Vroom and the “Capability Principle”: from sharing the project vision to successfully delivering projects
March 12th, 2008 by Claude EmondI still meet many project managers who just state that sharing a project vision (if ever there is one) is a waste of time and that the project team should just concentrate on what they are asked (told ?) to do. This always reminds me of my first project management courses, more than 30 years ago (dinosaurs were still alive), when I was told that: "The more information people have about a project, the more veto power we are giving them…so, it is important to keep information sharing to the strict minimum, using as a strict yardstick of information distribution direct-task-oriented need-to-know information."
I am appalled to see that this primitive belief still endures today, since it shows so little understanding of how human minds and hearts really work. I am also appalled that, each time I ask about Vroom's Expectancy Theory of Motivation (dating back from the early 1960s) and it's significance to project management audiences (including many PMPs), I find out that it is still mostly unheard of or, when it is known of, it rings no bell about the relationship between sharing a project vision and mobilizing project teams to ensure project success. This is very unfortunate since Vroom's simple theory:
- holds the explanation to most resistance to change situations (the 9th waste of bad project management, identified by Bodek
- shows, subsequently, the inescapable way to individual motivation and subsequent team mobilisation
- tells you, consequently, how you can deliver your projects faster and
- gives you the ultimate behaviour-influence recipe for fast, mostly resistance-free, successful project delivery
What Vroom reveals to us is what I call the Capability Principle, which I describe as follows:
A person will do something only if this person is convinced that he/she is capable of accomplishing what is asked from him/her.
So when one is asked to do a task or to accept a new situation (a change in project management jargon), one must first answer a firm YES to the question, "Can I do this/can I function in this new situation?" BEFORE even considering the usual existential pros and cons of the WIIFM type. Unless one understands fully where one's project tasks and own ultimate fate fit in a project plan and in the subsequent vision this project serves, one cannot answer a firm YES to this question. The answer will be,
"I do not know enough about this stuff, I am in no position of knowing if I am really CAPABLE of doing this or stand this…so, I’ll wait and see and won’t accept personal responsibility or accountability for any of this."
So the project manager, who does not clarify nor share the whole picture of a project and its underlying vision, will end up either doing this other person's work or telling this person exactly HOW to do everything; and, in so doing, this project manager won't we able to share accountability with the project team.
You think that sharing a project vision is a waste of time? Well, the Capability Principle will prove you wrong. You will experience, first-hand, massive resistance to change and unshared accountability on your projects…and you will end up being the only alone caring for this project, the perfect scapegoat for a disaster in the making?
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March 13th, 2008 at 8:08 am
sharing vision is a wonderful idea for, an achievement motivation is always a driving tool. however two things will matter - 1. the communication reciever recieves it in exactly same meaning as it is send. for assuring this, a feedback/ verification is must.
2. capacity should be assessed in two ways - objectively or unbiased and, existing or acquired(by training). Again it requires external support as it is a subjective matter for everyone to assess his own capability.
One last thing - Saying ‘NO’ is itself is a matter of personality.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
The big trouble with not sharing the vision, and everything else that you are able to share about a project, is that you limit the capability of the team. It is impossible to predict which connections are going to be important for any particular task, and a really important connection might not be made if a team member is not aware of the overall context of his or her actions and so the project ends up limping instead of running and failing in the detail.
The failing that leads to this form of management is a misconception that people are machines. All work is a social activity and it must be allowed to work socially to be effective. Strange that in the home of modern democracy work could be done in such an authoritarian manner!
April 11th, 2008 at 10:20 am
The Capability Principle is strongly coupled the triggers to behaviour change (motivation, ability to perform and trigger). All three components need to exist for change to happen or capability. Information critical to enable capability.
The Capability Principle also dove tails with comments made by Phil Armour on the Software Process and Measurment Cast (www.spamcast.net) in a recent interview. One that struck me was that most structures reflect a command and control structure versus a structure needed to support more chaotic / knowledge based endevours.