Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

Sometimes a project can feel like a circus when you're having to manage time, cost, and scope as well as stakeholders, team members, and the organization as a whole.

When it comes to problem solving or innovation, the goal is to generate ideas, make those ideas better, and then implement them. But what if we are skipping some important stages of the creative problem-solving process? Dr. Teresa Lawrence, an expert on the integration of Creative Problem Solving into project management, joins us to illustrate the importance of understanding our cognitive diversity, knowing our preference to the stages of the creative problem-solving process, and recognizing how our preferences influence project team interactions.

The podcast by project manager for project managers. A great leader strikes a balance between warmth and strength. If it’s time for you to conduct an honest assessment of your leadership style to connect better with your teams and understand your stakeholders more effectively, take a listen to hear how to connect, then lead. Table of Contents 02:47 … Meet Matt04:44 … Social Power and Personal Power06:38 … Knowing your Likeability09:17 … Strength and Warmth12:12 … Strength and Warmth Matrix15:04 … Changing Your Impact17:51 … Make a Stronger Team Connection.20:02 … How Not to Compromise Warmth21:54 … Snap Judgements and First Impressions24:23 … Kevin and Kyle25:20 … Connect with Your Audience27:25 … Preparation is Vital29:44 … Be Your Authentic Self33:03 … Connecting Remotely36:26 … Keeping Energy Levels Stable37:33 … Communicating to Highly Skilled Professionals39:18 … Using Analogies40:05 … Speaking Truth to Positions of Power42:13 … Contact Matt43:57 … Closing MATT KOHUT: Some people tend to go with their strength first, and they backfill on the warmth.  Some people lead with warmth first, and they backfill on the strength.  And it’s sort of like being left-handed or right-handed.  Everybody’s just got a dominant hand.  And as long as you can pick up objects with both of them and not drop them, it’s okay. WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer.  We love having you join us twice a month to be motivated and inspired by project stories, leadership lessons, and advice from industry experts from all around the world.  Our aim is to bring you some support as you navigate your projects.  You can also claim free PDUs, Professional Development Units from PMI by listening to our show.  At the end of the show we will give you advice on how to do that. Today we’re talking to Matt Kohut.  Matt is a co-founder of KNP Communications, and he has 20 years of professional experience writing and preparing speakers for both general and expert audience.  In addition, he has served as a communications consultant to organizations including NASA, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Harvard University. Matt is currently a fellow at the Center for Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College, and he’s previously worked at Harvard University as research specialist to the dean of Kennedy School.  Now, this is an interesting conversation, and we are very excited to bring it to you because it follows on so well to our conversation we had with Vanessa Druskat on emotional intelligence. BILL YATES:  Yes, this is an area that I think because of my own experience, I feel like this is an area that a project manager, certainly me, should and can grow in throughout their career.  It’s amazing talking with Matt.  He knows so much about social science.  That’s the background experience he has.  But the advice that he gives is so practical.  Not only did he write speeches, he coached those who were delivering the speeches as to how to make a good first impression, how to connect with their audience, how to not overpower them with too much information.  These are things that project managers struggle with.  These are things that we have to be aware of.  So the advice that Matt gives in our conversation is really going to help us be better at our jobs, connect better with our teams, understand our customers better, and amp up our performance. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Matt.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you for being our guest today. MATT KOHUT:  Thanks for having me. Meet Matt WENDY GROUNDS:  We are excited to talk to you about communication and leadership and all of those good things; but I am really intrigued by your other career, the side of you that is a professional bassist.  Can you tell us a little bit about that and your passion for music? MATT KOHUT:  Sure.  I started playing music as a kid, like a lot of kids do, just picking up instruments.  And it was in high school I really hit on bass playing as something that was my instrument.  I had started down a path as a freelance writer and a teacher.  And around my 30th birthday I realized, you know what, if I don’t take the leap now, I’m not going to do this.  So I spent about seven years working more or less as a full-time professional musician.  And that doesn’t mean I didn’t have little day jobs here and there; but my primary focus was performing, recording, touring.  And it really has informed the work I do now as a communications professional because music is a language, and bands are teams.  So no matter what setting you find yourself in, there’s a lot of overlap. BILL YATES:  That’s good.  I know many times I’ll hear people make the reference of a conductor to a project manager.  It’s a nice analogy, bring out the best from each instrument and knowing the right mix and that kind of thing.  That’s fantastic.  You know, I’ve come across others in project management who have something like this that really informs them. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, I’ve listened to your podcast.  To our audience out there, Matt has a podcast called Sounds Out of Time.  And he talks to musicians, talks about music, and it’s really interesting.  You have this great NPR voice. BILL YATES:  Yup. WENDY GROUNDS:  Here’s the jazz section from Matt; you know?  It’s really good. MATT KOHUT:  I didn’t know that until somebody told me that.  I had no idea. Social Power and Personal Power WENDY GROUNDS:  All right.  Let’s jump into talking leadership and talking communication.  One of the first things we wanted to talk about was there’s a difference between having social power and personal power.  Those are two very different leadership terms.  Can you define them for us? MATT KOHUT:  Well, social power, as the word “social” suggests, has to do with being with other people.  And to a certain extent I think that it all comes down to the idea that, if you have power in a situation, ultimately you’re getting people to do something they might not otherwise do.  And there are a lot of different ways to do this. I’m actually a fan of an old boss of mine, a guy named Joseph Nye, who is an international relations theorist, a foreign policy expert.  And he was the person who coined the terms “soft power” and “hard power.”  And I actually find these really almost in some way the more interesting way to frame power.  Hard power is coercing people, that is, you have to do this; and soft power is attracting people.  And he always made the point that it’s much cheaper to attract people than to coerce them.  They’re going to want to do what you want them to do, and they’ll do it even willingly. And there are a variety of different ways you can do that if you’re a country thinking about trying to attract others to your agenda.  But then I think it’s a really interesting metaphor for project managers and for anyone working in teams and professional settings, as well. BILL YATES:  Certainly.  And there’s so much fallout when you do have to use hard power.  It just doesn’t last, and especially if you want to keep your team together.  And, “Okay, we had to push hard to finish something up.  I’ll see you guys next week and we’ll start the next project.”  Some of them are looking at you like, “No, you won’t.  I’m out of here.” MATT KOHUT:  That’s right. Knowing your Likeability BILL YATES:  There’s a big price.  There’s a quote from an article that we wanted to reference with you.  “Before people decide what they think of your message, they decide what they think of you.”  It’s such a key to being an effective communicator, understanding how other people judge your character.  So how important is likability, not only in terms of good leadership, but also when managing other project stakeholders? MATT KOHUT:  Well, there are a couple of things to that.  I think that, first off, that point about the fact that people are judging your message through their feelings about you is really important, and that can have to do with likability.  It can also have to do with their sense of your legitimacy or of your credibility, as well.  So likability for sure matters.  It’s one of the things that matters.  There are other things that matter, as well. So let’s just take the idea, though, first, of the importance of your message being filtered through how people feel about you.  Right now we’re having a conversation.  You’re figuring out how you feel about me at the same time you’re figuring out how you feel about my message.  And you can’t really sort the two out.  It’s not like our brains say, “Well, I dislike the person, but I like the message.”  Generally speaking, it’s just not that conscious on our part.  More often emotion leads, and logic follows.  And we feel some way, and then we make up a rationale for why we feel that way.  It’s called “motivated reasoning” in the political world where people choose their candidate based on a gut sense, and then they come up with all these reasons why they think that person is the perfect person to be governor or dog catcher or whatever. And that’s largely true about the way we interpret messages from people, too.  We filter them through our feelings about the person.  And sure, sometimes once we know someone, we can have some nuance about it and say, “Well, I really like him even though we disagree about X.”  But by and large there’s a gray area there.  So when you get to likeability, it’s a lot harder to disagree with someone you like.  Think about this in your own life.  You have good close friends, and then they say something.  “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe he just said that.”  But it’s your friend and you like them.  You don’t want to hurt their feelings. So likeability makes you more influential with people,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Transformations fail because we are failing to transform our people. In a successful transformation project, it is crucial to manage human behavior and pay attention to aligning culture and strategy. To lead a successful transformation project cultivate a healthy environment that inspires people to follow. Table of Contents 02:06 … Ricardo’s Story04:40 … Transforming Passion into Profession06:20 … Brightline Initiative10:44 … The Failure Rate on Digital Transformations15:54 … When Strong Leadership is a Liability20:18 … Effective Team Collaboration24:32 … Kevin and Kyle25:37 … Aligning Culture and Strategy30:39 … Diversity is More Effective33:26 … Cultivate a Healthy Culture36:17 … Getting Stakeholders Onboard41:33 … Contact Ricardo44:16 … Closing RICARDO VARGAS:  So what happens on digital transformation?  The company say, “We are doing this.  We are transformed.”  And the employee that is there saying, “And so what?  What is in there for me?  What is in there for me?”  And if I don’t see that, what I do?  I will say, you know, “I don’t want to be part of that.” WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer.  We love having you join us twice a month to hear about project stories and leadership lessons, as well as advice from industry experts from all around the world.  And we want to bring you some support as you navigate your projects.  We have one such leadership expert with us today. BILL YATES:  We are fortunate to have Ricardo giving us the time and sharing his experience and knowledge with us.  It’s going to be phenomenal. WENDY GROUNDS:  I’m sure many of you have heard of Ricardo Vargas.  He’s an experienced leader in global operations, project management, business transformation, as well as crisis management.  He’s the founder and managing director of Macro Solutions. And he’s also a former chairman of the Project Management Institute, as well as a PMI fellow.  He also tells us a little bit about being the director of project management and infrastructure of the United Nations, leading more than 1,000 projects in humanitarian development projects.  And we talk to him about the Brightline Initiative.  Ricardo created and led this initiative from 2016 to 2020.  He has the Five Minutes podcast, and he gives some excellent project management advice on his podcast. BILL YATES:  Wendy, it’s going to be great to talk with Ricardo and get his input on the human side on digital transformation projects, complex projects, where sometimes we get a bit fascinated with the technology.  And as Ricardo points out, it’s all about the people. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Ricardo.  Welcome to Manage This. RICARDO VARGAS:  Thank you very much.  I’m very glad to be here with you today. Ricardo’s Story WENDY GROUNDS:  We are really honored to have you.  I think it’s been a long time coming that we wanted to talk with you, so we’re honored to have you with us today.  Can you look back and tell me how you got into project management?  What’s your story? RICARDO VARGAS:  No, that’s very interesting because you know my background, I’m a chemical engineer.  And when I was a student of chemical engineering, this was in the early ‘90s.  One of the disciplines I was studying was operational research.  So how do you put things in order, you know, on the production line, on the project.  And that was the first time I met the concept of critical path, of you know, resource leveling. And coincidentally, at that exact time I was working with Microsoft.  I was owner of a partner of Microsoft in Brazil.  And Microsoft was putting an effort on a new tool that they want to roll out in Brazil that was called Microsoft Project.  And they didn’t want anyone to say, “Okay, who can help us to leverage that?”  Because, Excel has mathematics, Word has the language, but Project is something different.  It’s not mathematics.  It’s something like planning.  And at that time, I was fascinated about that at the school.  And I said, “Look, do you want me to step in and try to study?”  At that time, Microsoft was not the size of Microsoft today.  Microsoft Brazil was tiny, tiny, tiny organization at that time. So what I did, I started studying the Microsoft Project, and I started going to clients with Microsoft to explain what was this new tool.  And this was how I got into that.  And then I said, “Wow, this is fascinating.  Microsoft is investing a lot on that.  So I think I can benefit with my engineering background.”  And with that, I looked on the Internet, and I found PMI.  I became a member.  Yeah, and then everything, I always tell that I start through, I would say, the back door; you know?  I start to use the software, then to see the potentiality of the discipline.  This is how I started, long time ago. BILL YATES:  That’s amazing.  Yeah, that’s a long time ago.  And it’s so interesting.  Fast-forward in 2022, you’ve been recognized as a PMI Fellow.  And that’s just, that’s fantastic.  It’s amazing, you go from, dabbling with Microsoft Project and introducing that and influencing that in Brazil.  And then fast-forward to where you are today.  That’s phenomenal. Transforming Passion into Profession RICARDO VARGAS:  Sometimes when I try to look back, everything that happened with me was, of course, I had a very strong direction of travel because I like, since I was very young, to build things, to transform ideas into reality.  For example, I remember when I was a child.  And I come from a simple family in Brazil, and we did not have resources to buy things, to buy toys.  So I used to build the toy.  And most of the time, I spent most of the time having the idea to build a new car with, you know, cans, and doing this.  But when the car was ready, I didn’t have too much fun on playing.  For me, the fun was to build the car and not to play with the car.  And this is how things start. So I am fascinated about getting things done.  And I transformed this passion into a profession.  And this is how things were, I would say, a little bit easier for me on my journey.  I also love to help people also to move forward, you know, this collective sense.  And this is why, for example, I’m doing this podcast.  This is why, for example, I struggle to say no when people invite me to talk because maybe out of hundreds of people that may listen, you know, you can touch on one person, and we can make something different to him or to her.  This is what is my passion about. BILL YATES:  That’s terrific.  And we’re definitely aligned with that.  Just the thought of, if just one project manager takes away something from this conversation today that improves their work or their work-life balance, then that’s success. Brightline Initiative You know, one of the career stops that you made that we wanted to ask you about involved Brightline Initiative.  You launched that, and you worked with that for four years.  Just for our listeners, can you give a description of the Brightline Initiative, and then what your role was in that? RICARDO VARGAS:  Yeah, the PMI Board of Directors between 2013 and 2000, I would say ‘15, was trying to understand why project management was so powerful, so strong on the mid-level management, but very much disconnected from the top management.  So the senior, the C-level executive, the CEO, he or she did not think that project management was something to think about.  They think about, “Oh, I need to envision the future.  I need to see how the future will be.”  And then I just put this on a piece of paper, and I throw to someone and say, “Now just deliver it.”  And what companies start seeing is that, “Oh, this is not working very well, you know.  This is not working.” So what was the idea?  The best way I want to explain this, and I will explain extremely informal, imagine that you have one mountain in one side with the project managers, and this group has awareness of the value, has awareness of the profession.  I would say PMI and other associates have a good influence on that.  On the other side of that mountain is the senior exec, the leadership that does not necessarily recognize the other side of the mountain the way it is. And PMI tried for many times to build this bridge through one side, going from the project management and trying to build this bridge.  But as far as you go away from the initial mountain, your bridge does not have too much strength to be kept.  So what I tell everybody, Brightline Initiative was like a special force, you know, operation.  So what we did, we suddenly appeared in the middle of that mountain with a name that was different and why it was different, to reduce the resistance.  When people say project management, “Oh, then it’s the other mountain.  It’s not with me that you talk.” So we create Brightline, and we connected in a coalition with other institutions.  And what was the aim of Brightline?  It’s to convince these people to help us to bridge this gap from the other side so we can connect.  It means this will increase the power of the profession.  So project manager, most of the time the profession has a ceiling.  It means you go project manager, senior project manager, then you go maybe to program, program director, and that’s it.  For you to go up, then you need to shift a little bit, then you can go up.  So why not have a Chief Project Officer, something like that. And this is exactly what we did.  This is why, for example, the circles that Brightline was navigating were different.  And this was why at the beginning this was not very much disclosed because we want to build that relationship with the World Economic Forum.  And this was basically my task because I have experience as, for example, the company in Brazil that I told you that was the partner,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. The need for optimal emotional intelligence is even more pronounced in project management and Dr. Vanessa Druskat, who is married to a project manager, shares insights on emotional and team intelligence on how to improve your own EQ. If we can get in touch with an emotion, we can manage it, and the more emotionally and self-aware we are the more we can build emotionally intelligent teams. Table of Contents 02:37 … What is Emotional Intelligence?05:43 … Developing Your Emotional Intelligence07:07 … A Work in Progress08:25 … EQ and Cognitive Intelligence09:20 … The Need for Emotional Intelligence in Projects11:03 … EQ Research Study of Project Managers12:48 … Self-Confidence15:50 … Kevin and Kyle16:54 … Emotional Intelligence Starts with Self-Awareness19:09 … The Brain Science behind Emotional Intelligence21:03 … The Emotional Brain at the Unconscious Level23:53 … No Motivation without Emotion25:59 … Managing Oneself29:44 … Social Harmony34:45 … Find Out More36:42 … Closing VANESSA DRUSKAT:  And so the kind of norms that create space for people so that everyone can have the synergy, the kind of habits you create build an emotionally intelligent environment, and are more likely to have harmony and synergy and really produce.  You can produce results without that, but they’re not going to be synergistic.  They’re not going to be as good, WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer.  We love to have you join us twice a month to be motivated and inspired by project stories and leadership lessons and advice from industry experts from around the world. And just one of those industry experts is Vanessa Druskat.  Vanessa is a multi-award-winning behavioral scientist, and she’s an internationally recognized expert on leadership and team development.  She has a research program examining the differences between the behavioral strategies of high- and average-performing work teams.  And this led her to pioneer the concept of team emotional intelligence. Vanessa has a popular Harvard Business Review article with S. Wolff on emotionally intelligent teams.  She’s a member of the board of directors of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, and she talks a little bit about that at the end of the podcast.  And she’s also an associate professor at the University of New Hampshire’s Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.  So you may have gathered we’re talking about emotional intelligence. BILL YATES:  Yes, we are.  This is such a critical skill for project leaders, for project managers because we all know it.  We can’t do this on our own.  We’ve got to work with a team.  Sometimes that team, each one of the team members brings their own issues to the table.  We’ve got our own issues.  You bring in the issues of our customer, the issues of our contractors, and there’s just a lot to manage. WENDY GROUNDS:  There’s a lot of issues. BILL YATES:  There’s a lot of issues.  So we need to be more emotionally intelligent and figure out how to get things done. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Vanessa.  Welcome to Manage This. VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Thank you.  It’s wonderful to be here with you, Wendy. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we’re very happy to have you as our guest, and this is definitely a topic we’ve wanted to talk about again.  And I think you bring such a fresh perspective.  And Bill and I were very excited when we found out your husband was a project manager. BILL YATES:  Yeah. WENDY GROUNDS:  So you definitely speak with some authority on this topic. VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Yes, indeed.  I’ve heard plenty of stories from my husband. BILL YATES:  I’ll bet. VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Some difficult times. BILL YATES:  Yes. What is Emotional Intelligence? WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah.  So to get started, let’s just talk a little bit about what constitutes emotional intelligence.  Could you just describe that for us? VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Sure.  So two things about emotional intelligence that I’ll start off by saying.  In the field of psychology, we never really knew what social skills were.  We didn’t know how to measure them.  We couldn’t define them.  And so early on in the 1950s and ‘60s, the most well-known psychologists said let’s just not deal with social skills.  Let’s focus on what we can measure easily and define, which is, you know, IQ, cognitive intelligence.  And once we started learning more about the brain, we started learning about the importance of emotion in social interaction.  We started to really understand what social skills are all about. And so essentially emotional intelligence is a great way to define social skills.  We now know that every social interaction involves an exchange of emotion.  And so emotional intelligence really is using emotion as data.  It’s recognizing that emotion, recognizing that this is an exchange of emotion and managing that emotion.  Often it’s really managing yourself in order to help manage the other person. But let me give you the formal definition that most people agree to.  I’m going to have to read it to you, but I’ll explain it once I read it.  It’s a personal and social intelligence – because it is really about yourself, but it’s also about the way you interact with others – that enables us to monitor our own emotions and the emotions of others, to discriminate among emotions.  So, for example, you can discriminate between anger and anxiety, which is something a lot of people confuse, and then to use that information to guide your thinking and your decision-making, your actions, your interactions.  And so really it is using emotion as data to improve your interactions. BILL YATES:  That’s good. VANESSA DRUSKAT:  And your decisions, by the way, because every decision involves emotion, we now know. BILL YATES:  To me, there are two significant pieces to that.  There’s the self piece, self-awareness, self-management; and then looking at a team or looking at another person and recognizing what’s going on with those other people, and then trying to influence that.  Like you said, you know, there’s cognitive.  There’s, “Okay, how do I do on an IQ test?”  That’s one thing.  But now I’ve got to work with people and get things done.  So let’s look at EQ and see really how effective can I be. VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Exactly.  Once you’ve got to start interacting with others – because, you know, we can’t do these things alone, especially project manager.  You’re not supposed to be doing it alone.  As soon as you’ve got others involved, you need to really think about who they are, their emotional world, how you impact them emotionally, how you’re coming across, because it impacts the way they respond to you. BILL YATES:  Yeah, that’s tremendous. Developing Your Emotional Intelligence WENDY GROUNDS:  Can a person develop emotional intelligence and these interpersonal skills, if that doesn’t come naturally? VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Yes, absolutely.  That’s been one of the great things about the field of emotional intelligence.  I can tell you there’s been a lot of research in the last 30 years.  First, we spent a decade trying to define it.  Then we spent a decade trying to say, “Well, what’s its link to performance in all different kinds of areas?”  We also look at it in school systems, by the way.  Originally, a lot of the research was focused on kids and their emotional awareness.  But the business world, organizational world just clung onto it and said, “Finally, there’s something that can help define what differentiates really high performers from people who are good, but not really superior in their roles.” So the last decade has been all about how do we develop it, and in fact we can.  So there’s been a lot of really good research done.  Some of my colleagues at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio have done a lot of that.  They’ve tracked MBA students over time.  They’ve helped develop skills.  And they’ve seen which ones last, you know, how you develop them and which skills actually last for, you know, a five-year period.  So yes, it’s not easy to develop in the sense that it requires practice. BILL YATES:  Yeah. VANESSA DRUSKAT:  So you can’t just read about it.  You have to do it.  And that requires some risk, especially if you’re an introvert. A Work in Progress BILL YATES:  Yeah.  This is so important to me, and this is an area where we’ve got some other building blocks that we’ll cover.  But then we’ll get into some practical advice that you can share with us for those who need to grow this ability.  But I just want to hit the pause button and say to the listeners, this is great news, right, for those who struggle with this.  And man, I just have the hardest time connecting with my team, or I have the hardest time getting along with my customer, or my contractors.  There’s hope, right?  There’s a whole body of study behind this, and there are practical steps that you can take.  So we’ll go into that deeper, but that’s just really good news that you shared.  Yes, this can be developed. VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Yes, absolutely.  It’s always a work in progress. BILL YATES:  Sure. VANESSA DRUSKAT:  And I’m, you know, I’ve been working on it myself, so I can tell you some of my own stories.  And my husband, as well. WENDY GROUNDS:  I think we all take a look back, you know, 20, 30 years ago, look back in our youth, and we think, “Oh, my gosh, the things I did.”  I was so emotionally unintelligent. BILL YATES:  Yeah. WENDY GROUNDS:  Not that I’ve got it all together now; but, man. VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Yeah.  And also the good news is, typically, the older we get, the more emotionally intelligent we become because we’ve had more emotional experiences.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. The FIFA World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world. With billions of people tuning in to view the games, we wondered if anyone noticed the grass! In this unique project story, John Holmes explains how he navigated the selection process and became the exclusive supplier of turfgrass for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. We share the planning, logistics, challenges, constraints and lessons learned in this remarkable project. Table of Contents 02:18 … Meet John03:41 … Atlas Turf Production05:22 … Sustainable Solutions06:53 … The Bid for The FIFA World Cup Turf09:23 … Transporting the Turf11:46 … Project Coordination and Planning14:12 … Kevin and Kyle15:41 … Project Budget16:57 … Project Timeline18:47 … Biggest Risk Factor19:39 … Collaborations and Cultural Differences21:43 … Government Restrictions22:38 … Lessons Learned23:56 … Soccer vs. Golf Turf25:52 … Leadership Advice from John27:30 … Find out More28:33 … Closing JOHN HOLMES: I’ve been really fortunate to travel to some very unique places.  And it’s really helped me grow as a person, and meeting folks from different cultures, nationalities, different beliefs than me.  But at the end of the day, everybody’s a human being and has the same struggles, similar struggles.  I try to be very respectful, too.  And I think that’s so important when you’re dealing with different cultures.  Well, at the end of the day in a business deal, everybody’s trying to get to the same point and having a successful project.  And figuring out a way to do it without animosity, without any issues is so important and makes things go very smoothly. WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast for project managers by project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and our engineer, Danny Brewer.  We love having you join us twice a month to be motivated and inspired by project stories, leadership lessons, and advice from industry experts from all around the world; and we love to bring you some support as you navigate your projects.  You can also claim free Professional Development Units from PMI by listening to our show.  Listen up at the end of the show for advice on how to do that. Now, Bill, we have an interesting conversation with John Holmes today. BILL YATES:  Yes. WENDY GROUNDS:  He’s from Atlas Turf.  Atlas Turf produced the grass for some of the world’s premier golf associations.  And I love the story that he was responsible for the turf that was used in the 2022 FIFA World Cup. BILL YATES:  Isn’t that amazing, yeah.  And he happens to be – their company is headquartered here in Georgia.  But he has delivered product and solutions all over the globe.  He’s had a lot of personal travel.  I’d like to see his passport and see some of the stamps in that. WENDY GROUNDS:  And he also has been in places like Sri Lanka, Mauritius, the Maldives, New Caledonia, Seychelles.  It’s all over the world into very interesting places he’s taking his grass. BILL YATES:  That’s true.  He delivers.  WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, John.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for joining us today. JOHN HOLMES:  So glad to be here and able to share our unique story. Meet John WENDY GROUNDS:  Have you always worked with turf?  What was your career path? JOHN HOLMES:  I have a degree in turf grass management.  But my career started when I was a teenager working on the local golf course in our town.  And in doing so I discovered that you could actually go to college and get a degree in managing turf grass, and I did that and became a golf course superintendent, managing the turf grass on a golf course, almost 32 years ago. BILL YATES:  How about that.  So you’ve been working with grass for 30-something years.  And then how did you come to Atlas, you know, what was that transition? JOHN HOLMES:  My career as a golf course superintendent took me and my wife to Mexico and the Philippines, managing golf courses.  And eventually I landed back here in the United States working for a turf farm as a salesperson.  And we created a unique business of exporting turf grass.  We didn’t invent the process, but we somewhat perfected it.  And then as the recession came along, the great recession in 2008-2009, I essentially bought the business from the company I was working with and created Atlas Turf.  And we set off, took off running in 2011. Atlas Turf Production WENDY GROUNDS:  Where are your turf products produced?  Where do you grow the grass? JOHN HOLMES:  So our core business is exporting turf grass stolons or sprigs.  And they’re grown in South Georgia, in Adel, Georgia; and in Camden, South Carolina at two different turf farms.  And we’ll get into that process, sure, in a little while.  We also have a seed company based just south of Portland, Oregon. BILL YATES:  You are located in LaGrange; is that right?  LaGrange, Georgia? JOHN HOLMES:  LaGrange, Georgia, yup, just southwest of Atlanta. BILL YATES:  For some I think they know it as LaGrange.  Those are for the fancy folks.  It’s amazing to me, I mean, what caught our attention was we started reading about Atlas Turf and the impact that your company was having all over the world.  Your turf is showing up in these huge projects, like the World Cup.  And it really brought attention.  But it’s not all about sporting fields.  You guys have a whole line of different products that meet different needs.  So describe a bit about those different products and how they’re being applied. JOHN HOLMES:  Our company in earnest starting providing turf grass solutions to golf courses in very difficult locations.  And when I say “difficult,” places where water quantity was a challenge, water quality was a challenge.  And we had products that would grow in those conditions.  But challenging for both the customer and us was getting the product to those unique, sometimes far out of the way locations.  And we really started our business hitting those obscure markets and just kind of grew into the business that we are today. Sustainable Solutions WENDY GROUNDS:  I was looking at your website.  I was very interested in some of the products that you do produce.  And I saw that you also, other than golf courses and sports fields and turf for soccer, you also have products that are solutions for erosion, reclaiming land, and those type of issues.  Can you tell us a little bit about that, and the grasses you produce for that? JOHN HOLMES:  Yeah, so we have a turf grass.  The scientific  name is paspalum vaginatum.  Seashore paspalum is the common name.  Platinum TE is the one variety, and Pure Dynasty is the seeded variety.  The paspalum turf grasses are very salt-tolerant, meaning they don’t grow with ocean water, but they tolerate higher levels of salt than almost any other turf grass.  And along with that tolerance comes the ability for those grasses to grow in adverse conditions like mining sites where heavy metals may be mined; and, you know, those mines have to be reclaimed and put back into their natural state.  Paspalum fits into those markets.  And because of the deep rooting of the paspalums, they’re also used in land stabilization, as well.  So we work with a number of companies across the United States on land reclamation projects and erosion control. BILL YATES:  Yeah. The Bid for The FIFA World Cup Turf WENDY GROUNDS:  The next thing I want to get into is the FIFA World Cup.  And for those who are not in the know of the FIFA World Cup, it was in 2022 towards the end of the year in Qatar; and Platinum TE was the turf on all the playing fields.  How did you bid for that project?  How did you get that project? JOHN HOLMES:  Yeah, it’s kind of an amazing story.  So about nine years ago I received an email from a person over in Qatar who was interested in trialing the Platinum TE on one of the soccer pitches at a facility called the Aspire Zone, which is the Olympic training facility for Qatar.  And they were interested in the Platinum TE, again because of its salt tolerance and its ability to grow in harsh climates.  And so we shipped some material over there, and one of my business trips over to the Middle East region, I stopped into Qatar.  I’d never been there before.  And I went to visit the field manager.  And he was just over the moon with the quality of the turf grass.  This was way before Qatar was awarded the World Cup.  And so they were happy with it.  We were happy that they were a happy customer. And then the country was awarded the World Cup.  And FIFA came in, and they started trials on which turf grass would work best there.  So the Aspire Zone folks, FIFA, and a couple of independent parties, STRI out of the U.K., started trialing turf grasses from all over the world in various different conditions, not knowing during the trials that the tournament would actually be in the cooler months of the year, but they also trialed the turf in heavy shade conditions because most of the stadiums are almost completely covered, not totally.  And during those trials, the Platinum TE kept on trialing number one, number one, number one. And so eventually we started getting requests from contractors in Qatar for our Platinum TE.  No one ever picked up the phone and said, “Hey, your Platinum TE’s going to be on the World Cup fields.”  But we kind of made that assumption.  And so we started sending turf grass over to Qatar from the farm in Adel, Georgia with our partners Pike Creek Turf. Transporting the Turf The turf, just a background on how that process works, is harvested by a machine, and imagine squares of sod shredded into small pieces of grass.  And they’re washed free of soil, hydro-cooled and boxed, and flown over to Qatar.  We do that with the majority of our shipments of turf grass.

The podcast by Project Managers for Project Managers. What do you do when you inherit a problem project? Hear about a stalled project that was threatening the accreditation of a popular city zoo. Our guest, Megan Young, inherited this project with no knowledge of the requirements, and with no plan or clear scope. Hear her advice on prioritizing, budget planning, addressing scope creep, negotiating tips, and team motivation. Table of Contents 02:41 … Greenville City Projects03:33 … Getting PMP Certified05:39 … Valuable Project Manager Skills07:20 … Addressing a Stalled Zoo Project10:31 … Tackling the Challenges12:36 … Building Trust with Stakeholders15:11 … How to Prioritize17:10 … Software Installation Projects19:27 … Kevin and Kyle20:42 … Budget Planning24:20 … Negotiating Tips26:32 … Addressing Scope Creep28:15 … Keeping the Team Motivated30:26 … Dealing with team Conflict32:40 … Megan’s Motivation33:45 … Contact Megan34:28 … Closing MEGAN YOUNG: You can learn a lot by just showing up onsite and having a conversation with somebody.  People will talk to you when they’re comfortable in their space. And a lot of times that means just going out and standing beside them.  I mean, when I was in the Parks Department, sometimes it meant helping somebody put a bench together.  And they would talk to you in that process and you’d kind of hear the good, the bad, and the ugly.  But a lot of times it was the most valid of the truth that you were hearing. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Thank you for joining us today.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and joining me in the studio is Bill Yates.  We want to take a moment to specially say thanks to our listeners who reach out to us and leave comments on our website or on social media.  We love hearing from you, and we always appreciate your positive ratings and reviews on whichever podcast listening app you use. Our guest today is Megan Young.  She currently serves as the Assistant Manager to the City Manager for the City of Greenville, South Carolina.  Prior to joining the City Manager’s Office, Megan was the Parks and Grounds Administrator for the City of Greenville.  Megan is a certified project management professional and certified park and recreation professional. During her time in the PRT department, Megan led the implementation of the Cityworks program as a work and asset management system.  She managed large and small-scale infrastructure projects and was integral in the successful reaccreditation of the Greenville Zoo in 2020.  And she’s going to tell us a bit about that project today. BILL YATES:  I’m excited about this.  We are going to talk about the zoo.  We’re going to talk about spider monkeys.  We’re going to talk about parks and recreation.  And I’ve got to go ahead and just let you know, too, this is near and dear to my heart because I went to Furman University, which is in Greenville, South Carolina.  Now, I graduated in 1980 [mumbling] something. WENDY GROUNDS:  It’s a while back, yeah. BILL YATES:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  And Greenville at that time was just not cool.  It is super cool now.  And a lot of it is because of Megan and the team there at the City of Greenville and what they’ve done.  They’ve got an amazing Liberty Bridge and Falls Park area.  There’s the Swamp Rabbit Trail which my wife and I have actually ridden bikes on and walked along.  It’s just beautiful.  So Megan’s going to talk to us about a number of parks and different projects that they’ve done.  But this is, again, it’s special to me because she’s talking about an area that is a rich part of my history. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, that’s really cool.  I’ve driven through Greenville.  I’ve never stopped there, but I think after this podcast I’m definitely going to take a stop next time I plan on driving through. BILL YATES:  Definitely. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Megan.  Welcome to our podcast. MEGAN YOUNG:  Hi, thank you.  Happy to be here. Greenville City Projects WENDY GROUNDS:  To start off with, can you tell us a bit about your role?  You work with the City Manager.  Describe some of the projects that you work on. MEGAN YOUNG:  So currently I work in the City Manager’s Office as the assistant to the City Manager.  It’s kind of all-encompassing high-level projects that have a lot of visibility.  So that’s everything from vertical construction, park facilities.  You know, obviously we’re going to talk a little bit about animal enclosures and our zoo.  We’ve done some software implementation.  I’m involved in a lot of the grants process.  So it’s a little bit of a catchall.  But anything that the city is involved in from a municipal services standpoint I kind of at least get to have some visibility on. BILL YATES:  That is diverse.  That’s a lot of different – yeah. MEGAN YOUNG:  It is. BILL YATES:  You’re helping with grant writing one minute, and then trying to keep some other stakeholders happy on software projects.  And then park facilities, man, yeah. Getting PMP Certified WENDY GROUNDS:  Before we get into your projects, I think people would be interested to know about your PMP experience.  When did you get your PMP, and how did that really change how you approach your projects? MEGAN YOUNG:  So I started the process early 2020 with training and reading and really had heard about the program but wasn’t 100% sure what I was getting into.  I figured it would be a good next step.  I was managing some projects, but I felt like I was just kind of doing it my own way.  So did a little research, found this program, and decided I’d go for it.  So I actually took the exam in December of 2020.  And luckily enough, a coworker of mine who’s one of our capital projects managers, we kind of did it simultaneously, which was helpful then and helpful now since we both kind of are speaking from the same sheet of music.  But that’s really what I gained from it was, you know, a more methodical approach.  All of our colleagues have the same standards, kind of speaking the same language.  We have a huge array of project types.  So if everybody’s kind of on the same page with the basics, then it makes it a lot easier to get down into the details of the projects. BILL YATES:  Megan, I can remember how, with the training, I felt like some things were validated that I had been doing, and then there were some other things that were new to me.  I’m like, oh.  You know, I could take that approach.  That’s a great idea.  I’m going to throw that in my toolkit.  But I also remember the sense of a deeper understanding of what was being said in meetings where there were consultants or outside companies that were a part of the project.  It’s like, okay, now I have better expectation of what they should be doing or should not be asking and that kind of thing.  Or why they’re asking for certain data.  It’s like, oh, okay, they’re having to let the sponsor know about this aspect of the project.  I’m not as interested in it.  I’m focused right here.  But now I get why they’re asking that.  And I imagine the types of projects that you have working with the city, you probably have a ton of outside contractors that you guys are having to interface with across different disciplines. MEGAN YOUNG:  An array of stakeholders, contractors, vendors, consultants.  It’s a little bit of everything. Valuable Project Manager Skills BILL YATES:  Yeah.  So one of the questions we wanted to ask, just along the lines of what are some skills that you’ve found valuable as a project manager? MEGAN YOUNG:  So I’d say the biggest thing for me is organization, just making sure that I know what’s going on, but also everybody else knows what’s going on.  So between organization and communication, I think those are the two biggest things.  Obviously accountability and follow-up, especially when you’re working with external groups, or even internal groups, there’s got to be an expectation of, you know, from the beginning, here are the expectations.  Here’s how we’re going to get to where we’re going.  And then everybody needs to be accountable to those steps as we go. I’m not a big tech person, but I’m a big software and using the tools that you have.  So we’ve implemented ProCore as a building solution for a lot of our big capital projects.  I’m a believer in using software to get you to where you need to go and to keep you organized and accountable.  And I think that that’s helped us get through a lot of different projects with everybody being able to access the same information, seeing steps as they go instead of after the fact.  And then really being able to engage with stakeholders at the right time.  The zoo is a special place, and I know we’ll kind of get into that, but there’s a lot of stakeholders in that process. So I think for me as a project manager you’ve got to be organized, and you’ve got to be willing to trust the subject matter experts, just like you said.  Sometimes you’re in a meeting, and you’re like, I have no idea why we’re doing this, why we’re going this route, why this is even a conversation we’re having.  But you’ve got to trust those people because, you know, I’m not an expert in that list of different type of projects I gave you at the beginning.  I’m not an expert in all those fields.  But, you know, if you could surround yourself with people who are, and trust them, it goes a long way. Addressing a Stalled Zoo Project WENDY GROUNDS:  You brought up the zoo.  So let’s jump into some of your projects that you’ve been doing at the zoo.  Apparently there was a stalled project at the zoo that you stepped in?  Can you describe that situation to us? MEGAN YOUNG:  Sure.  So the zoo here in Greenville is an accredited agency through the American Zoos and Aquariums Association.  I think we’re one of probably the smallest that’s accredited through that program.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Situated at the most heavily trafficked public space in the world, Times Square in New York is undergoing an extraordinary renovation and expansion project.  Hear how the iconic Palace Theatre was raised 30 feet to make room for commercial space below. The goal of this complex project was to preserve the historic theater box, which was built in 1913, and raise it to its new home on the third floor of TSX Broadway. Table of Contents 02:16 … Intro to the Project03:12 … Raising a Theater04:42 … The TSX Broadway Project06:56 … Seeing the Vision08:34 … Major Stakeholders10:24 … Retained Slab Project11:47 … Effective Collaboration14:26 … The Hydraulic Lifting18:58 … Project Timeline20:27 … Kevin and Kyle22:00 … Monitoring the Lift24:53 … A Coordinated Effort25:38 … Lessons Learned27:40 … Advice for Project Managers29:08 … Find out More30:39 … Closing ROBERT ISRAEL: But I think the most important thing that I have been successful at is planning.  If you’re a good project manager, you know how to plan.  And if you can think three steps ahead of where you need to be, you’re going to be a successful project manager.  WENDY GROUNDS:  Hello, and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Thank you for joining us.  I am Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me is Bill Yates.  If you like what you hear, we’d love to hear from you.  You can leave us a comment on our website, Velociteach.com; on social media; or whichever podcast listening app you use.  If you have any questions about our podcasts or about project management certifications, we’d love to hear from you. Our guest today is Robert Israel.  He’s an executive vice president at L&L Holding Company.  Robert leads and directs all aspects of the TSX Broadway project development’s design and construction.  Previously, Robert was the cofounder of Solid Development Group.  He has also served as a project director for RFR Holding, and he has served in various management roles at CBRE.  But it’s his project that we are most excited to hear about.  And I’m going to let Bill tell you more about that. BILL YATES:  Oh, man.  We are so excited about this.  We are delighted to have Robert as our guest because he has been instrumental in this $2.5 billion TSX Broadway project.  And the piece that we want to focus on is the raising of the Palace Theatre.  So we’ll talk about all aspects of it, but especially this historic theater, it’s a 1,700-seat theater that was opened in 1913, and it was on the ground floor.  Well, Wendy, it’s not on the ground floor anymore.  This thing has been raised 30 feet.  We’re going to talk about how you do that in a very busy Times Square with a historic building and all of the complexity that went into that.  Robert was right in the middle of it.  He’s got some amazing tips and tricks and advice that he’ll share. WENDY GROUNDS:  And also it’s not just the raising of the theater, which is the main thing we talk about; but it’s all the other components that are going into this building in New York.  Hi, Robert.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for talking with us today. ROBERT ISRAEL:  Thanks for having me.  Appreciate you guys inviting me on. Intro to the Project WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we’re looking forward to hearing more about this project.  Just as an introduction, can you tell us a little bit about L&L Holding and how long you’ve been working for the company? ROBERT ISRAEL:  Sure.  I’ve been working at L&L Holding for just over five years.  I came onboard with L&L in 2017, just as we were sort of awarded the project, TSX Broadway.  And we spent two years in preconstruction, essentially, and started construction with TSX on the beginning of 2019.  But L&L overall, we own approximately 8 million square feet in New York City, mostly office/retail.  This is our first foray into the hospitality world, really.  And, you know, it has been an exciting addition to our portfolio. But yes, L&L’s been in business over 20 years.  It was founded by Rob Lapidus and David Levinson.  Great place to work, great culture, and we manage like a family. Raising a Theater BILL YATES:  So you joined the company, and they toss you this small little, you know, side project; right?  This is the first one you’re working on with L&L.  That’s huge. ROBERT ISRAEL:  Yeah, before I was actually hired, I met with David Levinson and Rob Lapidus several different times and a couple other folks from the company.  And they actually sent me a set of these plans.  It wasn’t called TSX back then.  It was called 1568 Broadway.  And they wanted me to review the plans and come up with some questions and comments relating to the plans when I was interviewing with them.  I wouldn’t call it a test, but they probably would. And, you know, so I got this set of drawings which was quite large, and I reviewed them, and I had to actually look at the plans multiple times to make sure that I was actually looking at them and reading them and understanding them and interpreting correctly.  It showed us actually lifting the theater.  I wrote it down several times on my notepad, “lifting theater.”  I said, no, it must be a mistake.  No way.  And, you know, sure enough, I went into a couple of different meetings with them, and we were actually going to lift a 1,700-seat theater that’s landmarked from an interior perspective, 30 feet from its original elevation.  And we’ve actually done it as of today.  We actually completed it. So yes, it was quite the daunting aspect.  And the amount of complexity associated with this project from start to finish, even as of today, everything we do is complex.  So yes, it was a very small project they asked me to start with. BILL YATES:  That’s great. The TSX Broadway Project WENDY GROUNDS:  Can you give us just a little background as to what the whole vision for this TSX Broadway project is?  Part of it was lifting the theater, but there’s a whole lot else that’s involved. ROBERT ISRAEL:  Sure.  I mean, look.  We live in New York City; right?  And obviously real estate is quite expensive.  But who in their right mind would first of all be able to stand out front of what was originally a 47-story building that was owned and operated by a real estate manager, that had a hotel component in it, had a retail component in it, had a theater in it?  And stand there and say, all right, we’re going to pay $1.1 billion for an asset, which included also signage assets, and we’re going to knock this asset down that was less than 30 years old, okay, and then rebuild. Number one, it’s going to take hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild and knock down, and then ultimately have a mixed-use development in New York City and own and operate it.  There’s not a lot of mixed-use developments in New York City.  They’re usually office, they’re usually condo, they’re usually multifamily.  There’s not a lot of comingling of uses in New York City. And this project is a mixed-use development.  It has hotel, hospitality.  It has theater.  And it has retail.  So there’s a huge set of complex circumstances in order to just understand and manage and design that so it all works together so that everybody can get in and out of the building safely, and all of the three uses can comingle and operate in a single property and do what they’re each meant to do. Theater can do performances.  Hotel can sell rooms to guests.  And this retail is unique because it’s not only just regular retail space, but also we’ve designed into the property a stage space with an opening in our LED signage, which by the way is one of the largest signs in the world, in Times Square, which has a 30x30-foot opening in it that, if you’re standing out front, you’re looking at a sign, you don’t know that there’s an actual door there.  And it will then open to a stage space where performers will be able to either be performing indoors, or then as the doors open can be performing outdoors to the Duffy Square/Times Square world.  So a unique part of the property is our stage. Seeing the Vision BILL YATES:  That is fantastic.  Because this is the historic Palace Theatre – it opened in 1913 – and you raised this thing 30 feet.  And then through this, one of the things that surprised me was you opened up 100,000 square feet of retail space as a part of this project.  The complexity of it is just mind-blowing.  The vision of seeing, okay, we have this incredibly lucrative space for retail, if we could just get to it.  How can we get to it?  Let’s raise the theater.  As you were looking at the blueprints, meeting with the owners, you must have been thinking, okay, there’s a bit of insanity here.   How are we going to pull this off technically? ROBERT ISRAEL:  Well, yeah.  And just to show you how positive we thought the project was going to be, opening up that retail space by lifting the theater was the only way we could do the this project.  The financial implications of getting that space and making it available to us as a developer, it made the project.  Yeah, the hotel’s a hotel, it’s 600 rooms, it’s going to do what it’s going to do.  The theater we don’t own.  We’ve bought the right to condo it and then lift it.  It’s still owned by the Nederlander family. So the retail space makes this project, 100%.  Retail in Times Square is a unique set of circumstances.  Again, if you look at our corner of 47th Street and Seventh Avenue corner, pre-pandemic, pre-COVID, there were over 400,000 people passing by that corner a day.  We’re almost back to that now, post-COVID.  We’re probably somewhere between 80 and 90% of that right now.  But if you walk out in Times Square, you’ll see it.  You’ll feel it.  It’s back.  Tourists are back to New York City.  And again,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. The creative problem-solving process is far beyond simply generating ideas, and the project manager’s role is critical in the process. Dr. Amy Climer shares how to increase creativity to maximize innovation. Hear how to facilitate the clarify/ideate/develop stages of the creative problem-solving process to a successful implementation. Table of Contents 02:43 … Meet Amy04:00 … “I’m Not Creative!”05:29 … Practice Creativity06:42 … Strengthen Problem Solving Skills07:46 … Solving the Right Problem11:30 … Be Willing to Change Your Mind12:26 … Facing Resistance15:59 … Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process17:38 … Creative Problem Solving and The PM22:05 … Kevin and Kyle23:25 … Divergent and Convergent Thinking27:49 … Initiating Ideas28:48 … Suspend Judgement29:30 … Seek Wild Ideas30:09 … Going For Quality31:51 … Convergent Thinking33:06 … Be Deliberate33:53 … Be Affirmative34:31 … Consider Novelty35:01 … Common Mistakes Made in the Process37:51 … Associations and Climer Cards41:27 … Get in Touch with Amy43:42 … Closing AMY CLIMER: ...an important skill of being more creative is being willing to change your mind.  And if you get so fixated on like this is the solution and you ignore all the data that might be coming in, or you don’t want to pay attention to this conversation, then you’re not open to this possibility.  So being open-minded to different perspectives, different solutions is a huge piece of being able to be more creative. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hello, and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me is Bill Yates Just a quick thanks to our listeners who reach out to us and leave comments on our website or on social media.  We always love hearing from you.  We know you’re also looking for opportunities to acquire PDUs, your Professional Development Units, towards recertifications.  And you can still claim PDUs for all our podcast episodes.  Listen up at the end of the show for information on how you can claim those PDUs. Our guest today is Dr. Amy Climer, and we’re very excited to talk with her.  She teaches teams and organizations how to increase their creativity so they can maximize innovation.  She works with organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  She has a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University, and she’s developed the Deliberate Creative Team Scale to help teams understand how to increase their creativity.  Amy lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and she’s also the host of The Deliberate Creative Podcast, and we recommend you check that one out.  She shares practical device and strategies to help leaders build innovative teams. BILL YATES:  Wendy, we are so excited to have Dr. Climer on this episode because I think all project managers are looking for a process, a set of steps to go through problem solving.  A creative problem-solving process is what she’s going to walk through with us.  Problems just occur.  They’re going to happen probably every day on our project.  We’ll have some really full risk register, and then one of those risks will occur, and we’ll look at our plan, and we’ll say, “Hey, we thought that was going to happen, and it happened.  We’ll start following that plan.”  And then the plan fails.  And we’re like, okay, all hands meeting.  The team has to get together.  We’ve got another problem to solve.  We need a process to go about that, and Amy’s got great advice for us.  I’m excited about this. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Amy.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you for joining us. AMY CLIMER:  Thank you.  I’m very excited about our conversation. Meet Amy WENDY GROUNDS:  I know.  We’re looking forward to this.  This is a topic I’ve been wanting to talk about for some time.  So I’m glad we found you.  And I first want to find out how you got into this whole subject of creative problem solving.  Give us a little of your history. AMY CLIMER:  Yeah.  So I’ve been kind of fascinated by the topic of creativity, honestly since high school.  And I can’t actually point to, like, one thing.  But I remember in high school being really frustrated when I heard friends of mine say, oh, I’m not creative.  I don’t have a creative bone in my body.  And I was like, “What?  Yes, you do.”  And I would get really emphatic with them.  And anyway, you know, as an adult I started digging more into creativity.  Then in 2011 I actually started a Ph.D. program that was focused on leadership and change.  But I went into that program very specifically with the goal to study creativity from like the leadership perspective, the team perspective.  And then I stumbled upon the Creative Problem Solving Institute, which is where I got trained in really understanding creative problem solving, which I know we’ll talk about.  I’ve been working with teams and organizations, helping them be more creative, since about 2009.  And I’ve just worked with all sorts of amazing groups, and I love what I get to do. “I’m Not Creative!” BILL YATES:  Wendy, this is so funny.  She’s already hit on it.  We have some of our listeners who will swear to you, Amy, “I’m not creative.  I’m not hired to be creative.  I’m hired to get things done.  Somebody else comes up with the ideas.”  You know, what do you say to those people who swear they’re not creative? AMY CLIMER:  A couple things.  The first is that creativity is something that we naturally as humans have.  And if you just look around wherever you are, unless you’re out on a nature hike while you’re listening to this, but everything you see we created; right?  Like even microphones, podcasts, the table, the chair I’m sitting in, like we just honestly can’t help ourselves.  And I think we’re a pretty unique species in that way.  So even – and creativity wouldn’t happen without the implementation.  So project managers are actually really critical in the creative process.  Creativity is far beyond just generating ideas, which I know we’ll get into that. The other thing I would say is that creativity is a skill.  And it’s a skill that can be and must be nurtured and developed over time.  So the people that you know, if you think about the people who are just highly creative that you know, if you really started looking at them and asking questions about their lives, they probably have been working at that for years, decades, maybe even from the time they were little kids, you know, some maybe with more intention than others, but they’ve been working on being more creative.  And so, yeah, it’s a skill you can develop, just like any other skill. Practice Creativity BILL YATES:  That’s funny.  That reminds me of one of the things I loved about Jerry Seinfeld the comedian, about his kind of that match of creativity and rigor, or practice, if you will, or habits.  You know, he has that healthy habit of writing every day.  And he has a calendar laid out, and he wants to see that X mark or that green check, whatever he does on his calendar every day showing that he wrote something.  It may be trash.  He may never even try that joke out.  There’s some funny observation or something that he did.  So there’s that match of when I think of Jerry Seinfeld I think, oh, that guy’s so creative.  How can he walk into a room that’s just kind of a boring, mundane, everyday setting, and he finds something funny.  Why don’t I see that?  He’s creative.  I’m not.  But there’s a method to that.  And so, yeah, yeah. AMY CLIMER:  Absolutely.  Yeah, and I’m really glad you brought that up.  Any book you read about how to write a book or how to write poetry or whatever, it says “Do this every day.”  You know, write a little bit every day.  If you wait for inspiration to strike, you will be waiting a very long time.  And professionals – Steven Pressfield is another great creative who’s written about this in his book “The War of Art” and other books.  And it’s like, yeah, you want to be creative?  Sit down and do the work. Strengthen Problem Solving Skills WENDY GROUNDS:  Going on from that, what are some other personal skills that our project managers, project leaders can strengthen so that they can become more adept at problem solving? AMY CLIMER:  I think one of the biggest things is just understanding how creativity works, and understanding the creative problem-solving process, which is the process that I mostly teach.  It’s very similar to design thinking or human-centered design.  There’s a bunch of them out there.  In my opinion, I don’t know that it really matters which one you know or understand.  They’re all so similar.  But understanding one of those and using it can be really, really powerful.  So that would be one skill that I think is important to develop. BILL YATES:  That’s good.  I can relate to that.  If I feel like, okay, this is something that I actually need to get better at, I need to be a better facilitator for these brainstorming sessions that our team has, where my sponsor’s present, or I have other vendors, you know, that are present, I need to get my act together.  It brings me comfort to hear you say “There’s a method to this.  There is a process.”  So I’m excited we’re going to walk through that. Solving the Right Problem WENDY GROUNDS:  There’s a quote by Steve Jobs.  He says:  “If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.”  It doesn’t make sense to generate lots of ideas if you’re solving the wrong problem.  So we first have to find out what is the right problem.  Can you talk a bit about that? AMY CLIMER:  Yes, absolutely.  So this is a key piece of the creative problem solving process.  So there are four stages of the creative problem solving process.  The first stage is clarify, and what is the problem, really identifying it,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Knowledge Management is a key practice for top-performing teams. We can improve our projects by tapping into, and managing, project knowledge. Join us to learn more about managing project knowledge, knowledge sharing, and nurturing knowledge within an organization. Table of Contents 01:56 … A Definition of Knowledge02:59 … Difference between Knowledge and Wisdom04:53 … Tacit Knowledge - “Knowhow” and “Know What”05:43 … The Purpose of Managing Knowledge06:20 … Managing Project Knowledge08:10 … Overcoming Resistance to Knowledge Bias09:52 … Projects Run on Knowledge11:03 … Measuring Business Value12:27 … Drink Tea14:59 … Face-to-Face Communication17:09 … Nurturing Knowledge in an Organization19:27 … Kevin and Kyle21:08 … Rewarding Knowledge Sharing22:55 … Building Organizational Trust25:04 … Developing Knowledge-Oriented Team Culture27:11 … Recognizing the Value of Knowledge29:06 … Building Successful Knowledge Projects32:42 … Effectively Harnessing Experience36:22 … Contact Larry36:57 … Closing LARRY PRUSAK: There’s a lot of ways to instill trust.  Trust your children.  Trust your community and things like that.  It really pays off.  I mean, it’s not so much being altruistic.  It pays off.  Things work better when you trust each other.  Speaking as a social scientist, it lowers the transaction costs.  You don’t have to always be looking over your shoulder or sniffing out things.  It lowers the cost.  Oh, yeah, I trust him.  He’ll do what he said, or she’ll do what she said. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and here in the studio with me is Bill Yates. So we want to take a moment to say thank you to our listeners who reach out to us and leave comments on our website or on social media.  We love hearing from you, and we always appreciate your positive ratings and reviews on whichever podcast listening app you use. Today we’re talking about a topic we’ve not addressed before, and we’re very excited to dig into it.  Our guest is Laurence Prusak, and Larry has been studying knowledge and learning for the past 30 years.  He has been a consultant in these areas for Mercer and a co-founder for Ernst & Young Center for Business Value.  He’s the founder and director of the IBM Institute for Knowledge Management and co-founder of the Babson College Working Knowledge Research Program.  He’s been a senior consultant for NASA, as well as teaching in over 40 universities.  He has also recently taught at Columbia University’s program on information and knowledge, and he has co-authored 11 books. BILL YATES:  Wendy, we got this recommendation from Stephen Townsend to reach out to Larry and talk with him.  One of the books that Larry recently worked on is called “The Smart Mission:  NASA’s Lessons for Managing Knowledge, People, and Projects.”  So as we get into this topic, I think project managers will appreciate the depth of Larry’s knowledge on knowledge management. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Larry.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for being our guest today. LARRY PRUSAK:  You’re welcome. A Definition of Knowledge  WENDY GROUNDS:  So we’re going to be talking knowledge management, which is a new topic for us on our podcast.  And we’re very excited that we have you with us.  Before we begin, could you give us your definition of knowledge? LARRY PRUSAK:  It’s what a knowledgeable person knows.  Think about, if you go to a dentist, a dentist knows how to fix your teeth.  If he wasn’t knowledgeable, you wouldn’t be going to him.  We’re talking about working knowledge, the knowledge that allows people to do things.  There’s other sorts of knowledge.  There’s religious knowledge, aesthetic knowledge, all sorts of things.  But we’re talking about the knowledge that allows you to do something, and do it well.  Information is not knowledge.  Knowledge isn’t data.  It’s the skill, the basis of a skilled activity. BILL YATES:  One of the writings that you did years ago hit on this point about information.  And I love this quote.  You say, “Information about customers becomes knowledge when decision-makers determine how to take advantage of the information.”  So it’s all about that application. LARRY PRUSAK:  Let me give you a little story.  You don’t mind if I tell a short story. WENDY GROUNDS:  Oh, we love stories. Difference between Knowledge and Wisdom LARRY PRUSAK:  Years ago I worked for a very big consulting firm that loved to get their names in the newspaper.  I won’t say who they are.  And I got a call from a Wall Street Journal reporter saying, gee, we’re hearing a lot about knowledge, and people say you know a little about it.  So could you define the difference between data, information, and knowledge, and wisdom? Well, I was caught off-guard.  I was at my desk.  But somehow a stroke of inspiration hit me, and I told them, let’s say you’re preparing a meal for someone you really like, and really want to get it right.  If you look at a recipe book, the letters in the recipe are data – A, B, C, D – or the numbers.  That’s data.  Little bits of this and that.  When data is put together in a meaningful way, it becomes information.  So a recipe is information.  It tells you how to make something.  It’s two-dimensional.  You can’t talk back to the recipe.  It’s static.  It doesn’t move.  It stays that way.  We have a whole bunch of cookbooks here.  They don’t move. Knowledge is knowing how to cook, which is experiential.  You don’t know how to cook until you really cook, and cook for a while.  During this recent COVID epidemic I told my wife, “I’ll take care of some of the cooking.”  And I realized I am not a cook.  I had a mother, I had two wives, so I didn’t have to cook.  But eventually I saw that the more you cook, the more you gain a little knowledge, and you know how to cook.  And so if you cook a lot, as my wife does and many people do, you gain knowledge of cooking.  That’s different than information.  Wisdom is marrying a good cook. BILL YATES:  That’s true.  If our listeners don’t take anything else from this, that is a key point of wisdom, yes. LARRY PRUSAK:  Printed it in a journal, I got all sorts of letters, people accusing me of being sexist.  I said, “I didn’t say what gender.  I don’t care who you marry.  But if you have some wisdom, and you’re going to live with someone, find someone who can cook well.” Tacit Knowledge - “Knowhow” and “Know What”  WENDY GROUNDS:  And that’s what you mean by “tacit knowledge,” the experience-based. LARRY PRUSAK:  Yeah.  It’s not always tacit.  I know my friend Jiro Nonaka used that a lot, and it became very, very popular.  All knowledge is tacit.  Someone once asked me to write an essay on what I learned growing up in Brooklyn, New York.  And I could never say enough, I mean, there’s so many – the smells, the sounds, the problems, dah dah dah.  All knowledge is tacit.  Some of it becomes explicit.  But a better way of looking at those terms are “knowhow” and “know what.”  Know what, for example, if someone’s talking about France, you would know that Paris is the capital of France.  But knowhow, how to get around in France, how to act, how to speak, that’s knowhow.  Firms pay a lot of money for knowhow, but they don’t always know how to manage it. The Purpose of Managing Knowledge WENDY GROUNDS:  That leads to the next question.  What is the purpose of managing knowledge? LARRY PRUSAK:  Well, it’s the most valuable thing you have in an organization.  I mean, around here, some of the schools are a little short on cash.  You know, if they’d raise the taxes for the schools.  And there’s a bumper sticker that says, “Well, if you don’t like knowledge, try ignorance.” David Teece, who’s a professor at Berkeley, who I learned quite a bit from, he said:  “Any organization is really composed of knowledge and relationships.  That’s about it.”  Knowledge and relationships.  There’s many other things we all can name, but those are the two key things, what you know how to do and the relationships you have with your customers. Managing Project Knowledge BILL YATES:  You know, it’s interesting, Larry, as I was thinking about our listeners or project managers, many of them are PMP certified.  They’ve studied and been exposed to the PMBOK Guide from PMI.  And I remember going from the 5th to the 6th Edition of the PMBOK Guide, there was an additional process.  There are 49 processes that define some of the work that project managers do.  And one of those 49 in the 6th Edition is called “Manage Project Knowledge.”  It’s the first time it showed up.  And it just made sense, you know, it’s like, oh, well, this should have been a part of what we were doing before.  Now we’ve finally spelled it out. And Manage Project Knowledge is to tap into and leverage the knowledge of the performing organization so that I do my project better.  Then I also add to that knowledge management, that bank of knowledge, by the times that I fall and skin my knees with my customer; and then I learn from that, and I share that with my organization. LARRY PRUSAK:  It’s also gaining knowledge outside the organization.  I mean, I was a consultant at NASA for 20 years.  Finally, after I was there 15, they decided to look at knowledge outside of NASA because no one, no organization can ever know enough these days.  The world is awash with knowledge.  You can never know enough.  I don’t care who you are.  I did some work for one of our government intelligence agencies.  They, too, never looked outside Virginia, and they’ve completely changed.  They’ve totally changed that way, sharing knowledge with where it’s appropriate.  I worked at Harvard for a number of years.  They thought, if they didn’t know it, it wasn’t knowledge.  I think they still may think that way.