Transcending Feudalism: Covey’s 8th Habit

Tonight I speak at the Seattle chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI) on the paper I co-authored with Greg Howell, Leadership and Project Management: Time for a Change from Fayol to Flores. A few months back when I was exploring what the talk would be about I had no idea that Stephen Covey had a book he would be publishing, let alone that he would tackle a subject as grand as greatness, The Eighth Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.

I started this weblog 2½ years ago to explore what was working and not working in the field of delivering projects. I had no idea where that exploration would take me. Early this year I found myself writing about team member and team leader resignation, patterns of not speaking and not listening, and the pervasiveness of thinking that a plan can be put in place that others will be controlled to. Greg Howell and I wrote a second paper, Two Great Wastes in Organizations and Teams which together with the first was presented at the International Group for Lean Construction 12th Annual Conference in Denmark (IGLC-12). Along the way I began to notice others writing about my discomfort, Feudal Model for Project Management? Eventually, I prepared a concise posting for this weblog, Leave Behind Century-Old Management Theory. But with all my thinking, conversation, and writing, it's taken Stephen Covey to bring this into focus for me.

Covey calls the 8th habit (action): finding your voice and helping others find their voice. Covey says that in doing so we can move from effectiveness to greatness. For now, I will limit my thoughts to just being effective on our projects. I have yet to read the book; I will. Until then, I have two clear thoughts (for now) on what we must deal with to reach effectiveness.

• Interrupting My Resignation
  How is it that we are stuck with our resignation? What story do we keep telling ourselves about who we are in the world and who others are? Where did that story originate? What must I do to start telling a new story?
   
• Engage Committedly with Others
  All work on projects is for keeping some commitment to a client or customer. We call that work a project in part because it takes more than one person to fulfill that promise. We need a habit of making and securing reliable promises with other project participants. It is only through our collective committed actions that we will keep our promise to the client and leave ourselves in a condition to learn, to cope with changes, and to innovate.

We're long overdue for replacing Feudalism with an enlightened form of leadership and management. As Covey says, "Find your voice." Decide for yourself there's no reason for resignation. Speak. Listen. And create a habit of promising.

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