Episode 105 – Managing Up for Project Success

VELOCITEACH Manage This The podcast by project managers for project managers. Dana Brownlee shares tools for managing up that challenging boss or stakeholder, while creating alignment and clear communication. Table of Contents 00:58 … Meet Dana 02:18 … The Inspiration for The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up 03:54 … Managing Up Research Study 07:02 … It Begins with Self Awareness 08:20 … A Definition of Managing Up 10:05 … Managing Up Mistakes 11:30 … Six Difficult Boss Personality Types 14:32 … A Closer Look at the Clueless Chameleon 19:03 … A Closer Look at the Meddlesome Micromanager 22:40 … A Closer Look at the Tornado 25:22 … The Compliment, Document, and Pivot 27:37 … More Taming of the Tornado 29:32 … Self-Analysis for the Project Manager 31:28 … Get in Touch with Dana 32:24 … Closing WENDY GROUNDS:  Hello, and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  Bill, I have a question for you today.  How often have you experienced a difficult stakeholder or a difficult boss?  What’s your experience? BILL YATES:  Oh, man.  This is such a loaded question.  You’re going to get me in trouble.  Andy... WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we don’t have to talk any current. BILL YATES:  Okay, good, yeah.  I was going to say, Andy Crowe’s not in the room right now, but he will definitely listen to this.  So, got an outstanding manager now.  But yeah, I mean, this is just a part of life; right?  We have managers who – sometimes our boss, our manager is super supportive and great.  Other times there are challenges, and so fortunately we have Dana to talk with us about some of those challenges. Meet Dana WENDY GROUNDS: So our guest today is Dana Brownlee, she is a PMP, and she founded Professionalism Matters, which is an Atlanta-based corporate training company.  Her business expertise has been featured in Forbes.com, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, to name a few.  And Dana likes to give project managers tools they can use.  Dana, welcome to Manage This. DANA BROWNLEE:  Thanks so much for having me. WENDY GROUNDS:  Dana, won’t you first tell us just a bit about yourself and how you entered the project management field? DANA BROWNLEE:  Certainly.  Well, I started my company back in 2003.  I’m dating myself a little bit, can’t believe it’s been that long.  But I started in project management I guess in the early ‘90s.  And in fact I remember it was so long ago, I remember applying for my PMP in handwritten paper. BILL YATES:  Oh, okay. WENDY GROUNDS:  Wow. DANA BROWNLEE:  Like printing it off and writing it out and actually mailing it in, putting a stamp in, so I’m officially old.  But I worked in corporate for a number of years, and then I started my own training company, and I went out, and I teach training classes and give speaking events.  But I do think that I’ve always been wired kind of as a project manager, I dot my I’s; I cross my T’s. In fact, my husband laughed.  He said, you know, “This is definitely for you.  You’ve got a knack for telling other people what to do.”  So some of it is kind of in my blood.  But I love it. The Inspiration for The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up WENDY GROUNDS:  Dana has written an excellent book that Bill and I have both enjoyed reading.  It’s called “The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up:  Project Management Techniques from the Trenches.”  And in this book we read about different types of bosses and techniques that you can implement when working with these different types of managers.  Dana, what inspired you to write the book? DANA BROWNLEE:  Actually, my audiences inspired me to write the book.  I never intended to speak on this topic, to write on this topic, but let me tell you what started happening.  I give talks, and I provide training on a wide range of topics.  So I might be out speaking about communication skills,