Tips for New Project Managers

We were asked to lead a discussion for new project managers recently.  They were interested in discussing how you manage people and projects.  The challenge many in the group were having was that while they had project management responsibility, they were not always in a “line management” role – in other words, the people who worked on the projects they were managing often reported to someone else.  We love doing these types of roundtable discussions because you can put some ideas on the table and then get the group engaged, talking and learning from each other.  Here are some of the discussion points we shared with them:

Influencing Others – even when you don’t have the authority!

•       Listen to the concerns of others: up, down and across.

•       Derive satisfaction from what your team accomplishes, not just from what you accomplish.

•       Influence the quality of the work without doing the work.

Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities

•       Clearly define who is responsible for what

•       Anticipate in advance where there might be issues between individuals and teams

Setting Expectations

•       Make expectations clear – don’t assume your employees know

•       Define the desired outcome and make sure the team understands the expected results.

•       Focus on the what (outcome); let your team focus on the how

•       Communicate the ground rules for how and when you want/need to be involved.

•       Regularly evaluate the progress being made.

Gaining Respect

•       Do what you say you will do

•       Show that you value your employees

•       Know what your employees need from you

•       Follow up but don’t micromanage

•       Give employees what they need to be successful

•       Be accessible to your employees

•       Spend time with your employees

Motivating

Employees are asking:

•       Do I know what is expected from me?

•       Do I have what I need to do my job right?

•       Does my manager encourage my development? 

•       Does my manager talk about my progress?

•       Am I frequently recognized or praised for good work?

•       Does my boss care about me as a person?

•       Does my opinion count?

•       Do I feel included and respected?

Communicating Clearly

•       Effective communication is a critical leadership skill

•       Understand and effectively use words and phrases

•       Respect all points of view

•       Laughter and good natured humor occurs

•       Be intentional about your communications

•       Establish a process of regular communications, up, down and across

•       Create opportunities to speak for the good work of your team and share that information up, down and across.

•       Turn off listening filters

•       Listen to words and clarify understanding

•       Pay attention to non-verbal signals

•       Be compassionate

•       Listen for what’s not said

•       Listen for what you want and don’t want to hear

•       Resist the urge to formulate a response until after the speaker is finished

Giving and Receiving Feedback

•       Timely feedback – can’t do it too often!

•       Don’t take good performance for granted – offer praise frequently

•       Identify strengths and use them effectively – address weaknesses

•       What? (for performance feedback)

–      What is the behavior that is not working?

–      What is the expectation that is not being met?

–      What is the expectation that is being met?

•       So What?

–      What is the impact?

–      Why is it a problem?  Why is it great?

•       Now What?

–      What can the individual do differently to achieve the desired results?

–      If not, what is the consequence?

•       Talk about specific actions that deserve recognition and appreciation

•       Describe the results you are recognizing

•       Match the recognition with the  person

–      Not everyone wants the same kind of praise.  Some respond well to public recognition, others to private

Tell Me What I Need to Do! The Case for Life-Long Learning

What kind of learner are you?  What motivates you to learn?  I’ve got a passion to learn new things, important stuff, useful stuff, trivial stuff, well not as much trivial stuff, but that can be fun and refreshing at times. 

I listened to a discussion recently about The Learning Leader.  I left the program with much to consider, not just about leadership and learning.  One of the things that struck me was the discussion about why learning matters and what motivates people to learn.  For example, are you a positive learner, who is passionate about the value of learning and knowing new things (a healthy curiosity) and who seeks excellence?  Are you a neutral learner who views the experience as a means to an end – if I get the degree or certification, I’ll get the promotion or the new job?  Finally, are you a negative learner, who views learning something new as a necessary evil to avoid difficult circumstances?  I often see this reaction when the business external environment presents a change – technology change, regulatory change – and people are more interested in what they need to do to avoid consequences than what they need to learn so they fully grasp the impact of the change on themselves or their organization.  My observation was that most of the individuals in the room could relate to all three motivations depending on the situation, but clearly, everyone could identify strongly with one of the three motivators.

The discussion turned lively when it moved to the things that are critical for leaders to learn.  The responses were interesting:

• Learn about changes to their industry - for example and customer behavior or changes to technology
• Learn to trust others
• Learn from Mistakes
• Learn to let go and let others take the lead

Good leaders have good habits around learning:   

• They read - this extends beyond their field of interest or expertise
• They listen - this includes asking for feedback from others
• They question - this includes asking disruptive questions to help understand or avert a crisis
• They reflect - they means they set aside quite, structured time which can be as simple as taking a walk
• They experiment - they aren't afraid to try aor learn new things that are outside their comfort zone
• They set goals - they aren't afraid to stretch
• They collaborate - they create learning partnerships that holds themselves and other accountable
• They teach - through teaching, they continue to learn from others

·    For those times or situations where it’s tempting to be a negative learner, stretch yourself to learn more than what you need to do to avoid difficult circumstances.  Delve deeper into the issue.  Go beyond the sound bites, the checklists, and the PowerPoint slides.  Read, absorb and take the time to understand what it is you need to know.  Commit yourself to continuous improvement and life-long learning!

Why Not Ask Superstars Why They Stay?

Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace found only 30% of the US workforce describes themselves as engaged.  It is obvious that disengaged employees are vulnerable to being recruited by your competition or leaving you for more money, benefits, or more interesting work. Most organizations do exit interviews when employees resign.  Not that’s a bad idea—I just think you learn a lot more if you ask your good employees why they stay with you.  By the time an employee resigns, it is too late to fix whatever issues they had and we are pretty sure that employees who are leaving aren’t really interested in helping your organization improve—they just want to move on, get their paid accrued vacation and their 401(k) money rolled over and start working at their new job!

But, it you talk to your superstar employees and ask them why they have chosen to stay with your particular organization, you will learn what they value. It is easy to do this.  This is a great opportunity to start “re-recruiting” your best employees.   People love to be interviewed so you can do “stay interviews” or you can put groups together and do focus groups and get good information that way as well.

Here are some possible questions to ask in interviews or in focus groups:

1.      What do you like best about working here?

2.     What do you find frustrating in your job or the organization?  How would you fix that?

3.     What is most challenging in your current job? 

4.     If you were CEO, what would be the one thing you would change?

5.     What do you suggest we could do differently to improve communication?

6.     What could we do to acknowledge your contributions?  Tell me about the last time you were recognized for good performance.

7.     What do you need to succeed here?  What do you need from your manager?  What do you need from leadership?

8.     Are you doing your best work and if not, what do you need to make that happen?

9.     If you could design the perfect next step for your career, what would it be?

10.  Is there anything I haven’t asked you that is important for us to know as to why you stay?

Take what you learn from the interviews and focus groups and put strategies together for doing more of what is working!  You’ll be amazed at what you learn in these sessions and actions you take should improve your engagement scores and help you retain the people who are making you successful.

A Golden Anniversary for Civil Rights Act of 1964

It was a law that transformed the workplace and it was a pivotal event that transformed the human resources profession.  Barbara and I recently heard Victoria Lipnic, Commissioner for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission speak, and she noted that if it wasn’t for this law, most of us in this room (predominately women) would not have the jobs we have today.  This is certainly true for her, since the EEOC was created by the Civil Rights Act.  Then I glanced around the room to assess the average age of the attendees wondering how many of them realized how much things had changed over the last 50 years.  

It was just last fall at an evening reception during a workshop devoted to issues related to affirmative action and equal employment opportunity laws that some younger women in attendance had a shocking revelation.  Those of us in the group who joined the workforce in the 60s and the 70s were recounting life during the dawn of this era – things like help wanted men/women ads in newspapers or questions posed to women in job interviews about marital status or child bearing plans.

I remembered another similar setting about 15 or 20 years ago – lunch at a similar type of meeting –

when an African American man talked about his difficulty getting a mortgage in the late 60s or early 70s because of his race.  I shared how in those days married women were often not granted credit in their own name, but rather in their husband’s name.  A younger colleague, a member of Generation X and a very independent woman to this day, was aghast.

Title VII of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion and national origin. Title VII applies to private employers, labor unions and employment agencies. The Act prohibits discrimination in recruitment, hiring, wages, assignment, promotions, benefits, discipline, discharge, layoffs and almost every aspect of employment.

Commissioner Lipnic made another important observation.  The Civil Rights Act could not pass today.  The time and compromise that went into passing this law in 1964 was phenomenal.  There was a great deal of legislative negotiation that took place before it passed.

The U.S. Senate, after the longest debate in its nearly 180-year history, passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the evening of June 19, 1964 with 73 votes in favor and 27 against the bill.  The U.S. House of Representatives passed it on July 2, and President Johnson signed it into law that same evening.  Five hundred amendments were made to the bill and Congress debated it for 534 hours.  It was the first significant civil rights law since Reconstruction, and it was not without critics.  Much of the debate was contentious. 

Mississippi Representative Abernathy described the legislation that would become Title VII as assuming "authority over the American people in a manner unmatched in modern history outside acknowledged dictatorships." He is also said to have added, only half in jest presumably, "[i]f a department store manager wants to hire all blond sales clerks, he can hire blond sales clerks. His wife might object, but the Federal Government cannot."

Of course, Title VII prohibits not only race and color discrimination, but also religion, sex and national origin discrimination. The scope of protection was debated vigorously. Ohio Representative John Ashbrook took issue with the religious protections, noting that "[i]t seems incredible that we would even seriously consider forcing an employer to hire an atheist."

Some accounts suggest that the addition of the word "sex" in the list of protections by Virginia Representative Howard Smith was intended as an effort to stop the bill in its tracks. New York Representative Emanuel Cellar countered that in his home, gender relations were peaceful because "I usually have the last two words, and those words are 'Yes, dear.'" On a more serious note, New York's Representative Katharine St. George lobbied for protections based on sex, saying "We outlast you. We outlive you. We nag you to death ... We are entitled to this little crumb of equality. The addition of that little, terrifying word 's-e-x' will not hurt this legislation in any way. In fact, it will improve it ... It will make it right."  (Eric Dreiband, Celebration of Title VII at Forty, 36 U. Mem. L. Rev. 5 (2005)).

We live in more enlighten times and have witnessed shifts in our American culture.  We have made great strides in eliminating discrimination in the workplace and in other segments of our society.   Certainly the demographics of the U. S. Congress has shifted and both Houses are more diverse not only in gender, racial, and ethnic composition, but there is more religious diversity as well than they were in 1964.   Yet, the climate of partisanship in Washington today – a lack of diversity of thought, perhaps – would prevent this law from passing in the 21^st Century. 

Despite what the Virginia Slims commercial from the 1960s said, “You’ve come a long way baby” – Yes, Michelle, there used to be cigarette commercials on TV – there is still much work to do.   Take a moment to honor this Golden Anniversary.

Freedom is Just another Word

One of the exercises I do in diversity training is to introduce a list of cultural variables and then have the participants choose and rank their top five. It’s interesting to hear them discuss the variables that are important to them and why. One of the variables is freedom. One participant said that she never thought much about freedom until 9-11. In a different workshop one group shared how freedom was important to all of them, but that it had different meanings depending on the age and personal situation of the individual. As an example she said that the younger single members of the group defined freedom differently than their peers who were married with small children. It’s a matter of perspective.

During a trip to China in 2006 one of the tour guides continued to make reference “when China was liberated in 1949…..” It was a perspective that I never considered.  

Five years ago, the Washington Post ran an article regarding the many faces of liberty in China 20 years after Tiananmen Square. The points of view of Chinese citizens ranging in age from 11 to 76 were explored. The 11-year-old boy wanted freedom from his parents telling him what to do. The 22-year-old college student felt free to reject her parent’s wishes regarding her course of study at the university. The 29 year-old salesman defined freedom as financial freedom, while the 35 year old migrant worker was “free physically” to leave the countryside to work in the city. The 70 year-old couple lived through the government under of Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung and the Cultural Revolution. One of them is concerned that perhaps today there is too much freedom, especially for the young people, while the other feels that since Tiananmen Square, life has been good, there is progress and harmony is being promoted.  Yet on the 25^th anniversary of the student protests, it was quiet in Tiananmen Square with no trace of remembrance at the site where many of them were killed, while tens of thousands gathered in Hong Kong and global headlines marked the 25th anniversary of China’s brutal crackdown. 

Much of our political discourse these days is about our freedoms – those rights granted to us in our constitution.  As we celebrate our country’s independence this week, it’s important that we don’t lose site of the fact that accompanying our freedom of speech, comes the freedom to disagree. Take the time to listen to opposing points of view. 

Freedom is just another word that has different meaning for different people. It can also have different meanings for the same people in different situations. It’s a matter of context and perspective.