People and Projects Podcast: Project Management Podcast

Harvard professor Dr. J. Richard Hackman, a leading authority on team dynamics, offers invaluable insights into effective leadership. He discusses the misconceptions of transitioning from a team member to a manager and the complexities involved. Key topics include overcoming the leader attribution error and the significance of optimal team conditions. Hackman emphasizes understanding individual strengths to foster collaboration and the rise of collective leadership in self-managing teams. He also highlights innovative learning methods to enhance team development.

It's so easy to get into a rut. Whether it's on a personal basis, a project team, or even an organization, it's easy to keep doing things the way we've always done them. Actually, the brain kind of likes it when we go on auto-pilot. This allows the brain to focus on the more important matters before us, like the stare your boss is giving you when you're trying to reply to a message on your Blackberry during her staff meeting! Each year we learn more about how the brain works and how we can use that knowledge to better meet the challenges we face. In this episode I interview Madeleine Van Hecke and Brad Kolar, co-authors of the book The Brain Advantage: Become a More Effective Business Leader Using the Latest Brain Research. Make sure to check out the website for their book at www.TheBrainAdvantage.com. You can get your copy of Madeleine's book Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things on Amazon. It's a great read! One way to snap out of the old way of doing things is to bring new thinking into your organization. Do you have an upcoming company meeting or retreat? We have keynote presentations that can inspire and motivate your teams to successfully deliver the projects and lead their teams. Give us a call at (866) 884-5323 to learn more. I invite you to join me next time when I talk with Harvard Professor Dr. Richard Hackman. Richard is world renowned expert on how teams work, and we'll discuss his excellent book entitled Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. Thanks for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Download episode 32

I'm in Las Vegas this week, speaking to leaders from hundreds of companies from around the world. Las Vegas is certainly an intriguing place on many levels. It's an economy that thrives on tourism and in order to keep those tourists happy and coming back, organizations out here need reliable, skilled, engaged workers. The truth is, the need for engaged, motivated employees isn't just a Las Vegas issue. I've long felt that the most dangerous employee was not the one who has left the company. It's the one who has left the company but they haven't left the company! It's the people who are just checking in and checking out, day after day, taking up space and leaving a huge amount of productivity on the table. Whether you lead a team of software developers, salespeople, accountants, or doctors, much of our organizational success comes down to how engaged and motivated our front line employees truly are. I'm staying at a very nice, well-known hotel in Vegas. To be honest, I'm not impressed with the front line service. And you know what? I intersect with enough companies to recognize this isn't just an issue at Caesar's Palace. Chances are your organization could use some insights on how to further engage your employees as well. In recent years I've enjoyed following the employee engagement research and writings of Dr. Adam Grant from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. I had the opportunity to catch up with Adam recently and look forward to sharing that interview with you in this episode. In the interview, Adam recommends the following books for follow-up: Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, by Chip and Dan Heath Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Dan Pink Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances, by J. Richard Hackman Thanks for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!

What comes to mind when you think of empathy? Do you think of someone who is highly sensitive and compassionate--maybe even too much? Or does that description sound more like sympathy, where empathy isn't quite as emotional? Empathy remains a hot topic in leadership. It's difficult to lead people without some measure of empathy in your approach. Yet I've observed from plenty of executive coaching clients that there's some opportunity to better understand what empathy is--and isn't as we seek to deliver projects and lead teams. One of the freshest voices on empathy today is Dev Patnaik, CEO of Jump Associates. Dev recently authored the book Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy. I had the opportunity to talk with Dev and look forward to sharing that interview with you in this cast. Make sure to get a copy of Dev's book Wired to Care. And check out the book's website (wiredtocare.com) and Dev's organization Jump Associates. Before we wrap this up, I want to give you a heads-up about our new Premium Podcast subscriptions. The best leaders I've had the opportunity to work with had at least two things in common: they actively invested in their own personal development, and they intentionally developed the people around them. We get thousands of downloads of our podcast each month, often from people who share that passion to develop themselves and the people around them. As a Premium Subscriber, you'll be able to take that development to the next level. Our regular free episodes will continue. Premium subscribers will get exclusive access to additional resources to apply the learning from each podcast episode. You can personally benefit and, if leading a team, you can use the resources to develop those around you. In addition, Premium subscribers will get exclusive access to additional episodes, automatic entry into freebies (such as books from authors I interview), and free admission to web meetings I periodically conduct. Premium subscriptions will begin in July. To learn more, I invite you to visit our podcast website at http://www.peopleandprojectspodcast.com. Look under the About menu to learn more about Premium Subscriptions. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Download episode 30

So when it comes right down to it... what can you do to better ensure that you successfully deliver the projects you're managing?  It's a question I love working with our clients on, and it's a question that is directly addressed in Clint Padgett's book The Project Success Method: A Proven Approach for Achieving Superior Project Performance in as Little as 5 Days. I had the opportunity to talk with Clint recently and look forward to sharing that interview with you in this episode. To learn more about Clint and his organization, I invite you to check them out at projectsuccess.com. Do you have an upcoming company meeting or retreat? We have keynote presentations that can inspire and motivate your teams to successfully deliver the projects and lead their teams. Contact us at 866-884-5323 to learn more. I invite you to join me next time when I talk with Dev Patnaik, author of an intriguing book on innovation and leadership entitled Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy. Thanks for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Download episode 29

It's one thing to know there's a model for influencing without authority. But how do we implement that model, as leaders and project managers? That's what we tackle in this second part of my interview with Dr. Allan Cohen, author of Influence Without Authority. {loadposition content_amazonInfluenceWithoutAuthority}I recommend you check out the accompanying website for Dr. Cohen's book, which you can find at www.influencewithoutauthority.com. Are you interested in learning how to develop your influence skills? How about your team's ability to influence? Give us a call to learn how we can help you become more influential, even in situations you don't have authority. Please join me in the next episode when I’m joined by Clint Padgett, President and CEO of Project Success Inc, and author of The Project Success Method: A Proven Approach for Achieving Superior Project Performance in as Little as 5 Days. Thanks for joining us for this episode! Have a great week! Duration 19:37 Download episode 28

One of my leadership heroes is Ken Blanchard, who is on record of saying, "The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” I wholeheartedly agree with Ken, that developing your influence skills is critical to success in today’s business environment, especially when a growing number of project managers and other leaders have an increasing amount of responsibility but not necessarily a corresponding amount of authority to go with it. {loadposition content_amazonInfluenceWithoutAuthority}Many listening to this cast are in positions where they have to influence without authority and to help us improve our skills in that area I got in touch with the author of one my favorite books on the topic, Dr Allan Cohen, who wrote Influence Without Authority. In this cast we walk through the influence model that Allan developed with Stanford professor Dr. David Bradford. In the follow-up cast I have Allan walk through a couple specific scenarios relevant to our audience, to apply the model in practical ways. You'll notice part way through the cast that our recording system introduced some background interference due to a technical issue that occurred during my discussion with Dr. Cohen. I apologize for the annoyance, trusting you'll glean many lessons from the interview despite the distraction. I recommend you check out the accompanying website for Dr. Cohen's book, which you can find at www.influencewithoutauthority.com. Please join me in the next episode when Dr. Cohen applies his influence model to two specific scenarios that I’m confident you’ll find relevant to your role. And, one last thing! Would you take a moment to let a friend or colleague know about The People and Projects Podcast? I’d love to pour into them as well, to help them lead people and deliver projects. Thanks for joining us for this episode! Have a great week! Duration 29:53 Download episode 27

In our last episode I started an interview with Dr. Ed Schein, Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus at MIT and author of fourteen business books, including The Corporate Culture Survival Guide. Make sure to listen to that episode if you happened to miss it. {loadposition content_amazonHelping}In this second part of the interview, we turn our attention to Ed's seminal yet highly practical book entitled Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help. Ever wonder why some people find it difficult to ask for help, even when they are "spinning their wheels" with the project tasks? Or why some people just won't take you up on offers to help, even when it's desperately needed? In this interview Ed helps us understand the surprisingly complex dynamics around giving and receiving help. I strongly recommend you get a copy of Ed's books we discuss in these two episodes. I invite you to join me next time when I interview Dr. Allen Cohen, author of the acclaimed book Influence Without Authority. Part of the complexity of projects today relates to the fact that many of us have the responsibility to deliver the projects yet don't have authority over all the people we must depend on. Increasingly project success depends on relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders, and our ability to influence those people—even when we don't have authority over them—is critical. I look forward to sharing that interview with you. Thanks for checking out our new podcast website at www.peopleandprojectspodcast.com. I invite you to let me know what you think about it! Thanks for joining us for this episode! Have a great week! Total Duration: 21:17 Download episode 26

It happens regularly... my phone rings, I pick it up, and on the other end I'm talking with someone who's inquiring about bringing us in to deliver a keynote for a company event or training for their organization.{loadposition content_amazonCorpCulture} My first response is not whether I'm available on the dates they're looking for. My first questions are designed to help me understand the problems they're trying to solve. Once I have a good sense of the issues they want to address, I inevitably ask a critical, open-ended question: "Tell me about the culture of your organization?" How would you respond to that question? How would you describe your company's culture? Or the culture of your team? How about the project culture at your company--how things get done? This is what I've found: understanding organizational culture is critical to being able to deliver projects and lead teams. If I don't have a decent idea of the culture I'm walking into for a keynote, workshop, or coaching session, I flat out won't be effective. It would be like walking in and finding that everyone speaks a foreign language. Dr. Ed Schein is a world renowned MIT professor and expert on organizational culture, and has authored fourteen business books, including The Corporate Culture Survival Guide. When it comes to knowing how to get things done in a company, Ed is one of my heroes, so I was very excited to have the opportunity to speak with him recently.{loadposition content_amazonHelping} This episode contains the first part of my discussion with Dr. Schein, with the remaining to be included in the next cast. [readon url="http://bit.ly//EdScheinP2"]Click here[/readon] for Part 2 of my interview with Dr. Schein will focus on his book Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help. Would you take a moment to tell a friend about this podcast? I would love to have the opportunity to help develop your friends and colleagues who have a desire to successfully deliver projects and lead teams. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Total Duration: 24:19 Download episode 25

Here's the situation... you're responsible for delivering a project. Your boss comes in today and announces that senior management has decided that you must deliver your project 4 weeks earlier than originally planned.You know that the project is already carrying a lot of risk, and cutting 4 more weeks seems completely unrealistic, at least from your perspective. Yet it also appears, from your perspective, that speaking up or pushing back could be job risking. They aren't looking for your input--they're looking for you to deliver on the demand.Sound familiar?Whether you are a project manager or responsible for leading a team, we are regularly faced with situations that require us to influence others. Yet here's my observation: influence skills are one of the most under-trained areas for many people today. It's almost as if we think influence training is for salespeople or lawyers or "those people over in procurement."{loadposition content_amazonYes}We all can benefit from developing our influence skills. One of my favorite influence books in the last couple years is entitled Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. I had the opportunity recently to speak with the co-author of Yes!, Steve Martin, and look forward to your feedback on the interview in this cast. By the way, you'll hear Steve share his thoughts on how to deal with that boss with unrealistic timeframes!A practical next step to develop your influence skills is to get a copy of the book that Steve authored with Robert Cialdini and Noah Goldstein: Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. Also, check out Dr. Cialdini's classic: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.Steve puts out a very helpful newsletter entitled the Inside Influence Report. I encourage you to sign-up for it. If you are interested in developing the influence skills of your project managers, team leads, or other organizational leaders, give us a call! Between keynotes, workshops, and executive coaching, we have a number of ways that we can help your leaders improve their influence skills. You can contact us toll-free at (866) 884-5323 or via e-mail at show@i-leadonline.com.{loadposition content_amazonInfluence}I invite you to join me in our next episode when I talk with Cornelius Fichtner, the host of The Project Management Podcast. For those of you who are certified PMP's and are interested in some helpful ways to get the required PDU's to maintain your certification, you particularly don't want to miss this episode!You can receive notices of new podcast episodes via e-mail, allowing you to listen to them more conveniently and in a timely manner. Sign up here!And, one last thing! Would you take a moment to let a friend or colleague know about The People and Projects Podcast? I'd love to pour into them as well, to help them lead people and deliver projects.Thanks for joining us for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!   Total Duration: 44:34 Download episode 23