Coaching and teaching roles of a good Project Manager

This morning I am grading twenty midterm graduate student examinations.

One of the scenarios was " how you would go about staffing, organizing and controlling a project that is mostly labor related". Mostly the answers were as expected, derived from the readings and the students' own professional experiences. The work was solid, but not very inspiring, with a couple of exceptions. I am, by nature, self questioning. I didn't find fault with the students. I wondered if I had been pointing them in the right directions in my lectures.

Maybe I had better go back and check.

A long with Stephen Covey's traits of highly effective people I provide the following list for Great Project Managers

Seven Traits of Great Project Managers

Great Project Managers are:

Organized: keeping track of things in an orderly manner.

Not easily distracted: being able to stay focused on the task at hand during times of confused demands.

On time: not procrastinating, meeting deadlines and being where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be.

Empathetic: being able reading other people's emotions without their having to tell you what they are feeling.

Results oriented: focusing on non-personal problem solving rather than blame casting and fixing people's personalities.

Highly internally motivated: not needing lots of outside "ataboys" to get the job done, being satisfied with a successful job without external praise.

Honest and ethical. How can people work on projects with you if they cannot trust your statements and your ethical behavior.

Well, there is another one that I left out.

Great Project Managers are good Coaches and Teachers.

In my work I seldom, if ever, get to pick my team. I am given what was a"available" or what I could hire. So I was often forced to train people or coach them to improve. I always was a teacher, mentor and coach so it was easy for me to move from industry to teaching.

I seldom was assigned superstar technicians,but I was often assigned superstar people, people. so I mark myself as truly lucky. Don't get me wrong, I got my share of lulus, including the pathological liars among others, but overall I worked with hundreds and hundreds of great people, and the loosers really stick out.

Back to coaching and teaching.

I am reading a book titled Giants Among Men by Jack Cavanauh. Its about the NY Giants of the 1950s and early 1960's. In the middle 1950's the Giants were coached by Jim Lee Howell and the assistant coaches were Tom Landry (defense) and Vince Lombardi (offense). Pretty good assistants would you think?

No two men could be more different in approaches than Landry and Lombardi, but they were good friends and colleagues. Both knew that teaching, preparation, and training were key to success on the football field. When game day came, neither man could do more than sit back and let his team do what they were prepared for. Landry never showed emotion and Lombardi showed too much. In fact one of his players opined that "on game day he (Lombardi) was pretty much useless." waving his arms and shouting. But the team was prepared, as were Landry's teams.

So, back to teaching and coaching as PM attributes. If you are given your project staff you can do it yourself or delegate. If you have no one with the needed skills to delegate to you need to teach the skill,or go outside the team (which i suggest is done occasionally, as most project skills are not that difficult. (except maybe writing computer code)

If you have the people with the skills for the project, then coaching makes all the difference.

Practicing and drilling skills, reminding folks about their important role in the team's success, checking off the needs and then providing feedback.

If we rely on our EQ we will know who and when to either pat on the back, or kick in the butt.

Next semester the list will change to add coaching and teaching.

Taking a walk and thinking

I start every day with a long walk and try to think of one productive improvement in my workplace, or life or in those of my colleagues. I open my mind to the unexpected. I don't labor on any one area or person. My walk is a failure if I haven't had at least one good idea.

Today my walk was more reflective. Why did I have a successful career for 25 years in Project Management.? The skills are simple and we expect to work hard for the good wages that project management pays.

Before I left industry, I was a Vice President (one of 12) for a billion dollar AEC company, working for the most part in the U.S. with some global work. My global work took place before that gig and then again during my tenure as a college professor.

What set me apart from the perennial team players and technocrats? I always assumed that desire to lead plays some part in reaching a leadership position but its not solely the reason.

Other than my technical skills, these are the issues that set me apart from my peers:

I never hold a grudge:

No matter what happened on a project, I never felt the need to blame anyone or feel that anyone ever set out to hurt me. If I was damaged by the actions or inaction's of others (intended or not) I never let them "rent space" in my head. "Renting space in my head" was a term I learned from a clerk at the auto parts store. (Words of wisdom) If someone acts and you are hurt, physically, emotionally or professionally and you keep thinking about the person who harmed you, that person has free rent in your head and they continue to damage you as long as you dwell on them or their actions towards you.

The best way to deal with folks who hurt you is to never hold a "grudge" and forgive and move on. That doesn't mean I never took an opportunity to return a poor favor. "Revenge is dish best served cold."

I never worried what others thought of me, neither my bosses ,team mates, peers nor subordinates:

You probably think this is a conceit, and maybe it is. In my professional work, I cannot remember a time when I did anything to make anyone like me, other than getting the work done. I am not unaware, and in fact I am pretty skilled at office politics, but my focus was on "organizational behaviour" rather than back biting and bickering.

If I seemed always to be around the positive things that happened in the organization and rarely around the negative, I am sure this did not hurt my career.

PS: I spent a few years working for high level government agencies and I did spend a year working at a US Embassy in South America, and ten years in successful university administration, so I can say that I am somewhat politically savvy. I just never waste any energy trying to be liked.

I was willing to innovate and suffer failure:

My wife thinks this is crazy. But I always believed in Dr. Rogers Rule 6 If it hasn't been done before, its worth trying.

That doesn't mean it is always worth pursuing innovation to the end, its just worth giving it a shot after asking this risk management question. What happens if it doesn't work, can we live with or recover from that outcome?

In 1984 Canon introduced the "digital fax" and our world has never been the same. prior to digital fax, we used analogue fax which came through about 50% readable. overnight we were able to transmit 100% legible documents. At that time my bosses were skeptical (due to analog fax). So i bought two fax machines from a project budget and had one put in the home office. Within weeks all the remote sites had fax machines.

In 1983 (when it was introduced) we experimented with computers and in fact I can remember hauling that Compaq (portable) that weighed 28 pounds and ran Lotus 123 spread sheets on a green screen. Lugging it onto airplanes and stuffing it in the overheads. Maybe that's why 1/2 of all peopled over 50 in the United States have chronic shoulder injuries.

http://oldcomputers.net/compaqi.html

I was always willing to listen to any idea, proposed form anywhere in our organization.

My partner and I performed a project miracle in the late 80's in the microelectronics industry by listening to the youngest and least experienced members of the team. Both my partner and I were in our mid thirties and we kept one guy over 50 on the team to remind us why we should listen to youth. The "youngsters" came up with unbelievably good ideas because they failed to have any "tried that before" noodles in their brains.

We didn't always use their suggestions, but we always listened, asked questions, and gave reasons why we would or would not use the idea. At the end of that project we were able to distribute some $750K (1989 dollars) in project bonuses, all the way down to the receptionists and document control clerks. (Well maybe I did do some things to make folks like me.)

I never cared who got the glory as long as the project was successful:

I have never cared who gets the glory when we won, and never cared if I got the blame when we lost. Team was everything. I attribute that to my high school sports training and to the times and place I grew up in.

In the 1950's in industrial New England, parents didn't spend too much time watching their kids play pick-up sports, teams were led by the older kids and you played hard for the team you were on even though later in the day you might be on the other team. There wasn't a lot of "team" building exercises, you teamed up or you were out.

Maybe that's why it was a lot of fun and not very hard to find solid project teams in the 1980's. By the end of the 1990's there was more "team building" stuff going on, because the team members came from a different generation where teams were organized by adults. That's not how I grew up. Your teams changed and eventually you were the older kid who led the team or you got shut out.

Gen X and Millennials who are team members look to others to organize them and they can sniff out a phony leader in a heart beat. I have a lot of admiration for Gen X and Millennials, I take them where they come from, not from where I come from. They make great team members because they want to be "on the team" but it takes a little work to get them there.

The other thing:

The other thing that helped my career is a God given knack for remembering details from documents and drawings. I also have a very, very good memory for things that have happened or need to take place. I am awful with names and faces.. A mayor of a major city told me that it took him twelve interactions to connect a name and a face. For me its probably twice that.

What makes you successful?

What is your knack, and do you use it to your advantage?

PM in ten pages or less, my life reduced to ten pioints

I was just reading my newsletter from Project Connections

http://www.projectconnections.com/index.html

They have reduced my career to ten bullet points. (maybe I only deserved 2)

From the newsletter

PM IN 10 PAGES OR LESS

On a Clear Day Project scope definition shouldn't be hazy.

Who's On First? What are the roles and responsibilities of the team

Didn't You Get That Memo? Keep an action item list so you can follow up just to be sure the pesky mail dropper wasn't working. I usually look in my spam/junk email every few weeks to make sure I haven't lost anything but for a fast pace project that's too late.

Unless You've Got a Three-Sided Coin How do you make decisions, use some kind of decision matrix would be good.

Do You Feel Lucky? Continuous risk assessment is necessary.

Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, Itty Bitty Living Space! Project management tracking systems are all over the place.

Show Me the Money Project budgets are necessary for even the smallest projects to help in decision making and planning.

All Things Trite and Trivial - Keep and agenda.

Test Your Deliverable, Not Your Patience - Review the deliverables before delivering them. Sort of quality assurance for projects.

Current Action Items Project status reports.

PM Connections is a great source for serious professional project managers, along with their newsletter and blogs about PM they have over 200 templates for everything PM. There is a subscription fee but worth it. If its too pricey you can be a member and just get the newsletters.

The idle project manager.

The idle project manager doffs his hat to Peter Taylor the "Lazy Project Manager" and I suggest a visit to the Lazy Project Manager at http://http://www.thelazyprojectmanager.com/index.htm

While Peter Taylor suggest that being lazy is not being stupid, the "Idle PM" suggests that being stupid does not suggest your lazy, it just means your stupid.

I have created this blog for weekly viewing by my graduate students studying Project Management.

In my "IDLE" moments, which in truth I have more and more every day as I follow Peter Taylor's approach, I search out the latest ideas and approaches to managing projects, building teams and learning how to "lead from the middle".

This weeks abbreviated start up blog is being used as a space holder so my students and our friends can find their way here and get on board.

My second item of the day relates and interview I heard on PBS with Steve Carell the star of the Office. Steve plays Michael Gary Scott who is a text book of low Emotional Quotient EQ"

• From Wikipedia .....Michael holds inflated views of himself and considers himself an office comedian, but his attempts at humour tend to fail. Often, he says things that are inappropriate, offensive, or unwittingly mean in the hopes of getting a laugh. For instance, he objectifies his female employees and holds stereotypical views of black people. However, despite his general air of braggadocio, Michael can be very insecure and spineless when dealing with his staff. He lacks maturity and self-awareness, has few friends, and is quite lonely, made worse because his efforts to make friends with people usually backfire. Indeed, he seems to have a knack for putting himself and others into awkward situations. His subordinated, with the exception of Dwight Schrute, think of him as inept, and several of them remark that they get their work done when Michael is distracted. Before he was promoted to regional manager he was a great salesman; his promotion put him above his level of competence, making him an embodiment of the Peter Principle.......

The reason I add the "Fresh Air" NPR Interview of Steve Carell is his quote "Michael Scott is someone with an enormous emotional blind spot.....If you don't know a Michael Scott then you are a Michael Scott........."

Listen to the interview....http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15592867