Guest post by Erika Flora

Years ago, I heard this great quote that has really stuck with me and become somewhat of a mantra. It is as follows:

There is no limit to the good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.

General of the Army George C. Marshall

Staff Sgt. Conrad Begaye recognized for bravery under fire in Afghanistan - by US Army Africa via Flickr

What a fabulous concept! Often, we are so worried about our own jobs and careers that we don’t take the time to think about those around us and make sure we help them get what they want. Ever since I started making a conscious effort to really “let go” of who gets the credit, my work attitude has completely changed. In addition, the way my team and others around me view my work has completely changed. They realize that I am their champion, and they work hard to perform to the best of their abilities. Rather than spending time worrying about whether executive management sees all the great things I am doing, and position myself accordingly for that next great promotion, I focus on mentoring others and helping those around me get recognized for their hard work. I actually spend part of my work week thinking about how I can bring visibility and kudos to the efforts of my teams.

Too often, when employees are surveyed in their companies, many of them say that they feel their work is not valued or that no one has told them in the last six months that they appreciate them. How terrible! The best thing we can do for our coworkers, direct reports, colleagues, and project teams is to find creative ways to show them our thanks and make sure everyone in our company knows that they are making a valuable contribution. We all love to get praised for our hard work. Make sure you are taking the time to proactively do that for others.

Many companies have put great examples of this concept in place. When I worked with Pfizer, they implemented something called a Pfish program where you could send a Pfish card to a colleague for a variety of reasons (being a team player, going the extra mile, or even just making your day). Every week, the people that had received a Pfish card were entered into a raffle for a gift card. However, the very best thing about the Pfish card program was that the recipient’s boss was copied on the email that they received. It was a really fun program and one that made employees feel special and appreciated.

However, you don’t need a company program to show your appreciation for others. Here are some really easy things you can do to make a big difference in the lives of those around you – Submit your project team for an internal company award, external “Project of the Year”, or other award. There are lots of professional organizations that look for a variety of award submissions and, many times, are excited to get new submissions from companies or people they have not heard from before. Log onto LinkedIn and write unsolicited recommendations for people you have enjoyed working with. Send a short email to a coworker’s boss thanking them for going the extra mile on a difficult project. Start a “Thanks a latte!” newsletter that thanks your team members by name and post it up at work, maybe even leave a small Starbucks gift card on their desk before they get into work. The more creative and silly, the better! You will be surprised by the results. It seems counter-intuitive, but we as project managers end up shining the brightest when our teams shine. What other examples have you seen or done to brighten the day for those you work with and help them get the kudos they richly deserve?

Erika Flora, PMP, ITIL Expert
erika.flora@GoBeyond20.com
www.GoBeyond20.com

Guest post by Travis Anderson

Yukl and Falbe define seven types of leadership power. The authors decided based on research that the dichotomy of positional power and personal power was a two-factor concept of leadership power.

Guest post from Travis Anderson

As Thomas N. Gilmore reports in his article, Effective Leadership During Organizational Transitions, leaders of organizations or programs are to focus on the seams between the subordinate roles and the overall strategic relation of the business unit to its environment.

Gilmore also suggests that the organizational chart be drawn in a way that promotes the idea of the leader’s job as being a supervisor of these seams between people.

This is a difficult concept because one cannot call a seam into the office to give a status report. The following story is an analogy to this point:

Recall the story about the drunk who loses his keys and is seen underneath a street light looking for them. Someone comes along and offers to help looking.
“Where did you lose them?” The drunk replies, “Down the alley.”
The helper questions, “Why are you looking for them here?”
The drunk responds, “Because the light is better here.”

The important take away from this analogy is an effective leader must leave the light or comfort zone on a regular basis to adventure into the dark, unknown, shadowy alley to conduct business with some degree of ambiguity and uncertainty. Often this leaves the leader feeling at the edge of one’s competence and authority. The effective leaders constantly push themselves to work in the areas of uncertainty and vagueness. These are the seams of an organization.

Gilmore reports that leadership’s core task is managing uncertainty and coping with fast changing and shifting environments. In addition, teams will prove critical to leadership, as teams are more resilient and adaptive for supporting the organization as issues arise on the boundaries among tasks.

So, how do leaders stay close to the teams during conditions of rapid change and yet acknowledge that careerism, restructuring, changes in government regulation, and technology are all creating rapid turnover of leaders in industry?

For example the leadership team of a large health care organizations has had in a 10 year period, six Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of which two were acting, three Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), six Directors of Nursing of which two were acting, three Chief Operating Officers (COOs), four Vice Presidents for Health Affairs, seven Human Resource Executives, three Legal Counsels, and six Public Information Officers. As the author indicated, this is more of an extreme case, but it gets the point across (Gilmore,1990, p 136).

Organizations and program managers must understand that leadership transitions absolutely ripple through the organizational structure. A transition of a leadership position represents both an opportunity and danger. As an opportunity, they offer the organization a new perspective from the new comer as well as from existing staff looking forward to a fresh start. However, they also serve as a danger to the company if they do not understand the fragility of the team’s relationships (Gilmore,1990, p 137).

New leaders coming to an organization or a program face many challenges. Gilmore discussed the transition stages of a new leader to increase the benefits from a leadership change and minimize the dysfunctional disruption. The first initial stage is for the new leaders to join by connecting to the system that one entered. Many new leaders tell stories of their old organization, which displays that the leader is still connected to the former organization. The second initial stage is building a team by identifying key skill sets and competencies of people and then determines the appropriate changes required for effectiveness. This means that some people are let go and new people will be hired onto the team. The initial stages are foundational for a new leader, so due diligence is required before moving onto the key tasks to succeed over time.

The key tasks to succeed over time are really the nuts and bolts of the long-standing transformation that the new leader is trying to accomplish. Program leaders must communicate their vision to the entire program. People and teams accomplish initiatives. Reorganization or really a new alignment of the program is often required for developing responsibility and the managing process. Receiving buy-in from all levels is vital for the success of a leader. Often new leaders get so focused on the base level of projects, they forget about leading up to the executive leaders in the organization. If you do not have support from the upper levels of leadership, any initiative is dead out of the gates or at any time thereafter. It is important for new leaders to develop those working alliances. Managing change is where a majority of the action is at for a new leader. Introduce too much change at once and everything starts to become unbalanced. However, take too long and the inertia is lost forever. Remember, these are tasks to succeed over time in the organization or on a long-term program (Gilmore,1990, pp 138-141).

Conclusions & Recommendations

Change brings opportunity and during times of crisis, changes are in abundance. The times are tough and situations seem bleak, but the one that perseveres is the one to seek out these opportunities brought on by change. Find a gap, discover a niche, develop leadership skills, hold the bar high and never stop learning. Know that firms are automating processes, recruiting talent and transitioning leadership, and adapting organizational structures for better effectiveness.

Reference:

Gilmore, T. (1990, May). Effective Leadership During Organizational Transitions. Nursing

Economic$, 8(3), 135-141. Retrieved August 26, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database

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Having a mentor?

PRICELESS

When I’m reading ads and postings for jobs, what does it mean when PMP certification is mentioned? Or when it’s not mentioned at all? Is it a need, a want, or just fear?

It’s said there are no new project management sins, just old ones repeated. It’s also said that we don’t learn the lessons from past projects and this must be true, otherwise why would we keep making the same old mistakes?

We are in the midst of tough times economically. Troubled times remind leaders of the need to take responsibility. Tom Watson, founder of IBM once said something like this: “It’s not the tough times I worry about, it’s the good times.” Mr. Watson was undoubtedly referring to the observation that in good times we tend to get sloppy, whereas we tend to be at our sharpest during bad times.

Considering leadership when evaluating project performance and project management should go hand in hand. However, many organizations fail to include leadership in their metrics and in their evaluation process. This is a mistake that can prove costly.

Kimberly Wiefling is on a leadership blogging kick this week over at the UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley’s “Art of Project Management” blog.

In the August issue of PM Network, an interview with Colin Powell leaves out a few important questions I would have asked….