Archive for the 'leadership' Category

I 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:

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Hi. I’m Alan Mossman, a consultant based in the UK. Hal has invited me to contribute occasional posts to RPM in the areas of design, safety and collaboration.

One of my profs at Uni, Stafford Beer, asserted "A system is what a system does". So why would anyone create a system that in Hal’s words “turns strangers into enemies”.
Will Lichtig addressed this issue in an article for the Fall 07 American Institute of Architects Practice Management Digest. In Projects as Patients, Will suggests a scoring system for project health — should we call it the Lichtig Score? Four of the categories - Collaborative Planning, Reliable Promising, Unaccounted-for Constraints, Safety - have clear criteria.

The questions for the equally important fifth category, Mood, are not so straight-forward to answer:

• To what extent is the team positive?
• To what extent is honesty and trust evident?
• To what extent is the team learning and improving?
• Is morale improving, steady or declining?
• To what extent are team members being open and honest with each other?
• Are there barriers between trades and professions and if so How high are the silo walls?
• How long or short are tempers?
• To what extent are team members collaborating?

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In my first guest-blogger entry, I mentioned the importance of managing perceptions. I wrote that not doing so was the main cause of why only one project out of three was considered successful by major stakeholders, according to the Standish Group's Chaos Report¹. I concluded that "not managing perceptions" could be considered the 10th waste of ill-managed projects.

It is easy to say that we have to manage perceptions. But where and how should we start doing that? The Chaos Report gives us pretty good leads on that. The report identifies the involvement of end-users as the No.1 in its Top Ten List of project key success factors. I talked about that also when Hal gave me the opportunity to contribute a project e-tip back in 2003 (e-tip 016: Keep the Customer/End-User Involved). After all these years, this e-tip is still relevant and I propose to rename it The Proximity Principle and to revisit it as it pertains to fighting the 10th waste.

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1. www.projectsmart.co.uk/docs/chaos-report.pdf [ ⇑ back ]

Our inclination is to ease into new situations. We take baby steps thinking that it is the safe way to engage in something new. Two of my sons just went sky diving. There's no reasonable way to ease out of the plane…particularly when you are jumping tandem. There's no reasonable way to ease into cold water. How do I know? I've tried it. I suspect many of you have tried it too!

"…incremental change promotes a parochial outlook and attitude"

Lean practices are as shocking as cold water. There's no sense easing into lean. It only extends the pain. We know that lean thinking is superior to conventional wisdom. What most people don't know is how to engage in the new lean practices. Jump in! Read the rest of this entry ¶

It's that time of year again. I'm attending the Lean Construction Congress in San Francisco. This is the 9th annual event. As usual, the focus is on companies who have adopted lean approaches for delivering AEC projects. The morning presentations have been great. Company presenters are doing a fine job speaking about the benefits they are getting and how the lean approaches and principles cause that to happen.

Becoming lean and being evermore lean is fundamentally about learning, not about lean.

It's a little early in the two days to be saying this, but what the heck… Herrero Contractors, not yet three years into their lean transformation, is the most advanced lean contractor in the US.¹ Herrero understands that becoming lean and being evermore lean is fundamentally about learning, not about lean. They seem to be learning everywhere and everyday.

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1. Full disclosure, they used to be our client. A year ago they hired away one of our staff members to be their Director of Learning…not Director of Lean. [ ⇑ back ]

What must we do to open our organizations to change? Whether it's pursuing lean or any other transformational change it's only when we break with history that we have a chance for change. One necessary way we do that by changing the stories we tell.

Few business leaders appreciate the power of stories to connect with their audiences.

Business Week just reported on leadership…the kind of leadership that alters forever who we are and where we are going…The Seven Secrets of Inspiring Leaders, by Carmine Gallo. He says it's not a single act, rather it is a set of actions taken over and over that has the chance of effecting permanent change.

These seven actions can make your change effort successful:

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Nearly 20 years ago Robert Reich made a big claim: Americans can't change who they are until they change the story of who they've been. His book, Tales of a New America detailed classical American stories: the rot at the top; the mob at the gate; the rise of the individual…

It's only in changing the story that we can be someone different.

I've come to believe it's our stories that anchor us — that keep us from achieving what we say we want. Norman calls it resistance. But that presupposes intentionality. In other words, resistance is cognitive. That doesn't make sense to me.

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Norman Bodek is concerned that companies are not taking up a lean way of working. This is in the face of overwhelming evidence that a lean approach is one of the best ways of working. What gets in the way? Norman attributes it to middle managers who resist change. He says the resistance is manifest in saying, "No," to employees' proposals of improvement. I don't buy it.

Norman is right when he says the people get in the way of change. It is not organizations that resist change. Only individuals can choose to not change. But why? Why in the face of overwhelming evidence that lean is a better approach would someone not embrace the change? Fear is the first answer. People see that something is at risk if they embrace something different. That makes sense, however when firms get into real trouble — the threat of bankruptcy — managers find a way to get behind a change to a lean approach. In the face of big stakes people come through.

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I've been a long-time reader of Business 2.0. Good writing, timely articles, and clever presentation made this magazine great. Unfortunately, my view has been in the minority. Circulation has fallen steadily along with ad pages. A magazine can't keep publishing with that trend even when it is owned by Time, Inc.

Long live Fast Company!

I renewed my subscription mid-September and they processed my credit card. Two days later I read in the Wall Street Journal that Time would no longer publish B2.0. I feel swindled. Time is extending my Fortune subscription for one issue for each two remaining B2.0 issues. That doesn't make me happy, particularly since they took my money only a few weeks ago. One-for-one would be a fairer deal.

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Authors and their publicists regularly offer me books in hope I'll write a good review. I usually do write good reviews. If I can't find something good to say, then I don't write anything. (I think I've only written one negative review.) Today, I'm offering a review of a book that neither the author nor the publicist offered me. And you guessed it…it's a positive review.

Christine Comford-Lynch's Rules for Renegades is a good-read.

You'll be inspired by Christine's example.

Christine is a character. She's fully expressing herself in print just like she has in life. I'm not saying Rules for Renegades will alter your view on reality. But it just might inspire you. Christine unabashedly shares her triumphs — building one company after another and dating both Bill Gates and Larry Ellison — and her flops — embarking on becoming a geisha after getting dumped by Bill Gates.

Christine claims to have been involved in 36 company start-ups. "Of those 36, not a single one (author's emphasis) has executed its original business plan." Sounds like successful projects. Christine shares her acquired wisdom in the following 10 rules.

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Construction projects get a bad rep…a very bad rep. And the Boston Globe piles on with today's article The Industry that Time Forgot: Just Another Day at the Office for the Most Wasteful, Least Productive Industry in America

It's tough for me to comment on this article. I live in Boston. We've suffered major delays, overruns, inconveniences, and people lost their lives. It doesn't have to be this way. Companies have learned from the best operators in the world and have avoided these problems. In Massachusetts we have burdensome laws and practices. It's tough to do business with the state government. In my town no major project has finished on time or on budget. However, it can change. It must change. The industry knows what to do to change.

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Is Toyota paranoid? They are according to BW. Staying Paranoid at Toyota, BW July 2, 2007 claims Toyota has become paranoid. They point to the following quote by Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota President:

"The scariest symptom of 'big-company disease' is that complacency will breed."

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We often discount great accomplishments by saying people were just lucky. The luncheon speaker at the TWI Summit says otherwise. Luncheon speakers are about as good as the conference budget allows. I wasn't expecting much at the TWI Summit. It's the first of its kind conference. While it was the largest meeting of TWI proponents in over 50 years, it was only about 135 people. Boy was I surprised by the luncheon speaker on the first day. Jim Swartz spoke about finding and seizing great opportunities. His talk was based on his book Seeing David in the Stone, by James and Joseph Swartz.

Due to significant Florida weather delays, I had the opportunity to read and finish Seeing David in the Stone in one setting. I am impressed. Very impressed. I shouldn't be. Norman Bodek introduced Jim to me calling him a genius. After listening to his speech, being in a private conversation and reading the book I can see that Norman is right. Not only is he a genius, he's written an easy-to-read and engaging book.

The book is based on many years of private research into what makes the great ones successful. They studied 70 great people to discover what was common among them. In addition to Gates and Einstein, the authors studied Galileo, Edison, Michaelangelo, DaVinci, Pasteur, Curie, Eisenhower, and Walton. The authors identified three groups of behaviors with a total of 12 actions. Here they are:

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Short answer: Don't try! That's the advice anyway from the people at The Four Seasons hotel chain. Instead, they hire for attitude. US News goes on to report in Four Seasons Service Is Unstinting, "…then train them thoroughly and treat them with the same respect (management) expects them to show hotel guests." When scanning resumes and interviewing candidates the question they try to answer is, "Are you an innately happy person?" They understand how to teach people to be a bellman or a deskclerk, but "If your momma didn't teach you to be nice, then (they) can't either."

What would be the equivalent attitudes for people who work on projects?

Hard to imagine in the world of projects that anyone would ask the question "Why do deadlines matter?" However, in the world of politics and world conflicts the argument is front and center. We learned this week, President Bush just won his battle with the Democrats in Congress. There will be no deadlines in the funding bill for the war in Iraq. To my surprise, I opened the June issue of Business 2.0 turning to Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor, Stanford University, to see his essay Why Deadlines Matter. Read the rest of this entry ¶

I frequently say to myself, "I've got to read this book again." But I usually don't make the time to do it. That's not the case with The Dip, by Seth Godin. I have to admit that not only have I been waiting for the book, I would be anticipating any book by Seth. Call me a groupie. I'm ok with that. This guy has an uncanny way of bringing an idea from the edge to mainstream. But still I was surprised. While Seth promoted his book about quitting, the book is really about mastery.

For my money, there's no better book about mastery than George Leonard's Mastery. He describes both his journey to embracing mastery and the nature and practices of mastery. However, Seth presents the choice we have of mastery. You can quit or you can stick, it's your choice. The earlier you decide the better.

Seth's examples are palpable. Read the rest of this entry ¶

Vince Lombardi was wrong when he said, "Winners never quit and quitters never win." Do I have your attention? That's how Seth Godin opened his presentation this morning in Philadelphia. It's the first stop on his book tour to promote The Dip. I've been asked many times, "Why does a project management guy write about a marketing guy." Seth is not just a marketing guy. He's strung together one best-selling book on marketing one-after-another. Seth describes himself as a guy committed to spreading the best ideas. His book Purple Cow on doing work that stands out is great advice for individuals and teams.

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I am cautious writing this post. Some people have been calling attention to an elephant in the room. KT Cat is one of those people. I don't know KT Cat. I read his weblog, The Scratching Post. KT writes anonymously. He writes with an attitude. That often makes for good reading. In his recent posting, A Lean Six Sigma Slogan, KT wrote,

"It's better to have your employees wonder if you're a complete idiot than it is to send them to Lean Six Sigma training and remove all doubt."

I think he speaks honestly. I'm not saying I agree with what he says. Nor am I saying that he's saying what is inherently true about Lean Six Sigma. But I do think he speaks from experience. Read the rest of this entry ¶