Archive for the 'leadership' Category

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.

I found a short article today that supports the point I made in my Project e-Tip this week Keep the Project Mission Alive. John Brandt writing Brandt On Leadership — Managing For A Higher Purpose in Industry Week claims leaders are more successful when they manage according to purpose rather than time or tasks.

(M)ost of us manage ourselves not according to our talents and purpose, but according to time and tasks.

(L)eaders who imbue organizations with a mission beyond merely making money — something that can capture the imagination and hearts of customers, employees and partners alike — are consistently more profitable than those who don't.

Clarify the mission for everyone on your team. Do it today. And, do it again and again.

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.

Sign-up for Project Integrity Day by sending a blank email (no subject and no body) to project.integrity.day@getresponse.com. You will get a response with a tel number. More details will follow. There is no charge for this.

Eight P's of Project Integrity

You might ask, "Where did these come from?" Good question. I made them up. But there's a method to my madness arrogance. We assess integrity situationally. We see it in one setting and not in others. We also assess integrity as it regards those things we care about. So, looking at projects I began looking at what could be out-of-integrity. That it nicely fit into a list of words all beginning with "P" makes it easy to remember, even if it is suspicious.

1. Purpose
   Why are we doing the project? or For the sake of what does it matter that we succeed? Purpose changes or evolves through time. We learn; conditions change; clients' views change. We must talk about purpose to maintain integrity of purpose.
2. Promise(s)
   What is it specifically that we will produce? One way to think about a project is as a collection of promises that when fulfilled will satisfy the customer and the purpose of the project. Promises may need to change as the purpose changes. Further, as we learn, we see we can make better promises than those made early on. Revisiting our promises produces integrity.
3. Process
   How will we go about delivering on our promises? We've all learned there is more than one right way of doing something. What looks good to begin may not work at all. Further, we may agree to all do something one way, but find that we are not following through.
4. People
   There are two issues here:
• Are people well-matched for the roles they are performing?
• Are you doing all you can to have them succeed in those roles?
5. Planning
   By now you know my position is that planning is an on-going activity on projects. Are you doing that? And, are you embracing planning as an opportunity to incorporate learning and innovation on your project?
6. Practice(s)
   Each organization has makes their own declarations about the (best) practices that support successful projects.
• What are those declarations?
• Are you doing what you say?
7. Performance
   You can't improve if you are not measuring. What are the measures you say are important to project success? Are you measuring? Are you informing? Are you investigating and taking action based on those measures?
8. Place
   Is the work setting conducive to what we are doing? For instance,
• Is the setting clean and orderly
• Is material presented appropriately?
• Is it a safe place to work?

We'll use the Eight P's of Project Integrity as the basis for our work next Friday. In the meantime, begin observing your project with these distinctions. Look for both what you are already doing well and where you see what you could be doing better.

I'll write you again on Monday.

While going about my day, I recalled two other observations about the jobsite and project team I visited last week.

• There was tremendous trust among the members of the team and the extended team. People shared what they were doing. They shared their materials. They shared their opinions (even in the presence of a visitor and the COO). And they were quick to make offers to each other. If you don't know how important trust is to the success of a project team, then try distrust!
• The team had their attention on results. They were not just going through the motions of a weekly planning exercise. They kept the concerns for the up-coming week present in their conversation.

BTW, I think this team came together late spring - early summer. While some of the team members have worked together on other projects, the mix of subcontractors was new. These folks understand that the quality of their relationships matter to the success of the project. They continue to give it their attention.

My friend Joe (Learning About Lean) asked me to offer more observations and assessments of my jobsite visit last week. I haven't discussed this with the project team, so out of courtesy I will offer some general comments based on my visits with them and with a number of projects in the last month.

Greg Howell and I regularly visit well-run projects. It seems that only people who are doing relatively well are sincere about their intentions to improve. There's a book that expresses that sentiment, Better Makes Us Best. The team I visited had that attitude. The members ask questions, invite assessments, and reach out to each other for help. I can't stress the importance of this enough. I'll take a rookie team who asks for help over a know-it-all experienced team any day.

Well-organized jobsites and high project reliability go together. The site I visited was clean and organized. While I didn't inquire how long particular material had been on site, there wasn't much lying around. This is consistent with lean principles, specifically eight wastes. Now when I see a well-organized site I expect to see a project that is on time and on budget.

Planning is an everyday practice. I was particularly struck by the negotiating underway last week. I am used to seeing people trying to reschedule today's activities based on what didn't get done or went wrong yesterday. The negotiating that was going on had to do with work to be performed in the coming weeks. There are two significant points to that:

1. The team saw the specifics of the up-coming look-ahead plan as just one approach to meeting the milestones as promised to the customer;
2. Planning is an on-going collaborative process that always includes those people executing the plan.

The team in Colorado and every other team taking a lean approach see planning and execution as tightly coupled or extensions of each other. This is unlike the description offered by PMI and in general practice where planning, execution, and control are seen as separate functions performed by different people.

One last observation…I noticed a wonderful mood among the project team. Some people might say, "Of course! The project is on schedule and on budget." Sure, that helps. Or, is their mood contributing to the good results? Time and again I see the project leaders of high performing teams taking the time to shape the mood of the team. The leaders do this in the stories they tell. One way of doing this is with a project k-log. I wrote about this October 8th Project Klogs: Changing Paradigms. An even better way is by being with the project team everyday. Not only are you in a position to tell the story, you are part of it.

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.