This Project e-Tip comes courtesy of a fellow blogger and close friend Joe Ely. Joe writes in the blog Learning About Lean. He shares with his readers what he is learning as he and his company adopt a lean approach to the design, fabrication, and construction of pre-engineered wood structures. As usual, Joe made some great comments to last week's e-Tip. I've used them as a basis for this. Thanks Joe. Hope you enjoy Purple Cow. It's in the mail!

The Project Reformer's e-Tip of the Week

015: Make Any New Practice a Habit

One of the challenges on every new project is getting project team members to adopt a standard set of practices. These might entail planning, reporting, preparing to start a task, and simple communication protocols among team members. Here's a way to turn your intention for a new practice into a new habit. The following example uses the contrasting intention-commitment statement pairs used in Project e-Tip 014: Shift Good Intentions Into Commitments. Make a 3×5 card with the contrasting statements on it and put the card in my pocket. Make a simple chart for the next 20 work days and put it on my desk. Each day color code it: green means I used a statement like this 4 or more times — yellow 2 or 3 times — red means 0 or 1 time. Each day assess how well I use the statements by referring to the chart. Note what I am learning, what I am getting good at, and where I will place my attention in the next day. Enlist a colleague to help me accomplish my intent. Request that person's assessment weekly on my use of such language. The intentionality and deliberateness of this exercise are what makes it work. And you might discover it is not easy to stay on a program of this sort. You will learn what it takes for you to produce a new habit. That will be great data for you when working with team members who are trying to do the same. This Project e-Tip is based on Joe Ely's comments to last week's e-tip. Joe writes Learning About Lean.

©2003 Hal Macomber | RPM | e-Tip Archive | PDF | Submit Tip

Anyone for a free book? If I publish your proposal for an e-Tip, then I'll send you Purple Cow for being remarkable.

Why Good Projects Fail Anyway, Nadim F. Mattat and Ronald N. Ashkenas, Harvard Business Review, September 2003, p 109-114, (reprint R0309H) piqued my curiosity. I've been skeptical about mainstream publication's thought pieces on project management. I was pleasantly surprised to find a thoughtful article.

I'll start by sharing the last paragraph with you: (I just love to start at the ending)

Attempting to achieve complex goals in fast-moving and unpredictable environments is humbling. Few leaders and few organizations have figured out how to do it consistently. We believe that a starting point for greater success is shedding the blueprint model that has implicitly driven executive behavior in the management of major efforts. Managers expect they will be able to identify, plan for, and influence all the variables and players in advance, but they can't. Nobody is that smart or has that clear a crystal ball. They can, however, create an ongoing process of learning and discovery, challenging the people close to the action to produce results — and unleashing the organizations's collective knowledge and creativity in pursuit of discovery and achievement.

The authors have one big recommendation they offer. They implore project managers to organize the project as a set of rapid-results initiatives. Read the rest of this entry ¶

Next in series

Harvard Business Review, Sept 2003, leads with a case study on blogger behavior at work. The case is kinda fun. A woman writing a blog calling herself "Glove Girl" is responsible for a big increase in the sale of the company's products, but she blogs without permission, and without following the company line. (Imagine that.) What is the CEO to do? [smirk]

As usual, HBR invites four 'experts' to offer their views on what to do. The advice is not bad. It ranges from figure out how to take this blog-marketing thing mainstream to what's wrong with the way you communicate internally that you didn't know Glove Girl was blogging.

Here are my comments:
(I used to be a Chief Operating Officer for a design-build commercial builder.)

• Create mechanisms for employees to engage fully in the mission of the company. Some people are just dying to make bigger contributions. Blogging is just one way to share ones voice.
• Blog with company bloggers. Ray Ozzie founder of Groove took up blogging and discovered his own voice along the way. (If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?) Learn first-hand how the blogging medium (genre) can support the company mission.
• Encourage group blogging. As companies become more and more virtual (physically separate) we risk becoming detached from our peers. A group blog, where each of us can post, read, and comment as it serves us and the group, nurtures relationships. Group blogging may be the safety net for distributed project teams.
• Bring the marketing department together with the company bloggers. Prepare yourself to mediate the conversation! My experience of bloggers is they are VERY well-intended. Help people find ways to create something new from an intentionality between the groups.
• Look for other 'marginal practices' that may be contributing to the success of the company. Instant messaging for supporting clients immediately comes to mind. Wikis for supporting the folks who are supporting the customers? How about unsanctioned websites?

Creating a blogging presence was too easy. It took me all of 3 hours on a weekend. Just imagine what is happening at work with all the 'friendly support' available! Don't wait…harness it.

I'd love to share the Business 2.0 list The Books that Matter, but it won't be published online for another 8 days. The editors listed 55 books for all business people to read. There were a number of surprises (for me). Seize the Day (1956), Saul Bellow& Fire in the Valley (1984), Paul Freilberger and Michael Swaine& and Moby Dick (1851), Herman Melville, are three surprising examples. (You'll have to wait for the rest.)

Who am I to take exception to Business 2.0's choices, so let me add two books to the list. The editors didn't include any books on design. For me, business is all about design. We design products, services, environments, projects, systems, and organizations. I can't see how a company can succeed without a proficiency in design. My choice to learn about design is The Timeless Way of Building (1979), Christopher Alexander. The book is part of a trilogy. He claims that design is a social phenomenon that requires a facility with language. Alexander introduces the notion of a pattern language for design. His setting is the design of buildings, but the parallels abound in many areas of design.

The second area that the editors missed is what I'll call pragmatics. (I know…here I go again introducing funny words and giving them my own meaning. Bear with me.) To say we live in uncertain times is hackneyed. We can read another story or book about that on almost any day. The truth is we've always lived in uncertain times. We can't know what will happen in just a few moments, let alone tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. Those of us who thought we were smart with our 401k investments in the '90s hang or heads today. Not only is the future uncertain, but it is unknowable. But we continue to live and manage otherwise. So let's get pragmatic.

We can't do anything about the uncertainty and unknowability. So, let's start operating differently. Embracing Uncertainty: The Essence of Leadership (2001), Phillip Clampitt and Robert DeKoch offers a different orientation to being in the present with the uncertainty of the future. Embrace it, they say. How? They propose three steps: cultivate awareness, communicate, and catalyze action. Don't be misled by the simplicity of the actions. The book changed the way I think about the project environment.

I'll link to the Business 2.0 list as soon as it's published.

Inspiration for this week's Project e-Tip came from Jeffrey Cufaude's May 19th weblog posting Are Good Intentions Good Enough? in Jeffrey Cufaude - Idea Architect. His answer was no. So let's do something about it!

The Project Reformer's e-Tip of the Week

014: Shift Good Intentions Into Commitments

Most people are well-intended. They want to please and often will go out of their way for you. But good intentions are insufficient for coordinating action on projects. The work of projects entails sequences of action. The completion of one task often releases work for other team members. An intention to perform work is insufficient for others to plan their work and to make commitments. Listen for the intention. Shift it to a commitment. Sure, I'll take care of that. Great! Can I expect it by tomorrow? I'll fit it into my schedule. Let's look at what you might reschedule. I'll look into that for you. Please stop by at 4:00 PM to let me know how it's going. I'll try to get it done this week. Mary is waiting on that. Let her know Thursday if you still expect to complete it this week. I can help. What would you like to do first? This is not manipulation. Your team mates will thank you for helping others be reliable. It sets everyone up for success. Trust grows when people perform reliably for one another. Now that's a payoff worth pursuing! Last Planner is a trademark of The Center for Innovation in Project and Production Management www.leanconstruction.org

©2003 Hal Macomber | RPM | e-Tip Archive | PDF | Submit Tip

Send along your proposals for Project e-Tips. Also, leave a comment to let us know how you are using them.

Yesterday's posting hit a nerve. (Seems at least three people agree with me!) What might we be able to accomplish on our projects if we put our attention on learning to increase the relatedness of people on our projects rather than studying for the PMI certification exam? Does anyone really think that doing better work breakdown structures will make our projects successful? No one. That's what I thought. How about learning to repair trust between two important team members? Now that would make a difference. Not the role of a project manager, you say? Then who's role is it?

It's time we stopped acting like good technical wisdom is what makes for good project management. It doesn't. Likewise, accountability, authority, and responsibility (someone needs to explain the difference between accountability and responsibility for me) don't make a project manager. Let's try care, guidance, attention, listening, and openness. Now we're getting somewhere!

I recognize my mood in writing this is somewhat impertinent. Frankly, I'm doing my best not to scream. (It would wake the dogs.) We must shift our conversation about project management from the things we do to the people we do it with. Only when we put people at the center of projects can we have the fantastic environments that projects are for our clients, for us and our team mates, and our companies.

Project Management: A New Definition, by Mark Mullaly, appearing in Gantthead, July 23, 2003.

Let's start with the definition Mullaly offered:

The exercise of responsibility and decision-making about a project, the authority to execute within the boundaries of the project, and the accountability to deliver the results of a project in the context of agreed-upon customer expectations, commitments and constraints.

Mullay goes on to say,

(M)any with project management responsibility do not in fact realize that they are project managers…and many who believe themselves to be project managers may in fact not be fully exercising the role.

We should not be held accountable for results if we do not have the responsibility to make decisions about a project or the authority to attain results.

Is this new? and helpful? Hasn't this been said by every management expert on the face of the earth? Is it new to say this to project managers? I don't think so. Nor do I think the definition offers much guidance on how to carry out ones role.

How about we try on something all together different. Fernando Flores offered a distinctive notion of management in his PhD dissertation Communication and Management in the Office of the Future, Univ. of California Berkeley, 1982.

Management is that process of openness, listening, and eliciting commitments, which includes a concern for the articulation and activation of the network of commitments, primarily produced through promises and requests, allowing for the autonomy of the productive units.

While Flores was writing about the office of the future he foresaw that a principle activity was the managing of projects. That notion of management offered in 1982 fits the current day situation of projects. Flores pinpoints three issues in his definition that we continue to struggle against.

1. Managing continues in the illusion that there are optima to be discovered. We labor under making the best decision — certainty — versus making good decisions — clarity. The pursuit of certainty over clarity bogs down the project. Further, we act like those furthest from the action — the smart ones — are best able to decide. This is in stark contrast to Flores' notion of managing as openness, listening, and eliciting commitments.
2. What is our continuing preoccupation for being in charge? It's not that someone isn't needed to make big commitments for the organization and the team. The problem is mistaking that responsibility for making so many other choices and decisions that one someone is not in the position to make. Flores describes the role as providing systems and practices for others to take charge (articulating and activating the network of commitments).
3. We fail to acknowledge and respect the autonomy of the productive units — other human beings. In the project setting, as in all life today, workers are not the slaves to some master. 20 years after Flores called attention to our autonomy, we continue to act like this: managers decide, others do. Not only have people rejected that, they have access to the always-on ever-connected Internet which provides ready alternatives for anyone with the slightest itch to get out from under.

I could go on. If I did, then I'd argue that the fascination with process is a bureaucrat's approach that will only bring down the level of performance on projects. I'd go on to mention that we continue to plan our projects to determine an outcome rather than embrace the uncertainty of our world. And I'd finish by attacking our belief that we know our situations rather than acting with the humility of our ever-blindness. But I don't need to do that here. Greg Howell and I did that in our IGLC-11 paper, Linguistic Action: Contributing to the Theory Of Lean Construction.

No, I don't need to go on. You see I agree with the Gantthead article. We do need a different definition of project management, just not the (new) one offered. I'll take a 20 year-old one.

The Blind Men and the Elephant, Mastering Project Work is gathering quite an entourage. In yesterday's Ask Annie column for Fortune Magazine Annie refers to David Schaltz's book when giving her advice to an engineer who writes, He Used to Work for Me, but Now He's Working Against Me.

Annie consulted David Schmaltz before offering her advice. David said,

It's easy to conclude that your own experience and perceptions are somehow adequate to describe the whole 'elephant,' but that's rarely the case. So first, in your own mind, make the most generous possible assessment of your colleague's curious behavior. Then sit down with him and, without making accusations, ask him to describe how he sees the situation.

Challenge your certainties. Often people see an enemy where there is none, start to do battle, and then are surprised to find they've provoked an actual war.

Schmaltz recommends caution:

Just getting rid of someone whose behavior is bugging you is the way teams get destroyed. On really high-performing teams, people don't waste time obsessing over who did what. For better or worse, the whole team did it.

This engineer may be tested if he follows Annie/David's advice. Can he suspend his views long enough to inquire collaboratively with the other engineer? And can he listen generously when the other speaks? And he was just looking for advice. Looks like he got way more than he asked. Hop aboard!

So claims David Schmaltz in his book The Blind Men and the Elephant, Mastering Project Work. Those are words only a self-described heretic could utter. The key word is "thing". While we speak of projects as nouns, the experience of a project is much more like a verb.

I won't make this a book review. Instead, I'll just share a few moving passages. Perhaps that will get you to buy this book. Get extra copies to share with you boss and your project team mates.

He identifies six characteristics of project communities who become coherent:

1. They are composed of acknowledged blind men.
2. They share an indescribable elephant.
3. They also share (or have shared) a frustrating experience.
4. They show some patience in the face of their frustration — they stick with it.
5. They make generous interpretations of others' perspectives.
6. Some, although by no means all, also adopt a coherent organization structure; they circle up and focus upon a common point.

We could discuss each point as a posting. Instead, take a look at how he wraps this essay.

People create a common rhythm together, not unmanageable chaos. Project an alluring future, and people cohere. They might battle endlessly over differing theories about how to get there, like our blind men around their elephant, but it's there theologies that are in dispute, not their objectives. Their individual passion binds them to their commonality.

David Schmaltz goes on to claim that we know all we need to know to be good project team members. "We are each expert at being human." Let's bring that human-ness back to the center of our project work. Maybe then we will experience the thing…that wonder of projects.

In this week's Project e-Tip I suggest project managers/leaders adopt an emergent approach to planning and delivering their projects. I contrast an emergent approach with the approach of operating to a fixed baseline plan. Most projects are neither fully emergent or fixed to an original plan. We all know that. However, it doesn't keep us from measuring and reporting to a baseline. Nor does it keep us from wanting to deliver the project the way we conceived it to be. Let the pendulum swing towards an emergent approach. Let's stop fighting with the uncertainty and unknowability of the future. We can't win.

The Project Reformer's e-Tip of the Week

013: Help Your Team Unfold the Project

So, I admit it; the title is a bit clumsy. Unfold the Project? What could that mean? All too often project plans are developed early in the life of a project without the input of those executing the project. While there may be great value in doing that early planning, continuing to operate to that one (right) plan misses the opportunities afforded by both the experience acquired while implementing AND the perspectives, talents, and intentions of the project participants. When we try to operate to the baseline plan we work against nature. Life happens. People bring unexpected talents and challenges to the project. Instead of working to get reality to conform to the plan, try adjusting the plan to conform to reality! This is what I call unfolding the project. Start by inviting people to share their ambitions for being on the project. Then inquire into the unique talents and strengths that each participant brings. Finally, invite team members to continuously offer their perspectives, assessments, recommendations, and needs to adjust the plan as you go. Sure this is more planning work than managing to the baseline plan. But it is not likely to be more work overall. When you help people unfold the project they will help you stay on target. That's help every project manager can appreciate. Last Planner is a trademark of The Center for Innovation in Project and Production Management www.leanconstruction.org

©2003 Hal Macomber | RPM | e-Tip Archive | PDF | Submit Tip

Please share your thoughts on this Project e-Tip. And, let's hear your proposals!

The Blind Men and the Elephant: Mastering Project Work, by David Schmaltz.

I wrote about this book last week in my posting For PMs Who Might Someday Have to Deal with Human Beings. I received the book yesterday afternoon. I read 1/3 of it this morning. The reviews don't do this book justice. David Schmaltz is my new kindred spirit. No kidding! David uses his personal journey to show us what we already know. What's that?

Projects always turn out different from our early plans. If they don't, then they don't succeed. The uniqueness of the project participants shape the successful projects based on what each of them wants from their participation in the project. When we make room for individual expression and pursuit of purpose we set the stage for success.

I have not finished the book. I will tomorrow. Perhaps I'll reach a different conclusion. Either way, I will report to you. In the meantime, order this book. Consider it a gift to yourself — one last book for summer reading.

I've spent the last three days with a group of great people led by Dave Buck. Ostensibly the weekend was about branding and being boldly oneself. It turned out to be so much more.

Of the many breakthroughs for me this weekend, I thought you might enjoy hearing about three. First, a little background. Greg Howell and I are kicking off a pilot of a coaching program for project managers/leaders this month. We call it the Project Leader Studio™. We will be working with 15 project managers for the next six months to develop their leadership skills and practices. We call it a studio because they will be learning as they lead.

1. While we have spent quite a bit of our time on designing the coaching program and creating program materials, I am now seeing that it will need to evolve if it is to serve the interests of the participants. In other words, like all good projects, the project manager needs to embrace uncertainty to produce the greatest result for the clients. In addition, we must find ways to incorporate the design talents of the participants as we go.
2. I saw that the same thing that makes leaders successful must be present to make this program successful. What's that? TRUST. This will be quite the test for us. Will we be able to do what we say each of the participants must do to have a great project? We'll see. (And I'll let you know.)
3. There are plenty of people who have something to offer and are just waiting for an invitation to help. I found a great coach Julia Stewart, Your Life Part 2, who will be working with our leadership coaches on honing their leadership coaching skills.

Phew. I'm so glad this is a pilot. I have so much to learn!

p.s. We'll be offering another Project Leader Studio™ in October.

I've enjoyed the little hiatus from this. It gave me a chance to start some other projects. Now I'm back!

The Project Reformer's e-Tip of the Week

012: Listen Generously

Project breakdowns can often be traced to mis coordination. Coordination of all types involves communication. That calls for good listening. I'd bet that the majority of miscommunication is a function of poor listening. Let's start by distinguishing hearing and listening. Hearing has to do with the functioning of the ear. Deaf people can't hear. But can deaf people listen? Maybe. Listening has to do with where one has his/her attention. There's plenty for people to hear at any moment…the whirring of the disk drive, the gurgling of the air conditioner, the low din of the TV in an adjoining room. But we normally don't notice those noises even though we can hear them. Why? We have our attention on something else. When we listen we focus our attention with a care for the interests of others. We can avoid mis coordinations when we place our attention and care on the speaking of the other rather than on the 'little voice in our head'. You know the voice. The one that chatters non-stop. We are not listening when we have our attention on the chattering rather than on the interests of the person speaking. Miscommunication and miscoodination result. Try this: Ignore the chattering. Instead, place your attention on what it is the speaker cares about. And be generous with your listening. None of us speaks our concerns clearly all the time. Be patient. Ask questions. Be ready to take care of the speaker. Now you're listening! Last Planner is a trademark of The Center for Innovation in Project and Production Management www.leanconstruction.org

©2003 Hal Macomber | RPM | e-Tip Archive | PDF | Submit Tip

Now that I'm back, how about some proposals for Project e-Tips? I still have a few books to give away.< /p>

Just in from the 5th issue of Software Development Magazine's People & Projects Newsletter MANAGING YOUR OWN BLINDNESS — A Conversation with True North's David A. Schmaltz. I can't show you the newsletter. Nor can I refer you to an archive; they don't seem to have one. So I am doing something that I've never done before. I'm republishing their newsletter interview verbatim. It's not to be missed.

The newsletter interview is with the author of the book The Blind Men and the Elephant: Mastering Project Work by David Schmaltz.

[I haven't read the book. My comments refer to the SD newsletter interview, Amazon reviewers, and the publisher's website.]

Schmaltz orients the reader to a fundamental nature of being human — we are all blind. While one of us sees the elephant's trunk, another only sees its tail, while still others see or feel massive legs and a large underbelly. This could (predictably) lead to arguments among those present. While this looks like a problem for someone managing a project, it is really the opportunity afforded when we bring together a group of people. Maybe we can share what we are seeing and figure out that we are looking at something different from what our limited perspective allows us to see.

Schmaltz also claims projects are conversations. (Where have I heard that before?) He contrasts that with projects as carefully scripted plays, that projects unfold rather than are told.

I love this comment from Amazon reviewer Dan Starr from St. Charles, IL,

"The Blind Men and the Elephant" is not a replacement for a good textbook on organizing and managing the mechanics of a project; it's something far harder to find — an essential addition to the shelf of any project manager who might someday have to deal with human beings.

My book is on order. How about you? Order here.

MANAGING YOUR OWN BLINDNESS

A Conversation with True North's David A. Schmaltz
Published in SD People & Projects email newsletter, Aug. 5, 2003

In "The Blind Men and the Elephant" — an ancient Hindu fable popularized by the American poet John Godfrey Saxe — six blind men happen across an elephant one day and go about trying to describe it to one another. The first man, upon walking into the elephant's massive body, tells the others that the beast "is very like a wall." The second man, upon feeling the elephant's sharp tusk, concludes that the animal "is very like a spear." The third feels the elephant's long trunk and says it "is very like a snake." And so continues this line of reasoning until all six men are deep in argument over what an elephant really is, neither one willing to consider that what the others may have to say is just as true — but incomplete — as his own perspective.

It is exactly this sort of blindness that author and project management consultant David A. Schmaltz warns readers about in his most recent book, aptly titled The Blind Men and the Elephant. Rather than provide yet another lecture on the mundane but necessary aspects of Gantt charts and deadline scheduling, the book focuses on ways that members of project teams can learn to evaluate and overcome their own blindness. It's a lesson, he says, that could very well change the outcome of all your projects.

We caught up with Schmaltz recently to discuss this dynamic view on project building. Here's what he had to say:

SD: In your book, you note that the root cause of project failure is "incoherence" among team members. Does this simply mean that managers must find a way to get their teams to communicate better, or is there more involved in building a coherent team?

DAS: Creating coherence can't be the sole responsibility of any manager. One of the most popular ways to undermine the possibility for coherence — and project success — is for the team to expect the manager to somehow create it. As I say in the book, a manager might encourage coherence by embracing her own blindness and by appreciating everyone else's blindness too, but the manager has no special power or responsibility for creating it.

Coherence is a choice, and is well within the power and authority of every member of a project's community to create. It comes from making generous interpretations of others' curious testimony.

The alternative, as the Blind Men again illustrate, is a theological war, featuring endless arguments over what the elephant "really" is, when it really is an integration of all of the different perspectives.

SD: How does this perspective account for the times when people disagree with the project's goals, deadlines, or other attributes? Should they remain quiet in order to create coherence?

DAS: Disagreements can be resolved in a variety of ways. One of the best is to engage in a conversation where each of the participants expect to be changed by what they hear. This can provide a more robust resolution than any imposed order, but the willingness to be changed by what we hear can be difficult to acquire. Proving some framework for this to happen is one of the reasons I wrote The Blind Men. If we could understand how blind our
perspective is, we might be more able to be changed by what we hear.

SD: It seems that one of the biggest causes of incoherence among specialized project teams, such as in software development or engineering, occurs when employees feel that their managers do not understand the technical aspects of the project. How should managers deal with situations like these?

DAS: I think a better question might be, "How should an individual deal with situations like these?" You could as easily ascribe the cause of these rifts to the technical folks not understanding the managerial aspects of their project.

As the Blind Men demonstrate, you create rifts for yourself when you insist that others understand the elephant as you understand it. It's a feature of every technical project I've ever been associated with that the management understands the technology about as well as the technologists understand the management — but these normal differences in perspective need not cause rifts. When employees feel that their managers don�t understand the technical aspects of their project, the issue is probably more effectively resolved between the employee and their feelings, and any employee can take care of that for himself.

SD: Some people might see the "coherence" that you talk about as simply a nicer word for "conformity" or "attitude adjustment."

DAS: We seem in this culture to be suspicious of anything that might change simply because we shift our perspective. Such change is in fact the most simple and profound possible.

It�s important to note, though, that there�s a huge difference between choosing to adjust your perspective and having such adjustments imposed upon you.

SD: Is there any advice out there about project management that you disagree with?

DAS: Don't get me started. Project management is steeped in myth that influences more than just the project managers. We�re told, for instance, that project success can be measured as "on time, on budget and on spec," even though no novel effort has ever satisfied those expectations except by accident. We plan "contingencies" as if divergence from the plan should be the exception rather than the norm. We script our efforts when we could be engaging in meaningful conversation.

Project training too often focuses upon those elements that add little real value to the effort. Follow any masterful project manager around and you'll see that they do almost none of the "best practices" touted by the certifying agencies because that theory doesn't work very well in practice.

The most successful project managers focus upon creating the community that comes from embracing their own inevitable blindness, from helping people find their project within their project assignment and from making generous interpretations of other's curious perspectives. Blind men, all.

Further Reading:
The Blind Men and the Elephant: Mastering Project Work,
(Berrett-Koehler, 2003) by David A. Schmaltz
http://click.sd.email-publisher.com/maabjSGaaZCOwbdnxoRb/

I'm a Tom Peters fan. I can't help it. I've tried to stop, but he keeps doing one unexpected thing after another.

In 1999, Peters wrote a series of books on reinventing work.

Professional Service 50
The Project 50
The Brand You 50

His main claim is

Work matters.

Peters puts the passion back in work. You owe it to yourself to read these books.

What can we learn from Peters? Tucked away towards the end of PSF50 (item #46) is a gem:

(T)hat discerning Client is mostly awed because of the extraordinary insight the project team exhibits.

And such insight is often due…to the quiet team member, with those Big Ears, who listens to the Subtle Vibes so brilliantly, who unearths the curious character in the bowels of the Client organization who knows all the secrets and gives him/her an extremely/empathetic hearing.

Message: HONOR THOSE B-I-G EARS!

(No typing mistakes. The caps and punctuation are just as presented in the book!)

EXCELLENCE = EXCELLENCE-IN-LISTENING.