen:

1. You will see that there is a lot more room to experiment that you might feel and

2. You will develop a short set of criteria that you can use to recognize when you need to step in. 

Typically this criteria is something like, "when it is business ending, life ending, or career ending (for them or you!)."  Often the criteria for when it is OK to let failure happen sounds like this: "when the opportunity for learning is bigger than the cost to the business." 

Doing this exercise as a management team can be a powerful way to shape the culture and the environment for learning and performance.

The art of management comes in finding this right balance.  When is the mistake too costly and might seriously jeopardize the business or the person?  I like to think of this as finding the right size wave — one where someone will learn from their mistake and not be swept out to sea!  Check out my new Right Size Wave video for the full story.

Lean Project Management: A Q&A with author Larry Leach

Lean Project Management: Eight Principles For Success by Larry Leach takes you through all of the steps to plan and execute projects using the exciting new Lean and Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) methods. I recently had a chance to connect with Larry and ask him a few questions about his latest book.

Thanks Larry for taking the time from your busy schedule to address these questions.

 
Q: One of the goals of Lean Project Management (LPM) is to eliminate waste in projects and as you note in your book, one of the biggest wastes is initiating projects that produce goods/services that do not meet customer needs. Along those lines I have rarely encountered organizations that follow a formal process to review in-flight projects and were willing to kill projects that were not on the path to meeting customer needs. Why do you think organizations are unwilling to kill in-flight project and how should we address this issue?

A: My direct experience isn't with product development projects where this issue predominates although I have run into cases where projects shouldn't have started in the first place. The problem with unwillingness to kill projects may relate to some well-known psychological phenomena called the "Sunk Cost Fallacy" and the "Endowment Effect". One way I can see to overcome it is with periodic reviews to specific criteria by people who have no history with the projects and an explicit evaluation method that only allows them to assess the project as if it were a new investment to start at the time of the evaluation.

The 5 Levels of Leadership by John C. Maxwell

The Five Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential is the latest book by John C. Maxwell. Maxwell is the author of many books on communication and leadership including Everyone Communicates, Few Connect and How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.

In 5 Levels, Maxwell provides an overview of his five levels of leadership, which are:

1. Position
2. Permission
3. Productivity
4. People Development
5. Pinnacle

The book begins with an assessment that can be used to determine at which level of leadership you are currently performing. It includes questions for yourself and others to answer about your leadership skills. The bulk of the book covers each of the steps in separate sections. Each section contains a detailed review along with both the upsides and downsides of each level.

How Situations Matter when Developing a Productive Project Team

Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World is the highly acclaimed book by Sam Sommers which explains the many ways in which situations influence our thoughts and behaviors. I believe that understanding these situational concepts are invaluable tools that a Project Manager can use to develop a productive project team.

The key concepts presented in Situations Matter are:
· WYSISYG (What You See Is What You Get)
· Help Wanted
· Go with the Flow
· You’re Not the Person You Thought You Were
· Love
· Hate

For more details on the book please refer to my review.

Ironically what I have taken away from Sommers’ writing is that in order to develop a successful project team we first create a new ‘in-group’ project crowd to eliminate biases and bring the team together but then second we need to establish individual identities to keep each person from falling prey to the crowd mentality and paralyzing group norms.

A Quiet Book Review: Susan Cain’s Extraordinary Look into the Importance of Introverts

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking is a new book by Susan Cain which delves deeply into the world of introverts. After reading many very positive reviews of the book I, being an introvert myself, had high expectations for this book. Without a doubt Quiet met my high expectations and much more. This is a must have book for anyone who is an introvert or needs to interact with introverts including; spouses, children or co-workers. This wonderful book provided many insights into my own behaviors but also provided me with a practicable guide to working with project teams. Additionally, my wife, a special education teacher, finds the material very appropriate for teachers with introverted students in their class – which in reality would be any teacher.

The book is divided into four parts:

Part 1: The Extrovert Ideal – Covers the rise and myths of extrovert leadership in our society

Part 2: Your Biology, Your Self? – Reviews the biological difference between introverts and extroverts and the resulting impacts

Part 3: Do all Cultures Have an Extrovert Idea? – Explores the differences in views of the extrovert ideal in American and Asia

Part 4: How to Love, How to Work – Provides life lessons for dealing with introverts

What follows are just some of the highlights from each section.

Part 1: The Extrovert Ideal
One of the most interesting aspects of this section is how extroverts came to be seen more prominently in the American society. Cain expertly traces the rise of extroverts in America and offers insights into why other countries view extroverts less prominently.

We are then allowed to follow the author as she visits the extrovert havens of a high energy Anthony Robbins seminar and Harvard Business School. Not surprisingly we don’t tend to find many introverts at either gathering. Along the way Cain lets us in on some research that does surprise us – group brainstorming sessions are less productive, in terms of idea quality and quantity, than individual brain storming. These findings have significant implications for business and project managers.

Cain also shows the impacts of the new open office layouts which are becoming more popular in business settings. The impacts are not the anticipated positive ones to increase collaboration but are found to instead increase anxiety and employee turnover. Oops!

Part 2: Your Biology, Your Self?

Part 2 is where we jump into the biology of introverts and extroverts and resulting ramifications of not listening to introverts. This section begins with a clarification of the difference between temperament and personality. Cain reveals how research has shown that our introvert/extrovert temperaments as teenagers and adults can be predicted when we are only four months old.

Of more consequence we begin to understand the situations where introverts can be both better leaders and negotiators than their extroverted counterparts. Cain also explores the Winner’s Concept which plagues many extroverts and had a hand in the financial recession of 2008. This section makes me want to make sure an introvert is managing my financial investments!

Most importantly for introverts we learn how to better deal with the made for extrovert situations we dread so much; such as when we need to make small talk with groups and give presentations. Quiet contains wonderful tools to help introverts survive these challenging situations.

Part 3: Do all Cultures Have an Extrovert Idea?

In this section Cain provides a brief but informative comparison between the American and Asian cultures. This section and chapter is a helpful guide for creating better relationships with Asian co-workers.

Part 4: How to Love, How to Work
Cain saves the best for last! In the final section, we learn how can better live, love and work as, and with, introverts and importantly for teachers and parents, how to best facilitate young introverts in their learning and development.

For me this section explained why I have a hard time following my wife’s conversation at dinner and why I should never refer to my daughter, or anyone for that matter, as being ‘shy’. In addition we learn how to assist our introvert children with noisy settings such as play dates.

The insights into questions that parents should and should not ask of their kids after school, such as never ask the general question ‘How was your day?’, can also be applied to my work as a project manager when interacting with team members.

Conclusion

Simply put, Quiet is a very well researched and written book about the life of introverts. It is a must read for anyone who is or associated with introverts. I expect in some cases this book could be a life changer for many introverts.

Many kudos and thanks to Susan Cain for writing such a helpful and thought provoking book. Keep up the excellent work and championing for us introverts!