The Art of the Process
Last fall I was chosen to lead a component of my child’s school auction. The auction is the largest fundraiser the school holds each year. Making the auction happen requires partnership among parent volunteers, vendors, artists, businesses within the community, teachers, school administrators, maintenance staff, and a host of others. My piece of this intricate puzzle was to manage the art auction inventory. When I was first asked, I wondered why someone with a financial services background would be needed for anything closely related to art and the art world. The auction chairs’ vote of confidence stemmed from two things: my organizational skills, and my ability to work with anybody and everybody. Sound like project management put to work in a non-work setting? You bet!
My job for six months was to manage the art inventory, which amounted to 100 plus pieces of art valued in total at close to $300,000. Breaking this down into process, there were three main components to my role: art intake, documentation and delivery. Get the donations cataloged, get the artwork in the door, get it ready for installation. This simple breakdown is something that comes easily for process-oriented, left-brained thinkers. The trick was applying this in the right-brained artistic realm. In previous posts I’ve written about the combination of left and right-brained thinking into a comprehensive approach. My consulting business, Valiant Mind, is based on this very premise. The winning combination in the auction scenario was appreciation and respect for the artistic process and by extension the artists themselves coupled with the most fundamental of tools, the Excel Spreadsheet. A very simple spreadsheet outlining the artwork, its donor, its value became the main communication and tracking vehicle for all involved. It was art in it’s own uncomplicated right. This was a case where the logical side (process, spreadsheet) and the creative side (empathy, curiosity, appreciation) worked together perfectly.
Once my job ended, the sum of my efforts was turned over to a team in charge of installing the artwork for the big event. This team was made up of professional artists, gallery owners and art experts. Watching this team in action was a great learning experience for a process geek like me. Even in a creative environment there is inherent logical process. For example, placement of artwork based on size, value and the buzz around the artist. The process was carefully thought through and executed upon seamlessly. What's more, the creative work was supported by the very same Excel Spreadsheet that bolstered the inventory piece. It was interesting to see fundamental tools and interpersonal skills come alive in a non-traditional working environment. When armed with Excel and empathy you're ready for anything!
Putting Childhood Truisms to Work
As any parent of a pre-schooler will tell you there are a set of rules by which their children live inside the classroom and on the playground. Luckily for parents, most children feel very comfortable bringing these rules home with them. How many times has little Timmy, who can’t ever stay quiet, said that he’s just using his words? Classroom rules are there for a reason. Sure they keep order and help teachers manage a herd of 4 year olds but they also create a sense of harmony and community that helps get stuff done.
How then can these rules be applied to the workplace, or better still the project team? As the leader of the team you’re pre-ordained to control and move the effort along. It’s your job to influence, cajole and get people on-board to do your bidding. By applying the fundamentals of school-aged children to your project you can set down a path that runs more smoothly than your average project.
1) Use Your Words: one of the most important things a Project Manager can do is to communicate. Whether it is to his or her team, the project stakeholders or to senior management. When I’m managing a project, it is my goal to get the message out before someone has to ask me for it. I take pride in being an excellent communicator and having the ability to anticipate someone’s question in advance of them asking it. Communication from the PM out isn’t the only way to use your words. Encourage your team members to do the same. Communication of statuses or feedback on what’s working and what’s not within the context of the team supports bonding and fortifies the group around the common goal of delivering results.
2) You Get What You Get and You Don’t Get Upset: getting a complex effort off the ground takes a myriad of drivers and doers. What happens when your doers don’t want to do? From the PM perspective, you’ve been dealt an inadequate hand. From the doer's perspective, you’ve gotten a request that you don’t have time for or perhaps you don’t have the interest in. In this scenario, the PM has to be the first to have a good attitude, to not get upset if you will. As the project leader, the PM sets the tone and the best example for how the group will move forward. A PM who throws up his or her hands creates a dynamic of melancholy which will ultimately lead to disinterest on the team’s part. On the flip side, the PM has a chance to flex some empathy skills to encourage support from the defiant doer or has the opportunity to come up with a creative solution for getting the required tasks complete. Going head to head with a member of the team presents challenges and can cast doubt on one’s skills as a leader. Embracing this dynamic and managing conflict in a constructive positive way gives us all a chance to grow as PMs.
3) Take Turns: differing points of view can help challenge a PM and boost idea generation and creativity. If the PM insists on being the single voice within a work effort he or she is short changed. Soliciting input, or giving others a turn to lead, comment, or provide a perspective helps build energy and enthusiasm around a project. Throughout my years in corporate America, my initial response when someone came into my office asking what should be done about a particular task or challenge was, “Tell me what YOU think we should do first.”
4) Clean Up After Yourself: since most of us don’t have toys in the workplace, this maxim applies to owning your mistakes, fixing them and learning from them. There are so many points within a project where things can go wrong. Admitting you’ve dropped the ball and offering an answer to how things will get back on track is a brilliant show of competence. We’ve all had the Teflon project team member from time to time. That someone to whom nothing sticks. Ownership and accountability build your credibility and your good-will with colleagues and management, whether you’re the project lead or a supporting player on the team. I can guarantee there’s not one working person today who can say they’ve never screwed up at work. Cleaning up your mess after doing that will help you stand out in a good way.
If only work could be as much fun as going to pre-school or playing on the playground. Melding some of the rules of childhood with day-to-day project management can be almost as entertaining plus it comes without the scraped knees.
Empathy: The Project Management X Factor
What’s the difference between a good product manager and a great one? Project Management at its core is about planning, managing and closing a work effort. It’s all about the execution. Can I get from Point A to Point B on time and within budget? I’ve worked with Project Managers throughout the years that took their role literally. The drive and desire to get to the finish line was paramount. The colleagues or related tasks left in the PM’s wake were not given a second thought. Anecdotally, these driven and task-oriented employees were praised as “good PM’s” with a “but”. They were good BUT no one wanted to work with them. When these highly functioning PMs were assigned to big projects that involved multiple cross-functional stakeholders the announcements were met with silent groans and eye rolls. Observing “good PMs” helped hone my own personal management style. Very early on I learned to value how I got the job done over just getting it done.
The great PM looks beyond the individual tasks and execution components of the project. He or she manages not only the project but also the community involved in delivery. The stressed manager, the overworked technologist, the business analyst who is spread too thinly. Dealing with and respecting the personalities and emotions involved separate the great PMs from the pack. Empathy, simply defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person, is key. Empathy, an element of Emotional Intelligence, is often dismissed because it is confused with sympathy. And who isn’t sympathetic? That is a basic perception we all have as human beings. However, feeling bad for Joe who just got chewed out by his boss is not the same as understanding Joe’s upset.
Practically and tactically speaking, the information we ingest through empathetic interaction makes PM’s better listeners and ultimately more successful. This is so for two main reasons:
The empathetic ear can garner more support from stakeholders and the individuals required to complete project tasks. A PM without internal support and buy-in from the doers has greater difficulty closing individual tasks per plan.
The likability of the empathetic PM boosts the morale of the project team and rallies the doers to get their tasks completed.
Throughout my career I've seen PM's attempt to bring soft skills into their projects with mixed results. In my view, those who believed in the value of relating to their project teams were far more accomplished than those who never looked up from their project plans and opened their ears.