People and Projects Podcast: Project Management Podcast

Hopefully, you've already had a chance to listen to the first part of my interview with Tony Schwartz. In this second part, Tony talks about the concept of pulsing and gets very transparent about his struggle to implement these ideas. Enjoy Part 2 of my discussion with Tony Schwartz, author of Be Excellent at Anything (NOTE: This book used to be entitled The Way We're Working Isn't Working). I wholeheartedly recommend you get a copy of Tony's book. It's a great way to take the next step in making a radical difference in your own performance as well as that of your team. Also, make sure to check out his websites (https://www.TheEnergyProject.com and https://www.TakeBackYourLunch.com).   Thank you for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!  

Let me take a guess... You don't have time to listen to this podcast episode. Oh, you're listening to it, but perhaps you're driving or trying to do e-mail--hopefully not both--while you do it! We're so busy, and the overall toll on us and our productivity can be overwhelming, which made me think of Tony Schwartz's book Be Excellent at Anything (NOTE: This book used entitled The Way We're Working Isn't Working). Tony is a gifted writer and speaker and an expert in helping us perform at our best. I had the opportunity to spend some time talking with Tony and have divided the interview into two podcast episodes. So, I invite you to turn off your handheld, shut down any distractions, and enjoy learning from one of the freshest voices out there on performance and productivity, Tony Schwartz. You can learn more about Tony at The Energy Project (http://www.theenergyproject.com). Also, learn more about Take Back Your Lunch at http://www.TakeBackYourLunch.com. Make sure to check out the second part of my interview with Tony for additional insights on improving your performance. Thank you for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!  

Happy New Year! I don't know about you, but I love when a new year comes around! I love the opportunity to look and consider the previous year: accomplishments, challenges, blessings, mistakes, and lessons. It's an opportunity to take a renewed look at the year ahead and set goals. Yet there's the problem with New Year's resolutions. Ask the average person--and I do in this video podcast with some "man on the streets" interviews--and they'll tell you resolutions don't work. Or at least they don't last. In this brief video podcast I share some key lessons to help project managers and leaders set better goals, just in time for the new year! NOTE: In this episode I mentioned Stickk.com. Make sure to check them out! Also, you can listen to my interview with the CEO of Stickk.com in this previous episode of The People and Projects Podcast. Here's to a very prosperous and successful year ahead for you! Thank you for subscribing to The People and Projects Podcast! {youtube}pOeKJa8EQb8{/youtube} Download the video episode

In case you missed it in our last episode, I have a special Christmas gift for all my podcast listeners. You've heard me talk about Premium Subscriptions in recent months, and many have joined. But perhaps you've been holding out. Well here's my Christmas gift to you. Become an annual premium subscriber before January 1, 2011 and my gift to you is a free license of our new e-learning offering entitled "The Dirty Little Secret of Business". This program, which normally sells for $97, is yours for free when you become a premium subscriber by the end of this year. Throughout the year premium subscribers get:* discounts on products* automatic entry into drawings* free participation in webinars* additional materials with episodes, and * the opportunity to participate live on my interviews with experts. I’d love to have you join the growing number of premium subscribers to The People and Projects Podcast! Here's where you can learn more: http://bit.ly/PremiumSubscribe. Thanks! From all of us who help produce each podcast episode, we wish you and those you love a very Merry Christmas! Download the episode

We're now at that time of year when there are often many social gatherings, whether with family, friends, or work associates. Do you look forward to these times of family gatherings and holiday parties? Or do you dread them? Or how about this: What do you think of when I say the term "networking"? If your first response was TCP/IP or Ethernet, you have even more work than I expected! But kidding aside, when you think of networking in terms of developing relationships, what comes to mind? Frankly, for many years I knew I should be networking more but I tended to see it as a rather sleazy endeavor--an activity that people did just to get stuff from other people. Yet in a struggling and unpredictable economy, there are more reasons than ever to actively develop relationships. The problem is that most relationship-building books seem to be written for extroverts. But what about the rest of us? Well, to arm you for the holiday season and to help you come up with a relationship-building strategy for the year ahead I'm excited to introduce you to Devora Zack, author of a recently published book entitled Networking for People Who Hate Networking: A Field Guide for Introverts, the Overwhelmed and the Underconnected. Learn more about Devora and Only Connect Consulting at http://www.onlyconnectconsulting.com.   Devora has graciously made two copies of her book available for listeners to The People and Projects Podcast. If you are one of our growing number of Premium Subscribers, you are automatically entered into the drawing. If you're not a Premium Subscriber yet, please send me an e-mail at show@peopleandprojectspodcast.com to enter the drawing. I'll pick two winners on December 31, 2010. And here's a special offer. As I mentioned in the interview I have a keynote entitled The Dirty Little Secret of Business. Despite the provocative title, the dirty little secret of business is that it's all done on relationships. This session gets top ratings when delivered at conferences and company meetings, and it's now available in an e-learning format. Though normally sold for $97 USD, listeners to The People and Projects Podcast can access it for only $49 USD. Go to http://bit.ly/eDirtyLittleSecret before January 15, 2011 and use a coupon code of DIRTY-SECRET. Whether for yourself or as a gift to a friend or co-worker, The Dirty Little Secret of Business can be a powerful way to develop a practical strategy to building relationships. And here's one last idea for you! I'm going to give this e-learning offering to all my Premium Subscribers for free! If you join my growing number of premium subscribers before the end of December 2010, you'll also get The Dirty Little Secret of Business e-learning for free. Go to http://bit.ly/PremiumSubscribe to join.   Thank you for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!  

We're now at that time of year when there are often many social gatherings, whether with family, friends, or work associates. Do you look forward to these times of family gatherings and holiday parties? Or do you dread them? Or how about this: What do you think of when I say the term "networking"? If your first response was TCP/IP or Ethernet, you have even more work than I expected! But kidding aside, when you think of networking in terms of developing relationships, what comes to mind? Frankly, for many years I knew I should be networking more but I tended to see it as a rather sleazy endeavor--an activity that people did just to get stuff from other people. Yet in a struggling and unpredictable economy, there are more reasons than ever to actively develop relationships. The problem is that most relationship-building books seem to be written for extroverts. But what about the rest of us? Well, to arm you for the holiday season and to help you come up with a relationship building strategy for the year ahead I'm excited to introduce you to Devora Zack, author of a recently published book entitled Networking for People Who Hate Networking: A Field Guide for Introverts, the Overwhelmed and the Underconnected. Learn more about Devora and Only Connect Consulting at http://www.onlyconnectconsulting.com. Devora has graciously made two copies of her book available for listeners to The People and Projects Podcast. If you are one of our growing number of Premium Subscribers, you are automatically entered into the drawing. If you're not a Premium Subscriber yet, please send me an e-mail at show@peopleandprojectspodcast.com to enter the drawing. I'll pick two winners on December 31, 2010. And here's a special offer. As I mentioned in the interview I have a keynote entitled The Dirty Little Secret of Business. Despite the provocative title, the dirty little secret of business is that it's all done on relationships. This session gets top ratings when delivered at conferences and company meetings, and it's now available in an e-learning format. Though normally sold for $97 USD, listeners to The People and Projects Podcast can access it for only $49 USD. Go to http://bit.ly/eDirtyLittleSecret before January 15, 2011 and use a coupon code of DIRTY-SECRET. Whether for yourself or as a gift to a friend or co-worker, The Dirty Little Secret of Business can be a powerful way to develop a practical strategy to building relationships. And here's one last idea for you! I'm going to give this e-learning offering to all my Premium Subscribers for free! If you join my growing number of premium subscribers before the end of December 2010, you'll also get The Dirty Little Secret of Business e-learning for free. Go to http://bit.ly/PremiumSubscribe to join. Thank you for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Total Duration: 26:19 Download episode 39

I have the true privilege of helping professionals from hundreds of companies develop their ability to lead people and deliver projects. A common question I hear from leaders as they progress higher in their organizations has to do with their boss. In effect, they're asking, "How do I manage the person who is supposed to be managing me?" A clear lesson as you grow in responsibility is that managing is not just something you do with your subordinates--what a terrible word that is! Rather, to be effective you also have to lead and serve peers, stakeholders, and yes, bosses. Managing up is an important part of your ability to successfully deliver. But how do you go about doing that? For this episode I'm bringing back Bruce Tulgan who was a guest on our show last year (click here to listen to that episode). Bruce recently published Its Okay to Manage Your Boss: The Step-by-Step Program for Making the Best of Your Most Important Relationship at Work. I had the opportunity to speak with Bruce recently and look forward to sharing that interview in this episode. Learn more about Bruce and his organization at http://www.rainmakerthinking.com. I also recommend you get a copy of his book Its Okay to Manage Your Boss: The Step-by-Step Program for Making the Best of Your Most Important Relationship at Work. While you're at it, check out another one of Bruce's books It's Okay to Be the Boss: The Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming the Manager Your Employees Need. You'll find both helpful in the development of your management skills. In recent episodes I've been telling you about our growing list of Premium Subscribers. I want to invite you to join! You'll get additional materials with each episode to help you and those around you get even more value out of the topic we talk about. You'll not only be automatically enrolled in freebies, you'll also have the opportunity to actually participate in upcoming interviews with experts. Sometimes as a year ends there's a little extra training budget that needs to be spent. Whether that's true or not, how about investing in your learning for the year ahead? Click here for details and join as a Premium Subscriber. Thanks for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Download the episode

Hello! Welcome to the 10th month of this 10th year in this century! In this episode, I'm sharing insights from a book I've recently read: 10-10-10: A Fast and Powerful Way to Get Unstuck in Love, at Work, and with Your Family, by Suzy Welch. The title sounds more like a subject for an Oprah audience than project managers and leaders! However, I think you'll find the ideas in the book helpful with your projects, with your team, and in your personal life. Let me know what questions you have after listening to the cast. And be sure to share the ideas from 10-10-10 with your team. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Talent Triangle: Power Skills

If you've followed this podcast or attended one of my keynotes on project management or leadership, you've likely caught onto my bias that the biggest successes, the biggest joys, the biggest failures, and the biggest stresses often come down to the same thing: people. Project management is ultimately people management. Success with people management--and thus project management--can significantly depend on our effectiveness in areas such as communication, influence, and building relationships. One of the freshest voices on the people side of project management is consultant Dave Po-Chedley, PMP, author of Client Relationship Management: How to Turn Client Relationships into a Competitive Advantage. I had the opportunity to catch up with Dave recently and look forward to sharing that interview with you in this episode. I invite you to learn more about Dave and the work of Cambridge Consulting (http://www.cambridgeconsult.com and http://www.pminsight.us). I want to let you know that Dave has graciously made two copies of his book Client Relationship Management available to our listeners. If you are a Premium Subscriber you are automatically entered into the drawing. If you're not a Premium Subscriber, send me an e-mail with “Book Drawing” as the subject. Two of our listeners will get Dave's book sent to them for free. One last thing: I received a message from a listener that I wanted to share with you: Hi Andy, I attended your 1-day tutorial at Better Software in June. That session was worth the price of the whole trip. Great, transformative stuff! I have since changed my listening habits in the car: I listen to management podcasts now. I decided to propose the Outlaw Team idea to my boss who leads an entire division in my company. He liked the idea and had me present it to his weekly leadership meeting. All the VPs liked the idea, with some suggestions. I then suggested action items to move it forward. My boss volunteered me to carry the ball. Yikes! Now I have to try and be the Andy Kaufman of our company. Nah. I'll just be me and see where we get. Never thought I'd go from eager student to mentoring others in leadership skills. Thanks for your great work! Charlie Well, congratulations to Charlie for taking action on the learning! Charlie also became a Premium Subscriber to this podcast. Are you a Charlie-kind-of-person, one who has a passion for developing themselves and those around them? If so, I recommend you join Charlie as a Premium Subscriber to The People and Projects Podcast! It's a great deal and provides you with additional tools for self and team development. Visit our website for details, including a discount available on the Annual Subscription. Thanks for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Download the episode

In recent episodes I’ve mentioned that we will be launching Premium Subscriptions of The People and Projects Podcast. Well, we have lift-off! In this cast I want to give you a brief overview of our vision for the Premium Subscription as well as tell you about a special offer that is available for a limited time. So let’s talk vision.... The best leaders I've had the opportunity to work with had at least this in common: They actively invest in their own personal development And they intentionally develop the people around them. Yet there is this little problem of time and money.... Developing yourself and those around you takes time, and time is one of the few things even more scarce than money in many organizations today. Taking people out of their day-to-day for a 5-day workshop just isn't an option for many organizations. And training isn't cheap. Yet not investing in yourself and your team isn't a sustainable option. What if you didn't have to send your people to training. Rather, the training came to you? It doesn't cost you anything to recommend our podcast to those you work with. By listening to each episode during their commute time, while exercising, or any other time when they have an MP3 player available, you and your teams can be learning from some of the best minds in leadership and project management. So, how does the Premium Subscription fit in? It takes the learning to the next level. Premium subscribers get access to the same audio that our free subscribers get each episode. But there's more. First, it provides you with the materials to help you be the trainer. I've had the opportunity to work with tens of thousands of people from hundreds of companies. I love to pour into people, whether it's a keynote, workshop, or one-on-one coaching. Yet here's what I've found: there's enormous value in YOU training your people instead of me. Now that might sound crazy coming from a guy who makes his living speaking, training, and coaching. But it's true. When you walk your team through principles and ideas to help them lead and deliver, there's something special that happens. Certainly there's the benefit of just putting on the teacher hat. You never know a topic like when you have to teach it to others. From a personal development perspective, you can great benefits from just preparing to facilitate a learning discussion with your team. But there's more to it than that. When you lead a discussion on a topic with your teams, they get to see that you're working to develop them, which is a major employee satisfaction driver. They also get the benefit of seeing you investing in yourself--that you're not just living off of what you learned years ago. Finally--and this is big--there's the implied accountability that comes from you leading the discussion. If you publicly discuss the topic with them, you're also saying "I'm going to work to put this into action as well." And as they see you put the learning into action, they're more likely to do so as well. Along with the free audio, as a Premium Subscriber you will get access to materials to help you facilitate a discussion with your teams with minimal preparation. We provide you with background information, questions, links to related articles, and other materials to help you apply the learning yourself, and to make it easy for you to facilitate the learning with your team. Beyond that, Premium Subscribers will occasionally get exclusive content that is not available for free subscribers. These episodes will include audio and sometimes video, all focused on helping you more succesfully lead your teams and deliver your projects. Throughout the year we often have drawings for free books and other resources, courtesy of the experts I interview. As a Premium Subscriber, you are automatically entered into the drawings, saving you time and effort. And periodically I hold web discussions with Premium Subscribers on a topic that is related to leading teams and delivering projects. This exclusive access is included in your investment as a Premium Subscriber. Finally I let Premium Subscribers know about upcoming interviews, inviting people to let me know if they want to join me on the phone when I interview experts. I think that would be pretty cool to have you on the phone with me live when the interview is going on! So, the big picture vision is to go to the next level in developing you, and helping you go to the next level in developing those around you. You might be wondering how much this costs! So let me ask you, how much does training cost? If you were to attend one of my training sessions it could easily cost over a thousand dollars, depending on the topic and length of the session. Go to a conference out of town and you are easily talking many thousands of dollars, especially when you factor in training. If we were to have one coaching conversation on the phone, it would cost you $300. But my goal is to make this a no-brainer from a cost perspective. We have two subscription options: a monthly and an annual subscription. As the name implies, the monthly subscription allows you pay month-by-month, getting full access to everything I’ve talked about. We set up an automatic recurring transaction so it's not a hassle for you. Your investment would be $9.97/month. For less than the cost of two lunches a month, you get access to all the learning. Many leaders find it easier to just pay for an annual subscription. It's the same only it' one payment of $97 for the entire year. A benefit of this option is you get two months free compared to the monthly option. And here's the special offer I mentioned before: through midnight 9/30/2010, you can get an additional two months free on an Annual Subscription by using a coupon code of FOUR-MONTHS-FREE. And by the way, this isn't just for this year. For as long as you are a Premium Subscriber your cost is locked in. It's my special thanks for having you as a Charter Premium Subscriber. Either way, a Premium Subscription is a great value for one of the best causes in leadership: to develop you and those you lead. Use this link (http://www.peopleandprojectspodcast.com/index.php/about/premium-subscriptions.html) to learn more and sign-up. Please don’t hesitate to contact me at andy@i-leadonline.com with any questions. Thanks! Have a great week! Download the episode