"Ignorance keeps you perky"

Earlier this year Peggy Noonan wrote an article about President Obama's new term: "Every new president starts out fresh, in part because he doesn't know what he doesn't know. Ignorance keeps you perky."

The months since have shown that running a government is more challenging than running a campaign. Though you and I are not seeking to be the leader of the free world, Noonan's point can be translated to those who strive to deliver projects and lead teams. When we first take over a project or team, our optimism may be based on ignorance. What is it that we don't know?

This all comes to mind as I prepared for my podcast interview next week with Michael Roberto, author of Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen.

In the book, Professor Roberto essentially tells us that leaders must first hone their skills as problem-finders, not just problem-solvers. He offers very practical advice on how leaders can overcome the many barriers that make it a challenge to discover problems earlier instead of reacting to them later when the consequences can be much more severe.

The podcast episode is not scheduled to be published until late October but I invite you to get your copy of Michael's book now and enjoy the interview when it comes out.

In addition, here's an article that Michael just recently published that will give you a taste for what's in store.

Here's to us all becoming better problem-finders!

Labels: Books I Love, conflict, crisis, denial, illusion, podcast, project management, project sponsors, risk management

posted by Andy at 11:00 AM  

Distraction Turns To Tragedy

Motorcyclist Fatally Struck by Car; Cops Say Other Driver Painting Nails

That was the headline in our local paper Sunday morning after a tragic accident the day before. The outrage continues to pour in, especially when it appears the nail-painting driver will only be charged with "failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident."

My guess is there will be additional fines and litigation against the offending driver. Yet I suppose the most painful sentence for her will be living with the result of her lack of attention. One comment on a discussion board mentioned the driver is a nurse: someone who helps save lives. In a split second, for no good reason, she ended one.

The discussion boards on local news sites are filled with "lock her up for life!" sort of judgments. My first reaction to the tragedy was similar: "What a loser! Painting her nails?"

And yet I couldn't help but be reminded of one of Jesus' comments about someone who had obviously made a mistake as well: "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

How often will I text someone (while I'm driving) that I'm running a couple minutes late? Or scroll through a list of names to make a call? Or twirl the selector on my iPod to find the podcast I want to listen to? Or eat? Or review some notes before a meeting? Or shave?

Or [fill in the blank]? The answer: too often.

I've posted about attention and distraction a number of times and discussed it on my podcast with the author of The Myth of Multitasking. We are a culture of distracted multitaskers. The data clearly indicate it's not just the phone or iPod or nail polishing that impairs our driving. Reaching across the car to grab a bottle of water can make the difference between stopping now or a half-second too late.

I understand that many of us fancy ourselves as great multitaskers, and certainly some seem better than others. But brain science increasingly makes it clear that we are fooling ourselves: "To put it bluntly, research shows that we can't multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously," says Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules. He goes on:

"Cell-phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes in emergencies, slower to return to normal speed after an emergency, and more wild in their 'following distance' behind the vehicle in front of them. In a half-second, a driver going 70 mph travels 51 feet. Given that 80% of crashes happen within three seconds of some kind of driver distraction, increasing your amount of task-switching increases your risk of an accident. More than 50% of the visual cues spotted by attentive drivers are missed by cell-phone talkers. Not surprisingly, they get in more wrecks than anyone except very drunk drivers."

This isn't just an issue on the road. People are distracted by e-mail in meetings. Managers try to draft something on their computer while having a one-on-one with a staff member. Noises from a cubicle next door make it difficult to focus on your work. Thankfully the results are not typically as tragic as someone dying, but there is a toll nonetheless.

Our local paper's editorial board had a good response this morning: "Don't _____ and Drive"

That's good advice for the road. And it can be a good reminder for us all to manage our distractions more aggressively as we go through our day today.

P.S. As I was finishing this post up this morning, my 12-year old son wanted to talk. I found myself bouncing between the conversation and this post. How ironic. I had to turn away from the keyboard and focus on him. Otherwise the likelihood of him feeling I wasn't listening (and a typo showing up in this post) would have dramatically risen. Here's to less distractions in your day today!

Labels: denial, mistakes, multitasking, podcast, reality, time management

posted by Andy at 7:41 AM  

Strategic Misrepresentation?

I was doing some research today on project cost overruns. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of high-profile examples of massive project failures when it comes to cost.

I was particularly intrigued by an article entitled "Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects: Error or Lie?" by Bent Flyvbjerg, Mette Skamris Holm, and Søren Buhl. Just the term underestimating instead of overrun caught my eye.

Yet even more interesting was a conclusion they put forward in their paper: "Cost underestimation cannot be explained by error and seems to be best explained by strategic misrepresentation, i.e. lying."

Strategic misrepresentation? That could be the most creative way of saying lying that I've heard in quite a while!

"In case after case, planners, engineers, and economists told Wachs that they had had to 'cook' forecasts in order to produce numbers that would satisfy their superiors and get projects started, whether or not the numbers could be justified on technical grounds...."

As we discuss in our project management workshops, reality has this annoying way of always winning. Bad news doesn't get better over time. If your project is struggling, rather than trying to find creative ways to cook up a batch of strategic misrepresentation, how about applying that creativity into innovative solutions to get back on schedule.

We-can-make-this-up: 5 of the most dangerous words in project management. It's not that you can't. It's just that hope is rarely a good strategy. And that's what we see way too often.

Check out our Lipstick on a Pig: How Illusion Leads to Crisis keynote. It's perfect for a company meeting, retreat, or association gathering. We can help your teams learn to lead and deliver.

Labels: accountability, crisis, denial, illusion, keynotes, risk management

posted by Andy at 10:25 PM  

How to Say "No" (Without Saying "No")

So, how do you say "No" when doing so feels like it could be, say, a career limiting move? Advice abounds, often over-simplifying the stakes by not taking into account the complexities of saying "No" to someone like a boss or by not giving specific enough strategies.

In a recent newsletter article I give some practical ways to say "No" without saying the letters N-O.

Here's your chance to join the conversation: How do you handle situations when everything inside of you wants to say "No", but there are other pressures to say Yes?

Add a comment to this blog entry to share your insights.

Labels: accountability, conflict, denial, executives, influence, leadership, managing up, project sponsors

posted by Andy at 12:03 PM  

Silence is deadly (for projects and teams)

If you've been around projects long enough you know the drill... There are real problems being encountered but everyone above you seems to either be unaware or uninterested in grappling with them.

Denial is a powerful defense mechanism but rarely an effective project management strategy.
Eventually there's a project crisis. Rinse and repeat.

Since we regularly help organizations deal with issues related to these, I was pleased to read some recent results from research performed by VitalSmarts and The Concours Group. They surveyed more than 1,000 executives and project management professionals across 40 companies in a wide variety of industries.

Their Silence Fails study found direct correlations between our willingness and ability to speak up about issues and how successfully we deliver projects. The five most lethal issues that don't get discussed are:

• Fact-free planning. Failure is nearly predestined through insufficient acceptance of reality when it comes to timeframes and resources. The problem isn't that the limitations exist. The problem is people won't discuss the reality.
• Absent without leave (AWOL) sponsors. What happens when the sponsor doesn't lead? Can we talk about that? If not, prepare for failure.
• Skirting. When people skirt around the predefined process, we're often left with the resulting scope creep. If we can't discuss how this impacts projects, we'll likely soon be discussing why the project failed.
• Project chicken. We know we're late but we also know another team is late so we don't speak up. It's a deadly game that happens way too often. And the result? It's not pretty.
• Team failures. Just because we put people on a team together doesn't make them a team. Do we perpetuate the dysfunction by pretending everything's fine or do we intentionally work to improve the team dynamics. The answer can significantly impact a project's success.

Does your team or organization struggle with these issues? Contact us today about our Lipstick on a Pig: How Illusion Leads to Crisis in Real World Projects keynote. It's perfect for a company meeting, offsite, or retreat.

We discuss these dynamics in more detail, including practical ideas about how to break out of the rut of failure caused by illusion. Contact us today for more information.

Labels: crisis, denial, Lipstick on a Pig, planning, project management, project sponsors, risk management, teams

posted by Andy at 12:17 PM