DYER PREDICTIONS

Project Conflict?

I’ve been reading Dr. Tammy Lenski’s blog “I Can’t Say That!” Her blog focuses on how to talk things out in relationships that matter. It seems that whenever two or more people have a relationship, whether it be personal or business, conflict inevitably pops up.

Project Managers face this kind of conflict on a daily basis. One way to avoid conflict during your project is to set up some ground rules for discussing project issues. The first rule should be that you focus on the present and not rehash the past. When you bring your problems into the present you have the ability to solve them. Spending time talking about what happened in the past makes us powerless because no one can change the past.

Another idea is to have team members begin by only discussing technical solutions to project problems. When this has been completed they can assign costs to the best technical solution. Once the technical solution is agreed upon, the discussion of related or potential costs is much easier – you only have to allocate who will be responsible for what. This approach will diffuse the most intense project conflicts that tend to get caught up in a jumble of costs and blame.

Finally, when you see (or feel compelled to write) threatening letters to project team members, your project is in trouble. This is a sign that communication has broken down, and that people are retiring to their respective corners. They are likely to come out punching. The entire project is moved into a defensive, blame seeking, finger-pointing mode. It is next to impossible to solve problems in this mode. You might consider bringing the team members together to discuss their frustrations and problems, and to work them out. This meeting is best lead by a third party, one who can “neutralize” any power imbalances that might occur. A skilled facilitator, acting as a neutral, can help the team to discuss and resolve issues and to truly turn the project around.

How to Get What You Want

I was just perusing Seth Grodin’s Blog and came across something he posted on Friday, December 29th, What waiters can teach marketers. The point of this blog is that people tell you things for a reason, and if you want repeat customers or to provide excellent service, then, while you don’t have to do what they ask, you do need to acknowledge and respond to it. How you respond does make a difference.

A research project on persuasion I came across showed that specific requests get better results. When students posing as beggars simply asked people for “small change” they got something 44% of the time. But, when they asked for a specific, singe-coin amount, like a quarter, they were successful 64% of the time. When they asked for arbitrary amounts, like 37 cents, they got what they asked for 75% of the time. The more precise and unusual the request, the more likely people are willing to comply.

So, how do you get people to respond to your needs? You make your requests specific, and, if possible, a bit unusual or unique.

There is Profitability in Passion

I just read the New York Times article, A Passion Becomes a Business: Now for the Hard Part of Making it Profitable. December 14, 2006, New York Times Business Section.

According to this article many people are following their passions later in life by starting their own companies and doing what they love. The hard part of these ventures is making a profit. Author Thomas J. Stanley (The Millionaire Mind, a book based on empirical research into the habits of millionaires) suggests that if people follow their passion not only can they make a profit, they can become millionaires. Millionaires love what they do. They love the products they make or the services they provide; they even like their suppliers. They know more about their niche than anyone else. According to Stanley, “If you are creative enough to select the ideal vocation, you can win big-time”.

The questions is, how. Stanley says the top five factors to which millionaires attribute their success are:

• Integrity – being honest with all people
• Discipline – applying self control
• Social Skills – getting along with other people
• A supportive spouse
• Hard Work – Work harder than most people

Millionaires posses the courage to be wealthy. Rather than looking at self-employment as a loss of security and control, the millionaire mindset looks at self-employment as the only opportunity to control their own destiny. The profits they make are their own and there is no real limit to how much they can make. To overcome fear they practice believing in themselves. They focus on key issues, they prepare, and they plan to succeed.

The majority of millionaires surveyed said that they became economic successes because they learned to focus their energies and other resources in ways that maximized their output. What drove them to be so focused was knowing their own limitations. With this focus they were able to select the best place and time to build their business, overcoming their weaknesses and maximizing their chances for success.

Finally, act as if. If you begin to act like a millionaire, eventually you will become one.

Solving the Problems of Small Projects

Many times small projects can have big problems – and very little time to solve them. It’s easy to be fooled into thinking that just because the project is small, it will go smoothly. A small project is still a project, and it can have just as many problems as a large project.

In fact, it’s been my experience that small projects are harder than large ones. Small projects usually have a short schedule, with no slack. Resources are fully committed and not available to be reassigned to problem areas. Senior management’s attention is on the large projects, so there’s nowhere to go for help.

On small projects it is tempting to skip the disciplined and detailed approaches found on large projects (a.k.a. “good project management”). For example, you hear: “We don’t need a formal project schedule, this is a small project”; “The PM procedures are for complicated projects, this one’s simple”; or “”It’s a short project, we don’t need project review meetings.”

Here are a few ideas that might help your next small project:

Set Standards for all Projects

Set the same standards for all projects – large, small, easy, or complex – and follow them. Use the same diligence on a small project as you would on your most complex ones. Don’t be lulled into complacency, or allow your project team to ignore the established standards.

Plan, Plan, Plan – You Don’t Have Time to Fail

All small projects have one common challenge – short duration. There isn’t time in the schedule for mistakes or changes. Everything has to happen like clockwork or the project falls behind. Success takes both regular planning and contingency planning. On large projects you have time to discover and fix problems and still keep on schedule; on small projects you don’t. Thorough planning is the best way to assure success.

Listen Carefully and Ask Questions

A sure way to get into trouble is to make assumptions. Did you assume this would be a slam-dunk project? There were probably warning signs that there might be challenges. Ask the right questions and listen to the answers. It will go a long way toward identifying potential risks and improving your odds for success.

Project Communication

Over the past 20+ years, I have provided dispute resolution/partnering services to various companies. One of the most common questions I have been asked is how to solve a "failure to communicate" in projects.

In nearly every partnering session I've conducted, the number one goal of the project team is open, honest, effective communication. If we all recognize that communication is so important, then why are there so many communication failures? One reason is because we don't work to build genuinely strong skills in effective communication. We take the ability to communicate effectively for granted, and then are surprised when we don't (or can't).

One idea is to suggest that the project team attend a joint training session in effective communication skills. By attending such training together, the project team will gain a common language and model for effective communication, which can be used immediately to improve the project. Communication skills training will also help to create an expectation that open, honest communication is the norm. Such communication is the cornerstone of good project management, and essential to the success of your project. You can contact the International Partnering Institute at (800) 805-8300 for a free copy of the Top Ten Tips for Effective Project Communication.

Communication is something that you must work at. When it breaks, down, you must make an urgent effort to reconnect. The greatest risk to success of your project is a communication failure. Immediate action must be taken.

The Three Levels of Cooperation

The trend in business is Co-opetition. Microsoft and others are finding that their best business strategy is to cooperate with their former competitors. Business Week Online: Sleeping with the Enemy

Over the years I’ve come to realize that most people, teams and organizations settle for a very low level of cooperation when they could significantly improve their results. Here is how it works.

You are arm wrestling. You get one point for each touch to the table. Each of you tries to get points for yourself…or at least prevent the other from getting points.

Level One – COOPERATION

Now you realize that you can OPTIMIZE the number of points you can get by cooperating. You begin to cooperate. It is one point for me and one point for you. Alternating back and forth to make sure the points are evenly distributed.

Level Two - COLLABORATION

You have a brainstorm and realize that if you both stay on the same side of the table you can make even more points. So we begin to collaborate. We move our arms up and down together and double the number of points we earn.

Level Three: CO-CREATION

This is working well, so we decide to really put our muscles into it and see how many points we can rack up. So we begin to co-create points by jointly moving our arms very rapidly up and down. We quadruple the number of points that we earn.

These three levels of cooperation area available to all teams. Simply by the fact that your are part of a team, you and your team members have overlapping interests. By cooperating with one another you can significantly improve your results. Try talking with your team about the three levels of cooperating and work to get a commitment to move to the next level on your new project.

THE NEXT BIG THING

We’d created strategic plans for over ten years. We’d been through a $3.5 billion expansion, the dot-com bust, 9/11, and the Asian flu, and we’d triumphed. Now, here we were rolling along, and everyone on the Senior Staff felt that we lacked direction. After much conversation the team decided that what we needed was THE NEXT BIG THING. It made me wonder how many teams and organizations lack a NEXT BIG THING and, as a result, have lackluster performance?

Business 2.0 interviewed Virgin entrepreneur Richard Branson who says that he sees the NEXT BIG THING as alternative fuels. Business 2.0: Branson's Next Big Bet But how does Branson consistently discover the NEXT BIG THING?

He says that first you must choose something that interests you. But it’s not enough to be interesting, you have to be able to make money in order to be successful. So to see if an idea is feasible, he goes out and talks to everyone in the field. Then, when a breakthrough comes, he’s already in place and ready to go (now that’s tapping the collective wisdom). This formula along with sheer willpower and really hard work have paid off for Richard over 200 times.

What do you think?

THINK TANK Questions:

DO TEAMS AND ORGANIZATIONS NEED A NEXT BIG THING?
HOW DO YOU FIND YOUR NEXT BIG THING?
ARE ALTERNATIVE FUELS THE NEXT BIG THING?

THE THINK TANK TEAM

Over the past twenty five years I've learned to trust that there is a collective wisdom in a team. I've seen that collective wisdom emerge and create great solutions to complex problems. Then, I've seen the team implement the solutions. I absolutely believe in the collective wisdom of a team.

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