Reality Fiction

There are six of them sitting in a conference room, tasked with preparing for a project. This thing is going to be complicated. And important parts of it are unfamiliar to them. They are meeting for the first time, and they’ve never worked together before.

Theoretically, they will collaborate to organize and execute this difficult innovation. They will recruit additional team members, arrange resource investments, guide the work process and resolve problems as they arise. They will take responsibility for their own parts, while supporting each other as necessary.

Unfortunately, it often doesn’t work quite that way. Many people in such situations would consider such a theoretical construction to be a fiction. They face an entirely different reality.

Five of the project planners in the example count themselves lucky. The sixth has been designated as project manager. This provides something of an escape hatch for the others. They had plenty to do before the dreaded tap on the shoulder that put them in this room. Now begins the delicate ritual that will determine for each of them what this new assignment will do to an already impossible workload – if indeed it has an effect at all.

You know, maybe it will die off, yet another victim of benign neglect.

The project manager is the only person out there in the open, clearly tagged with responsibility for making it work. In many organizations much of the time, this is a pretty difficult spot to be in, because history indicates there will be a lot of work, a lot of hours and a lot of frustration.

Objective studies show a high rate of shortfall or failure in projects of all kinds. There are reasons for that. Some are organizational, some are personal and all frequently are deeply ingrained in the culture.

One contradiction at the root of the problem originates with the fiction, subscribed to by some senior managers, that plans would work if only those charged with managing a plan would stick with it. The contradiction is completed at the working level by the counter recognition that fiction is not reality, however sincerely it is believed.

Sometimes all involved know that this “planning” business is a charade in which the impossible is demanded, with the expectation that anything less won’t motivate anyone. The effect is, of course, the opposite.

If job security dictates that the project manager pretend the plan will actually work, so be it. March dutifully along for a while, maybe, but sooner rather than later you’ll have to do whatever it takes to salvage something from the doomed initiative.

Or maybe not. If a shortfall isn’t acceptable, or if even a poor substitute can’t be wrung out of the effort, it might just be declared dead, or allowed to quietly wither away.

And life goes on. One more proof that planning simply doesn’t work.

Well, this “reality” is the real fiction. Overcoming it can be done, often is done, but it’s not easy.

Assessing Teamwork

Teamwork? Hah!

Process? What process?

Collaboration? Show me.

This is not cynical. I do not dismiss the sincere cooperative efforts of countless people who work together in pursuit of common interests. Nor do I demean the behavior and motives of those who labor to lead, to coordinate their fellows and their staffers to make good things happen.

I’m just viewing the results, and commenting as a favorably disposed but objectively depressed observer of the scene. Things just don’t go well, mostly, in the collaborative activity of most of our organizations.

Experts in organizational behavior suggest sitting in the cafeteria or break room and just listening to the talk, if you want to know how well an organization is doing – or how it is likely to do. Or just stroll through the workplace with your eyes and ears open.

The chatter and the body language will tell you what’s going on. Are they complaining about unfair bosses, lazy co-workers, rude customers? Or does the conversation reflect pride, progress, engagement? Or do they never mention the work at all? Are people busy, vigorous, engaged? Or is there lethargy, resentment?

We often misunderstand the true nature of teamwork, organizational process and group collaboration. We refer to them as if they actually exist, in the sense of having independent existence. They don’t.

Think of this: Take a typical organization, of any size or process or project. Remove the people who now occupy and operate it. Immediately replace them with other people of equal background, training and talent. There will be an abrupt and radical change in what happens and what is produced. It's not the structure or the process. It's the people.

So we ought to blow up our easy acceptance of “teamwork” as it is commonly understood. Discard it. Trash it.

Why? Because it is a misleading and dangerous fiction. Teamwork, process and collaboration are effects of human activity, which itself arises from individual intent. People don’t merge their distinct individualities into some collective new superior creature when they become part of a group. They simply add a mutual dependency with other people in the interest of some common intent.

The common intent is not by itself the determinant of whether the new group succeeds or not. The actual individual efforts, driven and accumulated by the common intent, produce the outcome. If the intent inspires committed effort, success is possible. If a leader can ignite that inspiration, things happen.

So that’s why the participants’ unguarded conversation is a quick indicator of group strength. The talk tells you what people are thinking. Thinking is the engine of action.

Then the ultimate, unmistakable producer of group success is, of course, what the participants do. And THAT is where the manager’s attention must be focused.

Screwing Up to Succeed

There is the story of a bright young man who got himself an opportunity to manage a $10 million project for a large company. To his horror, the effort failed, totally.

The guy was summoned to the office of the top man, and entered the presence burning with awareness of a disaster he could blame on no one but himself.

“Well, young man, what do you have to say for yourself?” said the executive.

“I want to apologize, sir, from the bottom of my heart,” he answered. “I know I’m going to be fired, and I know I deserve it.”

“Fire you? Why should we fire you?” the old man demanded. “We just invested $10 million in your education!”

Screwing up is not hard to do. We’ve all done it. And you know what? We’re all going to do it again. Serially, Continually. We can’t avoid it. Individually and in our various collective relationships, we can expect it to happen, and happen a lot.

The wrong words pop out at the worst possible time. I forget a commitment that turns out to have been very important. I thoughtlessly take on something I can’t handle. As sure as tomorrow, I’ll pull off something embarrassing – soon.

When I do, I can go through any one or more of several responses. There’s the Saturday Night Live one: “I hate when that happens,” as if it were an uncontrollable event, certainly not occasioned by me. There’s Problem Solving 101: Can I blame someone? Good. Problem solved. There’s denial: “Problem? What problem?” And there’s always avoidance: Just exit the neighborhood, virtually if not physically, and wait for it all to go away.

So what was going on in that little story we opened with – a veteran executive dismissing an expensive failure as a simple educational investment? What was he thinking of? What was the justification? What can we take from the example?

We don’t know the context in which the young man’s project was conducted. We do know that the organization’s leader was not taken aback by what happened, and had reason to see it in a positive light. And he was looking to the future, a future he fully expected to be successful.

That implies a culture of effective problem solving and talent development. As one important part of it, we suspect the organization’s decision-makers knew precisely what had gone on, and what it meant.

We need to adapt that understanding to our own career management. We can start with a personal policy toward our own screw-ups. I am not going to engage in any of the ineffective failure-response attitudes noted above. Instead, I can confront the situation directly, openly, motivated only by an intent to determine exactly what happened and why. Then, I immediately turn to what I’m going to do the next time. Specifically.

This is a matter of courage and discipline, especially when I caused or contributed to the disappointing event – or when people intent on pinning it on me are busily at work.

One essential truth to keep forever in mind: There never is a worthwhile success that is not preceded by multiple failures. Success is earned, not awarded.

Easy Doesn't

If it’s easy, don’t do it. It’s not good.

That statement may be the rare oversimplification that is true more often than not. It certainly is true of Project Management. Whatever you do the easy way won’t get the job done.

The emperor of this land of failure is “It’s easier to do it myself.” Of course it’s easier to do it yourself. Any fool knows that. Just do it. You don’t need to take the time to describe and explain it to someone who doesn’t know what you’re talking about, and may show clear signs of not really caring to find out.

It’s easier to do it yourself than to think through ways to keep track of someone else doing it, and easier than taking the time to figure out what they’re doing wrong, and get them to see that, then get them to see how to avoid doing it wrong again as soon as you turn your back.

It’s easier to do it yourself than it is to wait and wonder when it will get done, or whether it’s even under way yet, and whether there will be unexpected and unnecessary barriers in the way of whoever else is trying to do it.

There’s little or no pride in seeing a final result that is only 70 percent as good as it could have been, or one that doesn’t have the proud polish of true professionalism.

There’s a little extra embarrassment when some other expert makes amused remarks to you about the work done under your supervision that isn’t up to the standard you used to set back when you were more on your game.

On a really personal level, results that are solely and fully your own are deeply satisfying. You might not have much time to relax and admire such a result, but it beats the dickens out of settling for knowing that some group product was brought to an acceptable (unexciting) conclusion under your direction.

There often isn’t much praise at such moments, and what there is doesn’t qualify as the gee-whiz variety. And it’s spread around – by you, if you’re smart enough to know how to earn the loyalty of your worker bees. In fact, some contributor may be singled out for a bit of glory that you know really belongs to you – but you’re the manager, so you have to witness some lesser achiever getting the plaudits that used to be yours, and by rights ought to be right now

Truly, any fool knows it’s easier to do it yourself. It's easier than managing.

The real fool, of course, is the one who actually DOES it himself/herself as a matter of practice. And don’t kid yourself. Most of us do, too often. Hard to believe? Not really.

How to Save Your Organization

It’s the unlovely little secret of most organizations. It’s the universal challenge facing those responsible for the work of others. It’s the sand in the gears of group productivity.

What is it? Delegating, that’s what. Poor or nonexistent delegating.

Delegating is the reason we have managers. The managers’ job is to clarify and specify what is to be done, then subdivide the workload and assign suitable portions of it to the various people who are under the managers’ direction. Sometimes it works. When it does, it produces results whose quantity and quality rise well above the possible accumulation of individual outcomes from the same workforce.

When delegating doesn’t work, which is often, it is because the managers haven’t successfully set the goals, identified the work and transferred the responsibility. Alternatively, it doesn’t work because the delegatees haven’t done their part. They haven’t gotten it done correctly, or on time. And sometimes it doesn’t get done because it never really was assigned at all.

The Modern Project Manager

     The PMBOK Guide describes 42 processes necessary to manage a project, and organizes them into five process groups and nine knowledge areas.

     It takes nothing away from the Project Management Institute formulation to state the basic truth that not a single process, not a shred of knowledge is worth anything without one factor that is the ultimate essential. The “sine qua non – without which nothing.”

     Commitment.

     I rewind and rerun in my imagination the project meetings of my life, especially the famous opening act: the initial organizational session.

     I see once more the veiled eyes, the crossed arms, the sagging body language, the disguised yawns and smirks. Hear the doubts and obstacles and competing priorities. Workloads. I feel the palpable rejection and get that old familiar lost, gone feeling, sliding down that slippery slope once again. All alone.

     Then I fast forward to today’s older-wiser mental video of the project manager behavior that reflects a deep understanding of why those long-ago days were the way they were, and a complete grasp of what it is that was missing then.

     Commitment.

     Not only does this modern project manager understand the situation and grasp its implications, he/she also knows what to do about it. This project manager will not become immersed in planning details that result in nothing. Or get entangled in excuses, squabbles and slippages. This project manager will pay attention to business, and will do so in an order of priorities that recognizes the sine qua non of commitment.

     The project manager constructively engages the very deep-down human infrastructure that guarantees successful project performance and full satisfaction of the project intent. This project manager has, in fact, done what needs to be done about it before this first project meeting, and will now proceed to do it again.

Winning without Power

The Emperor Nero ordered his Roman subjects to worship his horse as a god, basically as an idle demonstration of his power. He did it because he could, and there was no way to stop him. You could wind up dead if you didn’t comply.

That is authority without responsibility.

The modern project manager, on the other hand, often is the one who must meet quality standards within cost and time limits set by someone else – and do it through the work of people he/she doesn’t control. Amid plentiful risk and multiple complexities.

That is responsibility without authority.

The project manager swings in the breeze between those two poles. He/she is at the mercy of people who own all the marbles and can yank them back at any time. Simultaneously that project manager must somehow get tough stuff done predictably and consistently by “team members” who have no obligation to comply while they have lots of other things to do.

Too many project managers respond to this by working like dogs, scrambling in pursuit of busy people and filling in the gaps through their own efforts.

In the world of management, among the worst things you can do is to substitute personal labor for management direction. When you, the manager, pick up your shovel and go to the mine, you often are the best digger down there. While you’re demonstrating that, the actual designated diggers are leaning on their tools to watch admiringly, if they’re not off on some other dig.

As this sort of thing is going on, management is not happening. When you, the leader, become overbusy, a lot of really important stuff goes by the boards. Leadership very significantly depends upon observation and analysis, paying attention, understanding. It demands persuasion, the ability to convince people to do what they otherwise wouldn’t do.

You can’t determine what’s happening or convince anybody if you don’t have time to conduct adequate observation and effective communication. You anticipate/solve problems and build productive mutual relationships through attention to events and people, watching and listening, responding to variances, needs and ideas, showing people they can look to you for solutions, assistance, ideas and inspiration.

A workload overload robs the project manager of the time and mental/emotional balance required to do that sort of thing. And, truth be told, many project managers secretly long to have these folks get out the way so they can have at the work themselves.

In sum, the project situation is set up to leave the project manager all alone out there with the responsibility, facing at best a major set of challenges. At worst, the view is a solid wall of people’s backs. What to do?