Archive for the 'books' Category

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.

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.

I've been writing and speaking about taking advantage of people's talents. It's not an original idea. Four years ago, I was struck by the book First, Break All the Rules, by Marcus Cunningham and Curt Coffman. In this book the authors present and discuss the findings of a Gallop Organization 20-year effort to understand what makes companies sustain performance at top levels. The book has been a best-seller. One of the findings of the book, "focus on strengths" is developed further in Buckingham's follow-up book with Donald Clifton, Now, Discover Your Strengths.

In the last year I've been using First, Break All the Rules in the Lean Project Leadership (Shusa) Development program that Greg Howell and I deliver. We have experimented with many of the concepts with our clients. One of the most interesting areas is to study and improve upon what is going well rather than try to improve what is not going well. Improving what's not working is a western habit. The authors claim there's more to learn and more improvement possible in what already is high performing. Our experiments support their claim.

I recommend both books to project managers and leaders. Creating a project team based on the strengths of team members is a winning strategy. So, how do you find the strengths? Cunningham and The Gallop Organization come to the rescue! When you buy Now, Discover Your Strengths you get access to a "strengths finder" profiling tool. Each book comes with one access code. So, a team of eight people would require 8 books to establish the signature themes for the whole team.

I did the assessment earlier this week. They distinguish 34 strength themes of the finder. The assessment takes about 20 minutes. If you wait too long studying a question the tool moves you along to the next question. My top five signature themes came out as follows:

1. Activator: People strong in the Activator theme can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. They are often impatient.
2. Maximizer: People strong in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.
3. Strategic: People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.
4. Input: People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.
5. Command: People strong in the Command theme have presence. They can take control of a situation and make decisions.

There's a one-page description of each of the themes in the book with three examples for each theme. They also offer guidance on managing people of each strength theme. The authors finish the book with a chapter on Building a Strengths-Based Organization.

I'm convinced this works. Get the books and take the assessment for you and your team.

Ken Blanchard is at it again. This time with Jesse Stoner. The two authored a book on the power of vision Full Steam Ahead!. I heard about it last week, got myself a copy, and poured through it last night. Like all Blanchard books this one takes place in a story. The authors show the significance of having a vision on one's life and those around. Throughout, they show how to generate and convey the vision in a way that enrolls others. This isn't just a book for people leading organizations; it is a book for each of us.

Some of you long-time readers know I am a Patrick Lencioni fan. Pat is the author of three best-selling books on leadership: Five Temptations of a CEO, Four Obsessions of Executives, and Five Dysfunctions of Teams. I've reviewed his leadership trilogy before (this posting might be temporarily unavailable). So why am I writing now? I got to meet Pat and his team while they were delivering a program for executive teams Conquering the Five Dysfunctions Workshop in the same hotel that hosted Coachville's Future of Coaching conference.

Pat is a cool guy. (Is it still cool to say, "cool"?) He invited me to slip in to watch him work. Later I introduced Pat to the folks leading Coachville. In one of Pat's most recent articles Conquering Team Dysfunction. Pat writes:

Successful teamwork is not about mastering subtle, sophisticated theories,
but rather about embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence. Ironically, teams succeed because they are exceedingly human. By acknowledging the imperfections of their humanity, members of functional teams can overcome the natural tendencies that
make teamwork so elusive and accomplish more than any mere group of individuals could ever imagine.

Do yourself a favor. Read the whole article Conquering Team Dysfunction and share it with your team.

Here's a treat for the weekend. Seth Godin published his book Purple Cows yesterday. It's a book about setting yourself apart. Seth says "Be reamarkable!" To coincide with the publishing of the book he wrote an ebook of purple cow examples — remakable people and companies. You can get it here for free, or from Amazon for 10 bucks. You choose. You might be wondering why I can give it away for free? It was Seth's way of saying thank you for a nomination I made for the ebook. Although he didn't publish my nomination, he did send me the ebook and his encouragement for me to share it. Nice!

Get a dose of remakability — 99 Cows.

Earth Day, Natural Capitalism, and Lean Thinking

Earth Day is April 22. (Let's stay out of the controversy on whether the real Earth Day is March or April.) I am reminded of a fascinating book Natural Capitalism, Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins. The authors argue our world view is the limitation to living in a world economy that doesn't deplete the ecosystem by accounting for resource productivity — doing (much) more with less.

In chapter seven, "muda (waste), Service, and Flow", the authors paraphrase Jim Womack's and Dan Jones' book Lean Thinking. These are some of the best 19 pages on lean thinking that you will find. If you don't buy the book, at least read the chapter over a cup of latte at Barnes and Noble.

I work with teams in the midst of challenging projects. So often these teams need guidance, not just with their team members, but also engaging their executives in supportive ways that will help the team succeed. More and more I find myself referring to the work of Patrick Lencioni for that guidance. Patrick has developed a theory set contained in a trilogy of books. He uses a parable as the setting for introducing the principles. Each story finds an executive with trouble. While working through the situation Lencioni exposes leadership principles. Readers find the approach engaging and memorable. I'll offer comments on each book, but don't cheat yourself…read the books. Better yet, use them with your team to plot your own strategy for bringing forth the leadership you need to make your lean projects successful.

The Five Temptations of a CEO
for producing exceptional results through others

• choosing status over results
• choosing popularity over accountability
• choosing certainty over clarity
• choosing harmony over healthy conflict
• choosing invulnerability over trust

The one thing anyone who has led knows is that the future is uncertain and unknowable. Yet, the same people are often tempted as Lencioni's CEO was tempted. All projects are risky. All customers want confidence that their project will be successful. All leaders are human. Lencioni shows us we can expect our behaviors to be unintentionally unsupportive. When we observe our behaviors with these distinctions we are prepared for taking different actions.

The Four Obsessions of an Effective Executive
for attaining organizational health

• build and maintain a cohesive leadership team
• create organizational clarity
• over-communicate organizational clarity
• reinforce organizational clarity through human systems

Think of these obsessions, or as Lencioni refers to them as disciplines, as a structure for establishing habits of leadership in your organization. By habits I mean the daily routines that you don't think about, but just do. For instance, the third discipline 'over-communicate organizational clarity,' could be manifest by routinely starting every meeting with a re-statement of why — for the sake of what — the group is proceeding with a lean approach to project delivery. Speaking about this once is not enough. Lencioni claims we must raise the issue throughout the life of the inititiative.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
building a hot group

• absence of trust
• fear of conflict
• lack of commitment
• avoidance of accountability
• inattention to results

Many of us have come to expect the usual stages of team performance — forming, storming, norming, and performing — as the usual progression of team dynamics. Yet many of us may never have reached the elusive fourth stage. Lencioni (while not using the four stages) offers a different way of viewing team dynamics and performance. These five distinctions offer any team member a 'handle' for shifting the team behavior. I see so many teams leaving the acts of leadership up to the designated leader. Using these distinctions each of us can shape and reshape team behavior becoming more functional.

One last comment on the trilogy. Lencioni offers practical advice with his short lists on leadership. Let me add some more practical advice that I got from Ken Blanchard in Leadership and the One Minute Manager. Be S.M.A.R.T. about how you proceed. Focus your actions in one area rather than 14. Set a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and trackable. Get your result then set a new S.M.A.R.T. goal. Notes on Developing a S.M.A.R.T. Approach.