What’s Your Project Mentality?

November 20th, 2006 by Hal

Adrian Savage writing as "Carmine Coyote" offers this simple 2×2 view of management behavior in organizations. Take a close look. Where do you find your management? Yourself? What do you believe will be more effective? Why?

Savage claims that the audit mentality — basic distrust that people will act to take care of the concerns of the organization — is tearing teams apart. "Now it seems no one is trusted to do anything on their own."

We continue to make Adam Smith's mistake. He claimed that people only act in their own interests. He was only half right. (Earlier I said Adam Smith was wrong.) People are also altruistic. Most of us will act in the interests of the group (when we know what those interests are) when our interests are also being addressed. Those managers who have the audit mentality distrust their own ability at aligning the interests of individuals with those interests of groups. That distrust may be well-placed. Read Savage's post Measurement vs. Trust at Slow Leadership.

What’s Progressive about CPM?

What’s Up with PMI?

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State of the Art of Project Management — Underlying Theory is Obsolete

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2 Responses to “What’s Your Project Mentality?”

Dan Says:
November 21st, 2006 at 8:18 am
Great post! I agree that trust is absolutely vital to successful project management & leadership (and human relationships of all types).

You might be interested in an article I wrote on this topic. It’s titled The Program Manager’s Dilemma, and it uses game theory to make the case for trust.

It’s online (free download) at http://www.dau.mil/pubs/dam/05_06_2004/war-mj04.pdf
Glen B. Alleman Says:
November 22nd, 2006 at 3:57 pm
It might be wise to follow Henry Kissinger’s advice

“Trust but Verify”

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