Nothing Soft about Project Skills

    We call them “hard” skills because they have recognizable shape and the appearance of substance.
     By the hard skills standard, thirty years on the job earns you a presumption of competence at whatever the specialty is. BA, MBA, PCE, PMP, licenses and certificates. They all open gates because we take them as proof the holder is good at stuff.
     Now we can place that person, and make assumptions about how much he or she matters.
     While the tangible proofs of professional ability often are the objects of intense personal pride, they also have the aura of objectivity as you present yourself to the world. They are the currency of value in the competency marketplace.
     But “soft” skills, conversely, are private and local, not easy to specify on the resume: “Excellent communicator – strong team worker – known as problem solver. . . .”
     You talking about yourself? Yuck. Doesn’t work, not at all.

Brian Williams, Brady/Belichick & Their Bosses

     It’s hard to be a fan of an executive in the same way we look at top performers like Brian Williams, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

     But once in a while an instructive juxtaposition of events illustrates for us some important issues of high-level leadership.

     This week NBC news anchor Brian Williams is on a very hot seat as NBC investigates allegations that Williams falsely lionized himself in his reports on events during his visits to battlefronts. There is a chorus of demands that he resign.

     Williams anchors the NBC Nightly News, the top-rated evening news program on American television.

     Last week, it was Brady and Belichick of the New England Patriots being boiled in widespread condemnation, accused as cheaters seeking unfair advantage in alleged deflation of footballs. Even Brady’s idol, San Francisco Hall of Famer Joe Montana, jumped on.

Project Lessons Not Learned

     “Milliken left a lot of files. I threw them all out.”

     The speaker was my successor as president of a regional newspaper editor’s association. He was chatting with another person as they walked out of a meeting room, unaware that I was standing nearby.

     I had kept a number of neatly labeled folders, notes of the planning and conduct of projects and activities during my year in the position. The files included a number of possibilities that hadn’t come through in my term, but offered promise for follow-up.

     There were notes on our attempts to recruit major national figures as speakers for our events. Members show up, and participate more enthusiastically, when there is some star power on the programs. It’s worth pursuing big names if you want a dynamic group.

     A couple of prominent people had been favorably disposed, as a matter of fact, but couldn’t make it at that time. Now they would never hear from our organization again, and the spadework was wasted.

     There were other names in those files, phone numbers and notes about member recruitment, development activities and other matters involving potential growth of the organization.

     All of it wound up in the trash at the new president’s place of business.

Project Document Magic

     Bought a car once from one of the best salesmen I ever met.

     First, he asked questions about our wants, needs, preferences and financial range. He listened attentively, and asked meaningful follow-ups.

     We looked at cars and discussed them. We decided to talk at greater length about one model, and sat down to do so.

     Before long, the salesman was asking us questions about ourselves, and writing down some of the answers.

     At the time, I happened to be teaching “Personal Selling” to university students, and I found myself admiring this entire performance in the new-car showroom.

     Among the challenges in sales is winning the trust of your prospect. Another is disciplining yourself to delicately tend this new relationship, enhancing the trust while eliciting details about what could convince this person to buy . . . or not.

Motivation

     The campaign was very persistent. This ambitious entrepreneur wanted my signature on a contract tying me to his consulting company for X number of years.

     He kept after me. I kept resisting, refusing to do it.

     In the climactic conversation on the topic, he offered me three incentives to sign. The only one I now remember was the first, tickets to a boxing match. Turning that down was not a problem, since I’m not a boxing fan. The other two were no more attractive.

     No deal. We concluded that intense exchange when he finally said, “Man! Are you difficult to deal with!”

     There was a point there, although he had it aimed in the wrong direction. It indeed is difficult to persuade a person . . . when you’re clueless as to what motivates that person.

     It is a fact that you can’t motivate anyone other than yourself. People motivate themselves. I am moved to action because I expect the action to provide for me something I value.

The Ultimate Project Manager Habit

     “You can’t start a successful project without a charter.”

     Ask five project managers whether they agree with that statement.

     Then ask them what a project charter contains and entails.

     Hey, ask those project managers if they’ve ever seen such a document.

     Even if they all work for the same organization, you’re very likely to get as many as five separate answers to most of the three questions – if not all of them.

     A project charter:

     Is it a detailed specification of desired actions/outcomes/constraints determined at high management levels and issued to the project manager?

     Is it the foundational description of the key project elements developed by the actual leaders of the project?

     Is it an expression of mutual agreement among all key stakeholding decision-makers, after negotiation of their interests and commitments?

     If there isn’t something called a “charter,” what do the project managers base their project planning and execution on? What do they call it? What does it do?

     

Factoids, Junk Food of the Mind

     Seventy-eight point three percent (78.3%) of statistics are made up on the spot.

     How do I know that? I don’t. I just made it up. It’s a factoid – something that looks like a fact. You can’t call me wrong, because you don’t know, either.

     That doesn’t mean you have to believe me, but maybe you will.

     Numbers can be powerful convincers. They are so definite, so specific. They can be extremely reassuring or terribly frightening. Either way, they don’t taste so bad, and they go down easy. Just  if you don’t examine them too closely. Like junk food.

     That’s why we need to be careful around numbers – when we use them ourselves and when we read or hear them from others.