Teamwork

As a (Project) Manager you can't always pick the team members or the topics you have to work on. Nevertheless you're still expected to build, or to be a part of, an effective team quickly.This is a challenging task because it usually takes time to get to know each other while you work toward a common goal. A good team requires a certain degree of trust and respect in each other. Everyone in the team needs to have a desire to contribute to the teams objectives and to help each other out. Only when you achieve mutual trust within the team you can expect real teamwork. This means that indiviuals place their own interests beneath the best interest of the team. In order to have this success you also have to be willing to pay the price for it. Every Team member has to be willing to sacrifice time and energy and to be accountable. In the end it will come down to the desire, dedication and enthusiasm of every individual on the team.
In a successful team people look out for each other. When team members care only about themselves the whole team suffers. Based on my experience I think that the best way to build relationships is to get people together outside of a work context. What are you doing to build a successful team?

Increase your fun at work

Today I want to look at one option that might increase your motivation at work considerably. Have you heard of Google's 20% projects projects? (look for "As a motivation technique, Google uses a policy often called Innovation Time Off?"). Isn't it interesting that Google's Management confirms that 50% of their innovation comes from these 20% projects. Some examples are Google Mail or Google News. Think about this, people invented these very successful services as side projects! That shows very clearly that when you care about something deeply you are doing more, much more, than expected. This should normally ensure that companies listen because you do more with the same number of people. Is your company listening?
This general approach is also true for Agile Software Development, as soon as you give more responsibility and accountability to teams, the performance goes up. That shows that people deliver amazing things if they have the environment that allows them to perform. Give your teams a chance to get together and work on improvements they are really interested in.
In many cases you don't need to get different people to get different results, you need to give your existing people the necessary room to perform. This approach is obviously not for everyone but if your company supports it I'm sure you get amazing results.

Grow your Team

As Peter Drucker said "No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective."
If you want to have a strong team you have to have strong team members. That applies to Project Teams as well as to functional teams. One way to grow your team is to ask for advice from your team before a decision is made. This gives the team a possibility to contribute and to help you form an opinion before a decision is made. This is very different from going back to the team after a decision has been made and then explain why you did what you did. For most Leaders there are so many tasks to be done that you can't do them all by yourself. You need help, sooner or later. If you try to do it all by yourself you get burnt out quickly. Therefore I consider it the responsibility of a leader to develop other leaders. What do you do in your team to develop leaders? Here are some benefits of developing leaders in your organization: They can help you to

• see things you might not want to see,
• get things done
• make better decisions 
• provide security and direction to others

What are the Qualities of a leader?

Today I read a book that stated that these are the qualities of a leader:  good character, influence, positive attitude, excellent people skills, proven track record, confidence, self discipline, effective communication skills and he/she should be discontent with the status quo.
Now a couple of these are pretty self explaining like confidence and effective communication skills. Others are pretty fuzzy like good character. What is a good character? It might be something different for you than it is for me. Then I think some characteristics are missing like: appropriate functional knowledge, someone who cares for his/her team and passion for your work. We could go on and add more but I think all this is trying to do is assigning labels to people. That makes live easier because you meet someone and give him a label and then you don't worry about it anymore. In turn this also shuts the door to some learning opportunities. I think it's worth to take the time and acknowledge that different industries, teams and people need different leaders. You can't just read a book or practice a certain Leadership style and assume that this is THE way to do it. Stay open and learn. There are many right ways so learn as much as you can and adjust your leadership style as needed.

Does your Team know what you expect from them?

If you want a professionaly productive and satisfied team you have to clearly state what you expect from them. This sounds fairly easy doesn't it? Now when I look at many teams it is obvious that the Roles & Responsibilities are not always as clear as they ought to be. Why is that?
In any case the result is people either seem to feel that they are vaguely responsible for everything or they are responsible for nothing.That doesn't help anyone, in fact it hinders them and the whole team. Therefore it needs to be very clear what your team members/employees are responsible for and what they are NOT responsible for. Just think about any team sport, not every player is playing every position. Your job as a (Project) manager is to make sure you get the right players at the right position. Once you have that clarified, maybe with a job description, you have to make sure that they have the right priorities. To stay with the sports analogy you don't want a Basketball Shooting Guard to focus on training for a Center. The priority and focus of a Center should be to 80% to  increase his Center skills.

Email, IM or Meeting?

It's worth to think about how you can address an open question or requirement before you send out the next level of an email chain or setup another meeting. There is a place for every communication (e.g. email, IM, Phone calls, face-to-face meetings, blogs, wikis, SharePoint etc.) it's up to you to use it appropriately.
Take some time and think what you really need and who can help you to get it. Don't give in to the temptation and just "throw it over the fence" to the next team. Also don't involve people just FYI (for your information) because they don't care in most cases. In addition to that you might earn a reputation as someone who sends meaningless communications.
I sometimes get long email chain's where the last person doesn't repeat the question/requirement but instead refers to a statement within the email chain. Now I have to go back and read the whole email or send it back to the sender to clarify. This is a serious time waster! Almost always multiple people are copied on these emails and so the waste is multiplied. Here I have some example guidelines that help me to choose a proper communication tool.

• IM: If you have a quick question and know that it can be answered without typing a novel
• email: When you want to clarify a situation, maybe even ahead of a meeting. The email should be concise and focus on some key points. As a guideline I always use 3 points, if it has more I keep refining it. If I have to read the email multiple times to make sense out of it, it is too long
• Meeting: (Phone, Face-to-Face, Web) When you have multiple stakeholders and a problem where not everyone has the same understanding it is good to have a meeting. To make the meeting successful you have to prepare it. Don't schedule meetings that you can't prepare.

Idea Sharing - Share people, not documents

What is the most effective way to share idea's? When something works well in a project or program it is always a question how you can spread this idea to more teams/people. In many cases the approach will be formalized and added to a "Best Practices" Document. While this might spread the idea, maybe via a Project Management Office,  it also takes some life out of it.  Generally people are excited if something works and they are typically glad to share what made them successful. When you just write it down in a document you take some life out of the idea.
To keep the idea alive and get the excitement to more teams have you thought about sharing people instead of documents? You can get some "live" feedback from "future idea adopters" and see what they consider good or bad and improve the idea even further. In addition to the feedback itself, the process of getting together and sharing the idea improves the relationship with colleagues/clients. Whenever your idea lends itself to being spread in such a way, do it. The idea will spread faster and will have a longer lasting impact.

Increase efficiency by taking breaks

When I walked my dog a couple of  weeks ago I listened to a Podcast from the Cranky Middle Manager show.  This episode was with Tony Schwartz and was about 4 needs (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual) that we all have. I thought it was 25 minutes very well spend especially since he had some interesting, practical idea's combined with scientific evidence like planning your day in 90 minute blocks. Focus 100% on a task for 90 minutes and then take a break. Breaks are important!
A couple of years ago I didnt' take any breaks. I was in projects where I was so consumed by some tasks that I didn't want to take a break. I wanted to get the tasks done, I needed to know that the open tasks were properly addressed. So I spend many late hours without any breaks and still didn't get it done properly. Then in the late evening I even had problems getting to sleep because the open tasks/questions were still following me.  When I got up the next day I was exhausted and the tasks got even harder. Then a couple of days later ,after I had a short break and some distance, I was walking the dog or running and I got the idea that helped to solve the task. Tony Schwartz describes some of these learning's in an entertaining and concise way in this podcast. Listen to it! It can help you to plan more efficiently.

Functional Skills are important

In my blog posts I focus mostly on the necessary soft-skills to succeed. Obviously that doesn't mean that functional skills (e.g. agile Project Management, Product Management) are not important. In fact they are very important! It is up to you to get, or keep, your functional skills where they need to be so that you can do what you want to do. If you are truly passionate about your job or desired job it shouldn't be that hard since you do what you want to do. On the other hand if you do it only for money or recognition from your peers or friends that can be challenging. I think you achieve the best results when you deeply care about something.
Something you don't forget as soon as you leave the (virtual) class room. In some companies you will be required to attend some classes but that is not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about functional skills YOU really want to master. YOU want to learn this and become better and better at it. You get a real desire to master this topic and help others with your skills. 
Maybe you need an additional degree or you need to study for a certification or maybe you need to get some funding to finance your start-up company. Whatever it is that drives you make sure that you clearly define your goals and objectives and then go for it.

Too many options

What do you do when you have many, maybe too many, options and a hard time to decide what to do? Whatever strategy you come up with it is important that you don't forget to act.
Depending on the situation you might need more or less time to make up your mind and that is fine. I consider it important though that I can make up my mind as quickly as the situation allows and that I don't get stopped because I'm afraid to make the wrong decision. In most cases I learn the lesson from the wrong decision quickly and there is time to do something against it. Versus when a decision and hence the action is delayed, valuable time is lost. Think hard and act swiftly!  Yes, you can and will make wrong decisions but you learn from them and that will help you grow. Don't get me wrong I'm not recommending to decide everything on the spot without thinking. I recommend to lose your fear to make any decisions because you might make the wrong decision. We want to change things, make them better and along the way we will make mistakes. That is ok! Learn quick and don't be afraid of mistakes.

Take control of your Inbox

How many emails do you get every day? The more important question is how many emails can you read, understand and potentially answer on a daily basis. Many people struggle with the sheer amount of messages they get on a daily basis. It is not your job to permanently read or answer emails. In terms of productivity excessive email is damaging because instead of encouraging a proactive work style it promotes a reactive work style. Email is a great tool but you should consider some tips to make sure you use it effectively.

• Check email only at certain times during the day (e.g. check it in the morning, after lunch and in the afternoon)

• Turn off all your email notifications so that you don't get pushed to see what message came in (do that also for your cell phones etc.)
• Before reading/answering your email put them in 4 folders. Focus on the Important ones and discard the Not Important / Not Urgent one
• Important / Urgent
• Important / Not Urgent
• Not Important / Urgent
• Not Important / Not Urgent
• Set a reasonable time limit for working on email.  Focus on the Important ones! They have to be read, understood and answered on time. The time limit will help you to ensure that you don't waste time.

Don't be controlled by email but control the email instead.

Daily Inspiration

Positive daily inspiration is important because it provides the encouragement to pursue a desirable goal consistently. Lately I've been listening to podcasts in the morning, e.g. from Seth Godin, Marshall Goldsmith, and found that this was a good way to start the day. It keeps my compass in the right direction and it is fun and educational to listen to. There are many things that can help and that I've been practicing these for many years

• have a daily check sheet to write down what your days personal and professional goals are in prioritized order. Rate how you perceived the day at the end, rank it from a scale from 1-10 (10 being the highest) in the different areas
• have a weekly plan. This would have more high level goals that you want to achieve (e.g. do something interesting and educational with the family on the weekend, finish a certain book by Saturday)
• Read something daily that helps you to grow as a person (e.g. personal development books, blogs etc.)
• Read professional magazines that you are deeply passionate about (e.g. I find "Entrepreneur" an inspirational read once a month, blogs) on a regular/daily basis
• schedule your day so that you have time for all the things that are important (e.g.  sometimes it is work and sometimes it is the family)

There are many other things you can do and so I find it's always interesting to be open minded and see what other people consider helpful. What do you do to get your daily dose of inspiration?

Just do it - Initiative is important

In order to get any task done you need a desire to do it and someone who is taking the initiative to do it. Isn't it disappointing to see how many tasks get delayed or never done? There can be many reasons for this like unclear company policies, too many rules, missing self-confidence, people are afraid to do something wrong or to not have the backing of their Management chain. In any way the bottom line is tasks are not getting done and moral is suffering. If your team or organization is stifled by these "delayed" or "never done" tasks it is time to think about how you can reverse this trend. Energy and endurance is what you need to get tasks done and you want people who are self-motivated and consistently take initiative to tackle these tasks. Look for these people today because nothing will help you more than people who possess real interest and initiative. Check what people did in the past and how long it took them to pick up an interest and then pursue it with vigor. That will be the best possible indicator to determine what they will do going forward. Remember it is your job as a leader to build an enthusiastic team of talented people.

Personal Goals

In order to achieve any goal you have to know where you want to go and you need a plan on how you want to get there. This is nothing new to a Project Manager but do you do it in your personal life as well? It requires considerable self discipline to approach your own life like a project. The reward for this effort is that it makes you more conscious of your own goals. You are forcing yourself to clarify what is and what is not important to you. Once you spend some time to come up with an honest answer you can more effectively spend time on the things that matter most to you. The challenging part is then to adjust your life according to your priorities.
When I note in my weekly plan that I want to help my kids at least 3 times with their homework it helps me to follow through on it.  Through this planning my life becomes more productive. I spend more time on the things that matter (e.g. my kids education) instead of giving in to distractions (e.g. surfing the web). Whatever your goal is, it can be achieved if you really want it but it won't happen without your help. How do you keep track of your personal goals?

Business as usual ?

If you want to get extraordinary results you can't just follow a methodology or another person or team. YOU need to put all your passion and energy to work and prepare the path yourself. In order to do that you have to be passionate about what you do. Are you passionate about your work? I mean do you really care about the things you work on, on a daily basis? Do you get up in the morning and see the day as a chance to knock down some problems to get closer to your (/your teams) goals? You should be full of energy and excited because of another chance to meet new people, situations and to make a lasting and positive impact. If you don't have that energy and focus it will be a challenge to excel. I say that because there will be many obstacles along the way and without a real passion chances are high that you give up somewhere along the way.
It is obviously still possible to do good work and to even get promoted but it might not be enough to feel truly satisfied with your work. You spend at least 8 hours at work and most likely more so we talk about at least 1/3 of your life. Take care of it and stop doing "business as usual", do something extraordinary.