Fearlessness

You might think that I have dropped off the face of the earth, and with all the really ugly things happening in the economy, politics (Arizona citizen) and in nature (BP, oil spills, earthquakes, tornados), you might be right, but you aren’t.

Over the past several weeks I have done lots of optimistic things because I am FEARLESS.

I just posted to a discussion about what makes a great project manager and I included the seven predictable, but lame, items I use to teach PM 101.

My motto: Indolese  Rapio, so those ideas are pretty much stolen from Stephen Covey, who stole them from Peter Drucker, who stole them from someone else before him.

However, I added the one that I think really propelled my career in Project Management:

FEARLESSNESS

That doesn’t mean I am foolish, ignorant, or un-thoughtful. It means that once I have analyzed the risks (and I do worry a lot) and rewards of a venture, I move forward without trepidation or concern for the outcome.

I know I will survive and be better off than before I started. It has always worked for me.

So here are the FEARLESS  things I have initiated this spring:

• Signed up to develop curriculum and launch a new academic program with a fellow colleague at the university.
• Agreed to take on a volunteer development opportunity in Indian Country.
• Put in an experimental garden in March and built the deer fences for the permanent garden, as well as purchased the materials for the raised beds.
• Hired an architect to design an addition to my home in Arizona, even though we are probably at a small net negative worth. (slightly underwater)
• Arranged to refinance that home with a view to be able to stay in it for at least ten years.
• Opened a new LLC venture and landed my first paying client. (not sure how much profit there will be, but hey its a shot).
• Let my wife buy an expensive piece of art that she has wanted for a long time, without a clue as to how I would pay for it. (Not too expensive)
• Offering six graduate courses on-line this summer. A new personal record.
• Determined to blog post more often. (Blogging has really helped my writing, even if you don’t notice it)

So here is the take away: See an opportunity, analyze the risks and rewards. If you go for it, go without fear. No matter the outcome you will be better for taking the effort.

PS. When I was thirty-five years old, I was given an opportunity to work with a small group in a company turn around. The company had 15,000 employees worldwide. I was given the six western states with $400M in work. We busted our butts, and took our lumps for eight months and had the company turned around when we were slapped with RICO suit by the DOJ, we folded three days later. 

What I got: a Vice Presidency on my resume, ten years of business experience gained in less than a year, a reputation for a can do fearless manager, and a six month vacation at the beach before I joined my next start up venture.

All face to face meetings to disseminate information are a complete waste and should be banned in modern practice.

All meetings and/or portions of meetings that are to transmit information should be banned from modern project management practice.

All meetings that do not fully engage all attendees for the full meeting should be banned from project management practice, or the unengaged should be dismissed form the useless portions of the meeting.

All meetings that do not have a specific desired outcome of some solved or partially solved problem, should be banned from modern project management practice. (Well organized planning meetings and team building exercises qualify as outcome desired meetings.)

Corollary: All meetings should be working meetings.

In the old days, when we had one telephone and it was connected by two wires and no speaker , we used regularly scheduled meetings to transmit information, and get commitments and occasionally solve some pressing problems. We also used the meetings as a record to prove someone other than “me” was responsible for delays and cost overruns.

That was then and this is now.

Having a meeting solely to transmit information, assumes the attendees are either illiterate and/or have no e-information skills. That’s great for team morale (not) and to imply that you think your client is rather dull. Both are great business productivity improvement schemas. I once worked for a college dean who would bring all the memos and notes he had received that week and read them to us. What a waste of everyones time.

With modern communication tools and portable scheduling devices, top managers should easily be able to schedule meetings so that individuals can come and go  when they need to be engaged min the business of the meetings. If they are not engaged, let them drop out to the lobby (or better provide a “green room”). The reality is that busy and smart folks are already texting or reading email when they are not engaged in any meeting they are forced to attend. We have great electronic communication tools to organize, plan, organize, run and  follow through meetings.

This week I attended a meeting by a teleconference call while I attended a webinar. I would watch the webinar and tune in when I needed to be in the meeting and I did the same for the meeting following the agenda to trigger my engagement. The meeting was held 250 miles away, and the webinar was sent from an adjacent building. I was also supervising a staff worker in my office and monitoring my email and voice mail. (my voice mail is available on my laptop.) I did all this with one rather plain notebook PC.

Meetigns for meeting sake are often just ego support for the sponsor and many times for the attendees. In my last organizational management role (academic chair) we were required by the institution to hold regular faculty meetings. I would walk around to the faculty and “call a meeting”, the meeting would last the semester while I walked around from office to office. We adjourned the meeting on graduation day with a social lunch. Many of the faculty just couldn’t get it. They argued for meetings and more meetings. I refused, as these meetings were exercises in futility, where the smartest among them just wanted to prove how dumb I was, and how they knew everything. It took then ten years to oust me (on my schedule) for not providing them with a regular outlet for their anger and frustration. There is a reason things take forever to change in education. However the day is coming for change, the failed economy, on-line education and robust teaching and learning technology and productivity measures will deliver the necessary impetus for education change.

Caveat: in our ever remote lives, we need social contact. I readily admit that fact. I mostly work at home and do not need an office, except to keep my public persona memorabilia and very occasionally meet someone. I go to “work” for social engagement and to gage the sense of the organization. That's for fun and easier to triangulate what’s going on. As I only have one part time tele-worker to supervise, we rarely get together, but we both make sure we do that at least a few times a year.

The take away: Think about how much you are wasting of your own and others time when you schedule and plan meetings. is their some other more effective and efficient way to get the job done. If there isn’t a better way than meetings, invent one!