“Appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.”

                                       MACHIAVELLI

I found this quote from Machiavelli in something I was reading this morning.  I generally like to focus on positive management behaviors but this one hit too close to home.  Many years ago I worked for a man who I later found out used The Prince as his personal management bible. 

When I first met this gentleman I reacted the way everyone did when they met him.  I was captivated and delighted that I would be privileged to work for such a terrific individual.  He was brilliant, he was funny, he knew everyone in the company and he was a master glad-hander.  He also promised me that I could go out and do my job with the complete understanding that his job was to have me back and that he wouldn’t let me down. 

Two years later I had finally figured out that everything he said wasn’t even close to the truth. If you are tempted to laugh at my naiveté – let me ask you to hold those guffaws.  I am not, nor have I ever been politically unsophisticated.  I never trust easily and I can spot a liar a mile a way.  What I couldn’t spot was a sociopath.  And make no mistake what Machiavelli is advocating in his quote above is sociopathic behavior. 

I admit that I was warned.  A few people in the company came up to me and said “Watch your back – you really can’t trust him” .  Being prudent by nature I promptly began quietly asking the opinion of others who knew my sponsor.  When I got back nothing but praise I decided that the warnings were a result of unique circumstances and wouldn’t pertain to me.  Was I wrong. 

Over the next year and half little things happened that seemed strange (randomly finding that I’d been knifed in the back over small things) and then one day the mask slipped.  I was facilitating an offsite meeting and 20 people had flown in from all corners of the globe to work out some issues we had.  Essentially no one in the field was happy with the way corporate was doing things and this was the meeting were we hoped to work out a plan to resolve the issues.  I was running the meeting because in theory I was the one person who both sides (the field and corporate) trusted. 

As meetings sometimes do – this one quickly started to go downhill with the corporate senior VP basically telling everyone he didn’t give a d*** what they wanted – he was in charge and everyone could live with the service he chose to provide.  Just before the meeting reached the boiling point my sponsor stepped in and pulled rank on the corporate VP.  He told the field that he had heard and appreciated their difficulties and that he would personally work with the corporate VP to make sure that the changes that needed to happen happened.  The tension level dissipated and the buzz in the room immediately became how lucky everyone was that they worked with a man of the stature of my sponsor.  Except….

Five minutes later I was in the hall (away from the meeting) with my sponsor and the Corporate VP when my sponsor turned to the corporate VP and said “Do whatever you want.  I’ve got them calmed down and as soon as we get them on their airplanes and away from here it won’t matter what you do.”

I admit I was shocked.  He had just assured 20 people that he would make things right and five minutes later he had effectively sold them all down the river, while leaving them singing his praises.  I transferred from that project three weeks later and six months later was working in another division (as far away from my former sponsor as possible). 

What’s the moral of this story?  A lesson that it took me years to learn.  There are sociopaths working in organizations.  As PMs our job is to identify them early and avoid them as much as possible, even if it means that we have to deliberately chose to de-scope part of the project.  Even writing these words makes me crazy.  In my heart of hearts I still think I was doing the right thing and on the surface it worked exactly as planned (if you weren’t privy to the hallway conversation) but doing the right thing only lead to a pyric victory. 

Running projects and programs is some of the most difficult work I’ve ever done in my life and doing it perfectly requires almost prescient judgment and a deep understanding of the difference between what is right and what is correct.  The right things to do was have the meeting.  The correct thing to do was to avoid the confrontation especially since 8 months later the organization was dissolved and the corporate VP retired.

Sharing stories of lessons learned – especially the painful ones is risky for the teller of the tale, but I wish someone had been honest with me about this subject earlier in my career. Whether acknowledged or not there are people in corporations who behave exactly as Machiavelli suggested.  Your job as a PPM professional, if you chose to accept it, is to identify them and work around them with craft and guile equal to their own.  It won’t be easier and it won’t be comfortable but you can do it and still preserve your own integrity if you are smart.

Years ago, I used to schedule 2 days a month to work from home with the intention of actually thinking about what was going on around me and making sure that I understood the bigger picture (how my boss was looking at things, how things might be affecting my staff, what the ultimate outcome would be of all the work we were busy doing, etc). I also tried to read divergent material to make sure my world view didn’t get too insular. The truth is that while I scheduled 2 days a month I only actually took about 1 day every two months, but even that level of reflection proved valuable.

Things have changed for many of us since we went into an office every day. Working from home can make the work day expand to something approaching 24/7. It can also make it much harder to gain the altitude necessary to see the big picture. Twitter helps with the alternative perspectives if we are careful to follow the right mix of people. But we still need to take time to think.

I’d like to suggest that everyone designate at least one Friday a month to getting out of your normal work-a-day mentality and think about what you and your team members are actually accomplishing. What value are you really delivering for all your hard work? Who are you making happy? Then add a triple loop learning concept to your reflections. Based on the way you are working today what culture and ultimate outcomes are you building for tomorrow?

It might take a couple of months to get the hang of building the big picture but I have always found the process a valuable one when I’ve taken the time to do it. I often discover that there’s a risk lurking in the dark corner of possibility that if I get on it now I can keep it from ever happening. I have also realized that a class of work that we’ve done no longer needs as much time and energy as it did in the past and that we should refocus our priorities to something that is of much higher value now. I also found that taking this time made me a much better leader, if for no other reason than my team knew they could trust me to keep them safe from things they didn’t have time to see themselves because they were so busy doing the work we paid them to do.

I’d be interested to hear how what approach others use to accomplish the same thing. Also if you decide to spend a Fridays getting a big picture view I’d love to hear how that pays off for you as well.

To get a changed business result, PEOPLE actually need to have some context and possibly some amount of practice modeling their new behavior.  They also need to know how their future problems (whatever they end up being) will be addressed in the new system and what the actual goal (other than because it’s a dictate) is for the change.  I don’t believe people are change resistent.  I just believe that human beings are wired to conserve energy and that change for the sake of change is considered a waste of energy. 

 So what’s the answer if you are leading a project or program that will result in significant change?

1) Always do a phased implementation.  Grass-roots and good public opinion are your friends.  If you can’t do that then do a large conference room pilot and let “influencers” come in and experience the new reality
2) Understand the social network of your organization.  Know who people turn to for help, advice and leadership and ensure they are either on board with your project or that they have agree to at least adopt a wait and see attitude.  (Dealing with powerful, vocal detrators is a subject for another blog.)
3) Understand the power of storytelling.  Corporate messaging is good BUT the story people tell themselves about the change is what really matters.  In many ways it’s the storytelling that fuels “the last mile”. 

On the last point, I was watching the movie the “3:10 to Yuma” last night and was captivated by the plot thread of a criminal who ws willing to get on a train headed for jail just to help create the myth of the single man with the courage to do what no other man was willing to do.  Watching the movie I was struck by the fact that we often under value the human ability to participate in something bigger than ourselves for no other reason sometimes than it’s the right thing to do and there in lies the first secret. 

True change is never about rational decisions impossed upon an organization.  True change results from people joining in the change because it’s the right thing, at the right time and the right place.  You don’t need 100% of the people — you just need enough to tip the scales and you get that through creating a shared vision that appeals to both the mind and the heart.  And therein lies the second secret  — you have to believe in the change passionately yourself or you can’t lead anyone where you yourself are unwilling to go. 

I’ll end this with an open question.  We’ve recently (in the last 10 years) moved complete ownership of the vision to the sponsor and made the project manager just a coordinator.  We as a PPM community must have had some reason for abdicating our resposibility for vision and I’m curious 1) why did we do this?  and 2) Can we undo it?  or 3) Is is fine the way it is?

 ”It’s called the culture buffer because you have to put effort in to get past it and break through. It’s a buffer because it is highly resistant, not because the old is bad and the new is good or that the old is good and the new is bad, but because it’s what we have got used to. Good or bad doesn’t come in to it.”
                                                                                            The ChangeFactor

I think we often under estimate what Martin Fenwick calls the “culture buffer” and what I call the “unfamiliarity factor”.  It’s actually quite simple — difference requires attention and attention requires energy.  As a normal over committed and over stressed human being I will always want to minimize anything that I consider low value that requires my attention and hence consumes energy.  In New Zealand it’s resistance to a new formulation of crème eggs for Easter, for me it’s been diet drinks with the splenda rather than aspartame. When I grab a diet drink I want it to taste like I expect it to taste so there’s no thought involved (the focus is on quenching my thirst).  If my first sip says “this tastes different” then I have to decide if I like that taste or not and if I don’t whether or not I’m going to continue to consume the product.  If my answer is no, then I need to go in search of something else to quench my thirst and the whole thing has turned into a production.

Software Projects that make small but annoying changes to user interfaces are an area we need to focus on more consciously when we’re making decisions about what’s included in our projects.   Some organizations respond by changing the new user interface back to the old to make users happy, BUT that might be a very costly and unnecessary fix.  The right answer is simply to be conscious about it and actually make a decision as to the cost/value of the change.

By the way the best discussion on “value” in this context that I’ve read recently is Stand Back and Deliver.

Once long ago I was asked to work with a chaotic organization and help them get organized.  Everyone assumed that I’d either join the chaos or else I’d decide to run screaming for the building to never be heard from again.  It turned out that neither alternative was necessary.  All the organization needed was a little lightweight structure and some support and a year later they were poster children for transparency. About 15 years later I had an opportunity to do the same thing for another organization and I admit I opted for running. Why did one situation work and the other didn’t? The answer can be found in the attitude of upper management.
In the first case, the entire company became involved in and benefited from the changes that happened in the organization.  In the second case the organization was viewed as a cost center that existed only out of necessity and actually had no strategic value to the organization.  In the first case the organization knew they had value, in the second case the organization completely understand that the long term goal of any change was to eliminate their positions if they could ever figure out how to minimize enough of the chaos to make changes.   

It’s easy to forget as project managers that there are changes we can’t actually make happen just by force of will.  That often the projects we get assigned have a scope that is too narrow or too task or process focused for us to be successful without help.  In the final analysts, There are times when our very success is dependent on upper management ‘s willingness to sponsor and support the organizational change  that will make people feel secure enough to step away from chaos, and nothing we can do will change that.

Found this quote in a ComputerWorld article a friend sent me (http://tinyurl.com/lm9yb7).  While the entire article is well worth reading this one sentence seemed to pertain to the essence of what Project and Program management of software projects is all about, especially since it so perfectly encapsulates the concept of servant leadership.

It occured to me that I write about servant leadership and yet it seems I haven’t really defined it.  From my perspective the concept of servant leadership begins with accepting that it is the team or the group or the society that creates the outcome.  The role of the leader then is to effectively empower or give “permission” to the “team”  to make the change and to remove as many roadblocks as possible so that they (the team) can be successful. And the secret to empowering the team is to respect them as the creative, valuable, talented people that they are.

If this sounds too touchy-feely for some of you let me assure you it’s not.  The flip slide to the coin of respect is demanding people live up to their potential.  Slackers get booted off the team.  Likewise destructive worms (no matter how brilliant and talented) get shown the door as well.  Committments are honored by everyone or “contracts” are renegoiated.  Everyone owns their own failure (no blame game allowed — EVER).

Now on to another one of my aha moments.  All of what it takes to manage this way seemed pretty instinctive to me when I started my career, but that was just youthful arrogance.  It was instinctive because I was surrounded by lots of great people who subtly reinforced me for doing the things described above and who boxed my ears every time I did something stupid (bad donna — 20 lashes with a wet noodle).  I recently had the opportunity to test some of this out myself with a very large team of Gen Ys and I can now safely say I appreciate how much work everyone put into me, especially when the trick to this form of mentoring is to make it look like benign neglect.

I’ve said to a lot of clients that I think they’ve hired poor project managers but the more I think on it the more I believe that poor choice of people is only half the problem.  The Gen Ys who worked for me had great raw potential.  Some of them would have made it to become great managers and leaders simply because they had good training from their parents.  Some of them will become good because of managers who helped them in their career, and some of them no matter what anyone does will fall by the wayside on their journey to become leaders.  My guess is that the born leaders number no more than 10% and all we need to do with them is leave them alone.  The ones who can be developed into leaders are probably the next 40%  and this is where we should be investing our time in order to keep our profession vibrant and valuable.

Maybe there’s no room for that in companies any more, since we’ve created the cult of the celebrity CEO and the new aristocracy but it seems such a waste.  About 5 or 6 years ago I had the privilege of sharing a picnic bench with Ken Oshman, the original CEO and one of the founders of Rolm.  In reflecting on old times it was clear to me that Ken still had a vision of what the company should have been and where he would have headed the business if we hadn’t sold to IBM.   Ken had a Vision and he had no trouble sharing it.  I worked at Intel before that and it went without saying that Andy Grove had a vision.  I worked for Sun after I left Rolm and Scott McNealy was happy to share his vision for the company with me as we chatted in the hallway one morning.  The key of this story isn’t that I was in a position to rub elbows with these gentlemen – the key was that I could then carry these conversations back to my own team and make sure that the work we did supported where Ken or Andy or Scott wanted us to go.  I also don’t mean to imply that the transmission of vision needs to come directly from the CEO.  I’ve worked in companies where the CEO was so far away from me that he could have been on another planet, but I knew where we were heading because the EVP I worked for was the vision carrier.

Maybe I’ve been in unusual circumstances but I don’t think so.  A couple of months ago, someone reminded me of the story of President Johnson’s visit to the Kennedy space center.  It seems as he was touring the facility he stopped and talked with the custodian and asked him about what he did at the space center.  His answer was “Mr. President, I’m helping send a man to the moon.”  That to me is still the most classic example of a shared vision.

As PPM leaders we are natural vision carriers and vision is viral.  I think we should concentrate more on sharing it early and often to ensure it gets into our projects rather than on worrying about creating a Process for insuring compliance.

All of you out there who manage projects and programs for a living are welcome to have a good laugh at my expense.  I do know better.  I know that Murphy is always lurking in the shadows and he’ll launch a sneak attack whenever you least expect it.  I know that things always take longer and involve more work than I’d hoped.  Not only do I know this but I’m famous for reminding all of you that risk management is EVERYTHING.  The problem is it’s just too easy to take your eye off the small things ….

So now with the help of my fantastic in-house IT department (otherwise known as my husband) we’ll get it fixed.  I will also commit to getting better about backups and upgrades.  The big lesson out of this is that Murphy gets his foot in the door when you’re running to hard to make sure you’ve done everything you need to do. 

So to every frazzled PMO director, stressed program manager, exhausted project manager, and numb portfolio manager my advice of the day is to slow down.  You’ll get where you’re going faster.

People, Processes, and Technology

People, Process, and Technology is a common management consultant set of “pitches.”

I’m here to say it’s in that order. And the order steps down in logarithmic. Meaning Processes is e (2.71821) less than People. And Technology is 2.71821 less than Process.

This put process 7.29 less than the people.

Want to find the way to increase the probability of a project’s success – It’s not the tools it’s the people.