Mel Bost – PMO Expert

When we were growing up, primary, middle, and secondary school were required because the State was assigned the responsibility for preparing children for “grown up” life.  Our personal attitudes toward learning were formed during those years when we were progressing through the grades. 

If a student had a bad experience with a teacher or with a subject, often that bad experience would carry over into adulthood as a negative attitude towards “learning” because that student associated learning with that bad experience.  

On the other hand, those students who were very successful at navigating their “education” years often became life-long learners.

Now all this may seem very “elementary” to those of you who are engaged in project management today, but, if you really think back upon those school years, and then think about how you approach learning new project management practices and principles today, there is an immediate “transference” of attitudes from our early school experiences to our adult attitudes toward learning.

So what does this all have to do with whether you seek “training” and “learning” for project management practices in your day to day work?

Well, it means a great deal.

Those individuals who, during their formal training in project management, developed an attitude that they “learned all that needs to be known” often feel that way because they were turned off by the notion of revisiting grades and tests and unflinching teachers.

But nothing could be farther from the truth here!!!!

Let me “reframe” this perspective (as we say in project management).

Jillian Michaels, the extremely successful trainer from the hit TV show “The Biggest Loser,” believes that peoples’ capability to handle situations depends on how well they understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and how motivated they are to accomplish the task at hand.  She says that “capability” depends, to a large part, on education regarding all factors and issues that impact a person’s ability–or lack thereof–to do the job.  And since business contexts and interfaces with new people and new situations are arising all the time, it is really necessary to develop a “life-long learning” attitude about your goals and objectives.  Jillian Michaels made these points in the May 2010 issue of “Success” magazine article and its accompanying audio CD. 

Her bottom line is that empowering decisions by people, that move them forward to accomplish their goals and objectives, are the result of their personal education about the issues that make them capable to perform.

Read that sentence again:  “Empowering decisions by people, that move them forward to accomplish their goals and objectives (in any walk of life), are the result of their personal education about the issues that make them capable to perform.”

Those who continue to view “education” and “learning” in the context of their bad primary, middle or secondary school experiences are destined to repeat mistakes and fail to prepare to take on life’s challenges.  Indeed, the challenges facing a project manager in today’s modern corporation, especially those PMs working in a PMO environment, are continually changing as new interfaces, stakeholders, scope changes, cost/economic constraints arise.

Are you a project manager who looks at his own personal training in project management or at training for your team as just another cost to be managed?  Is your attitude that “training” is a waste of time that you don’t need to allocate any resources towards? Do you think that training doesn’t impact project performance or execution capability?  If you are, consider why you believe as you do–did you have a bad experience with “education” or “training” and/or the formal training mechanisms that were forced on you?   Or did someone tell you that getting that Mechanical Engineering degree meant you’d never have to study again?

If you have such an attitude, you are shortchanging your project team, your company and especially YOURSELF!!!!  Wake up to the reality that changing circumstances and situations and issues in projects and the PMO require new solutions.  These new solutions often may have already been developed by someone else who has encountered and successfully solved the mystery or problem at hand.

Confucius once said:

“By three methods we may learn wisdom:

First, by reflection, which is noblest.

Second, by imitation, which is easiest.

Third, by experience, which is bitterest.”

Develop that life-long learning attitude.  Embrace everything you can from successful people and their approaches to problems.  Immerse yourself in “learning” so that you can draw on the experiences of others.  Cast off those attitudes that “training” and “learning” are just another cost to be managed.  Or else….

….the bitterest feelings will be your experience.

Your comments are welcome.

I just finished a new book by Seth Godin entitled Linchpin.  It was a very thought provoking book about the realities of today’s job market and worldwide industry outlook. 

In this book, Seth defines a “linchpin” as a person who is “indispensable” to an organization.  A “linchpin” is a person who acts as an “artist” by:

 (1) creating and sharing new organizational knowledge;

 (2) facilitating effective connections among colleagues;

 (3) helping develop creative responses to sustain the organization going forward; and

 (4) facilitating the organization by dealing with complex and often nonlinear system dynamics issues that, if unaddressed, may hinder sustained growth. 

While Seth did not specifically address whether this concept could be successfully applied to project managers, there is no reason why these basic concepts would not apply.  The only difference might be the very nature of projects, which are themselves defined by specific timetables, with start and finish dates.  In applying the lessons of Linchpin to the discipline of project managerment, it is more effective to focus on the project manager’s contributions to the overall corporate environment, rather than his or her contribution to an individual project. 

When I read the book, it reminded me of a scenario I experienced about twenty five years ago, when I had just been promoted to Manager, Manufacturing Performance Reporting and Analysis, in the Controller’s staff of ARCO Products Company in Los Angeles.  One day at lunch, the Controller (who was my Manager’s boss) stopped by my office for a brief chat.  We had not had much time together since the promotion, and he wanted to provide his insights as to how I could ”be recognized” in the organization. 

His advice to me was to do something “extraordinary” that would use my unique talents and would be recognized and applauded by ARCO Management.  He told a short story about how, a short time earlier, he had himself been recognized.  At that time, ARCO was in the process of building a new natural gas fired cogeneration facility at the ARCO Los Angeles Refinery.  The Controller was on the finance staff, and offered a creative financing idea for the new cogeneration facility based upon his previous work with the financial community.  Management had endorsed his initiative, and it had saved the Company quite a bit in total financing costs, as well as put the Company in a better position to pursue a joint venture with the local electric utility in Southern California. 

The Controller’s advice to me was to look for something similar that would leverage my unique talents in “engineering” and “venture development.”  You might say it was an early “linchpin” pep talk.

That was extremely good advice.  And it is advice that applies equally well to project managers in their day-to-day project work.  Look for those contributions that are unique to your talents and which will be recognized for their value to the entire organization, and not just to the single project on which you are focusing at that time.  While that may seem like a tall order if you are a project manager who is ”up to his rear in alligators” everyday,  today’s market requires that you invest in making yourself “indispensable.” 

How does that saying go?  “The markets may be strong or weak but strong people will endure.”

Nurture the four abilities of a linchpin that I summarized from Seth’s book in the introductory paragraph.  You have the ability to become an  ”artist” and to “share” your gifts with the rest of the organization. 

I would like some feedback on this post from those who have experienced similar scnarios.  Are there “linchpins” around you whom everyone recognizes as being “indispensable” to the organization, and yet no one really stops to acknowledge or applaud them?   While they may be the unsung heroes of our project ventures today, they will be the glue that sustains the organization going forward.

Thanks for your support!!!!!

If you are a project manager, you should be working everyday to develop a quality or capability known as “resiliency.”  Resiliency is the ability to spring back or rebound from emotional setbacks.  Resiliency is “mental toughness.”  In this context, “mental toughness” or tenacity is the ability to lock-on to an end-result, goal, or project and to successfully handle all the temporary setbacks that might occur without giving up on the goal.

How many times in your projects have you seen repeated setbacks, either in deliverables not being completed on time or on budget, resources not being available or competent to complete the task at hand, or “dependencies” from other projects in the form of “gives” and “get” not being available when needed to support your project goals.  Often, these temporary setbacks occur in bunches, and we have all said at times “My, what an awful day!!”  

But in order to focus on the end result and achieve all the value from the project, you must put aside these emotions and feelings, and deal with these temporary setbacks. 

The project manager who can address these setbacks successfully and still accomplishes his end objectives will be sought-after over and over again for future project work.  

Oftentimes we hear the word “ambiguity” in today’s organization because so many seemingly-aligned initiatives often are really oblique to the direction in which the organization is moving, and creating “ambiguity” in direction, motivations, goals and objectives.  The project manager who can address this “ambiguity” with its associated setbacks and still achieve the end value from his project is extremely valuable to the organization and to himself. 

So, how should a project manager proceed to develop “resiliency” in his work ethic, practices, and day to day activities? 

Louis Tice is a coach and counselor who helps men and women achieve their potential in whatever field or discipline they have chosen to participate.  He and his wife Diane started The Pacific Institute for the purpose of using research about cognitive skills and self-image to enable high achievement in individuals.  Louis Tice has coached business professionals, and both professional and collegiate athletes in the area of development of “resiliency.” 

Using affirmation and visualization techniques, he has coached athletes to develop the mental toughness to overcome temporary setbacks in athletics to achieve the end result in their selected sport.  Lou instructs, for example, college football running backs to visualize themselves running through the forest at night when they are headed in a general direction but cannot see any of the trees and limbs in the forest.  As the athlete starts to run in his selected direction, he may run into a limb and it will smart and hurt.  It is painful but, instead of sitting down, he keeps running.  And when he strikes the next tree, it hurts but he just slides to the side and keeps running in the selected direction.  Then when he runs out of the forest, trees stop striking him–he has reached the end goal and never wavered from the end result he wanted to achieve. 

Another exercise might be to picture yourself in a well and you cannot get out.  As you reach your hand upward, something strikes your hand and you have to pull back.  You do it over and over again and eventually the striking stops and you come up out of the well. 

Now, as a project manager, visualize yourself running through a maze which represents your project plan or schedule. When you reach an impasse or an unexpected setback, just slide to the side and keep going.  It may be painful but you just keep running through the maze.  Eventually, after you have overcome all the setbacks, you will realize that your end goal is right in front of you.  And you reach out and grasp it!!! 

Of course, this has applications in other parts of life as well.  Suppose you are actively involved in a job search and your most recent interview for a Program Manager position went very well.  But then you receive a call saying that you were not selected for any further interviews because they have selected others with industry experience which more directly aligns with the Program Manager job description.  It’s just a “no” and not a “forever” although, at the time, it may seem like a huge setback.  So you slide to the side and keep looking. 

Developing resiliency in your project manager career will allow you to handle temporary setbacks with less stress and greater confidence.  You can begin the road today toward being a more resilient project manager.  It is a quality that is essential in today’s marketplace and in future project organizations.