Everything you needed to know about Project Management …

Everything you needed to know about Project Management …

by | Jun 7, 2022 | Agility, Competencies, Productivity

… you probably learned while riding on a one speed bike without hand brakes.

 

Well, just about everything.

 

Recently I was transported back to my childhood while riding on a bike that lacked handbrakes and multiple speeds. It took a couple of minutes to remember that stopping required pedaling backwards, but after that initial awkwardness I was amazed at all that immediately came back.

 

So many actions were instinctual:

1.    A slight elevation ahead and automatically your body was standing atop those pedals to build momentum.

2.    A blind curve ahead? Pedal backwards, slow down, and gain control of the bike.

3.    A sharp curve? Swing out and use much space as possible on the outer part of the path to get as much room as possible to not wipeout.

4.    Crossing over a narrow bridge? Too risky to be peddling away – build momentum ahead of time to coast so that the required control and narrow body could be maintained. The same principle applied if someone was approaching on the slim path.

5.    Most importantly, a key lesson instantly came back: breathe through your nose and keep that mouth shut so that you don’t swallow a bug!

 

As this biking transported me back to my childhood, it dawned on me that all the skills that returned had taught me some of the most important principles of project management over four decades ago.

 

1.    Look like there is a mountain of work ahead? It’s too late to peddle fast once you’re on that slope, you must start peddling harder before you reach the beginning of the incline. You must anticipate the elevation and work harder when it’s actually still manageable.

2.    Not sure of what’s ahead around the blind corner? Better slow down until you have more information.

3.    Figure out ways to avert disaster.

4.    Think that you’re coming up to a sticky or tricky patch? Come across someone you’ve never worked with before? This is not a place to have your knees and arms waving about wildly.  You want to glide through this area with as much elegance and ease as possible.

5.    There are many times in business settings it’s better to keep your mouth shut.

 

Once you’ve navigated over a route a few times, it’s amazing how quickly your mind remembers the tricks to anticipate how best to traverse the terrain. The efficiencies accumulate.

 

Then when you can coast for those few moments, you feel the breeze, cool off, take some deep breaths, and survey the ground you’ve covered. You’re still working but at a pace that allows you to recover so that you can tackle the next obstacle with even more assurance and skill.

How many more weeks of Covid?

How many more weeks of Covid?

by | Feb 2, 2022 | Covid-19, Future of Work, Human Capital, Inspiration, Pivoting, Productivity, Strategy

Those of us of a certain age, grew up when Groundhog Day only meant one thing: one day in February when kids, especially, waited to see if there was a chance of an early spring.

Since the early 1990s, the phrase has taken on a new meaning, a day that seems to repeat over and over again … without end. In the spirit of that NEW meaning, we are rerunning last year’s February 2 Blog …

If Covid had a mascot, it would be the groundhog, at least in the United States. Various animals in different northern regions have stuck their necks out to foretell if winter is over.  Every year on February 2, many cultures look for a sign that winter might end.

Recently, a podcast caught my attention; hadn’t hit start, hadn’t heard of the book, but who wouldn’t keep listening about a book called Wintering when it is January in the snowy North? The author, Katherine May, read a passage: 

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt.”

Suddenly you recall an Aesop’s fable, of the Ant and the Grasshopper.  One creature is busy storing food for the cold weather, one plays in the sun and does not. You probably first heard this tale at about the age of five, and Aesop wrote, or at least recorded it, 5,000 years ago. 

In her interview, the author says she feels that Covid has been one L O N G Wintering.  Many of us have forgotten how to winter—how to store away preserves in our cellars for the seasons in which the harvests are not plentiful. Companies either don’t retain earnings for a rainy day or are pressured to pay them out to shareholders.  

This February 2, the groundhog represents us emerging from our Covid Hibernation, looking for hope, an efficient vaccine distribution system, some semblance of normal. As we all know we will have at least six more weeks of Covid Winter, but perhaps we can resolve to prepare a bit more for our next “wintering”—whatever it may be—so that we might be more prepared, like the ant, and not have to go underground, like the groundhog.

Connecting the Dots

Connecting the Dots

by | Oct 12, 2021 | Corporate Culture, Creativity at Work, Future of Work, Human Capital, Human Resources, Innovation, Labor Markets, Leadership Agility, Management, Performance Management, Pivoting, Productivity

This chart is eye grabbing.

Most reading this blog will easily recognize the vast majority of these logos.  You aspired to work at some, you DID work for some.

One logo immediately caught my eye.  In my days as a credit analyst, I signaled they were facing headwinds. In return, I got an extreme dressing down. The summation of that boss’s lecture? They were one of the largest companies in the country so how could I possibly even think to suggest that they were anything but stable?

The companies that have fallen off of this chart have done so for various reasons, for some it was hubris, for others an inability to pivot, in other cases, tastes change. A lack of innovation led to the demise of many.

Just yesterday, Jack Kelly had a piece in Forbes about the ultimate innovation: tailoring jobs to the individual needs of the various workers. Given the current labor and talent shortage in the U.S., this is exactly the right sort of solution for many organizations.

When firms can keep a clear focus on the deliverable, the output, where or how something gets done is less important.

Kelly says:

Consider how much better work would be if managers held conversations with their team, actively listened to how they’d like to work and then designed the job around their needs. Morning people could start early. Night owls can begin later in the day.

I lived this. Over 20 years ago at PwC, we had a well-oiled team that knew each other’s bio-rhythms and peak productivity hours.  We joked that there were probably only three hours that someone from our group wasn’t awake and available; one person was an extreme lark that got into the office at 5:00 am, while another was such an extreme night owl that we regularly got emails from him at 2:00 am, working remotely.  That is when I started experimenting with working from home … which one secretary dreaded because in uber-efficiency mode I banged through my To Dos, which then required her involvement.

As so many HR experts have reiterated: there are two ways to measure performance – inputs and outputs.  Do you want to measure the hours that you see someone in (or their jacket on) their chair? Or do you want to measure what they deliver? The RESULTS.

Go back to that left hand side of the graphic.  What happened to the temples those companies built? Big Stan in Chicago? GE Headquarters in Connecticut? The Sears Tower? They filled up with employees each morning and emptied every night.

Big buildings don’t matter.  That S&P graphic is based on results.

 

 

[Human] Capital Calibration

[Human] Capital Calibration

by | Aug 17, 2021 | Competencies, Corporate Culture, Covid-19, Economy, Future of Work, Hiring, Human Capital, Human Resources, Jobs, Labor Markets, Productivity, Work From Home

Manufacturing equipment has come a long way since 1964. The environment in which you put your equipment?  Back then, a somewhat level floor, a power supply, fans for HVAC, and what was a little grease on the floor? You turned it on, and assumed it would run.  When you invest in a sophisticated machine today, you may build a special room, complete with its own HVAC and filtration. You wouldn’t dream of operating this equipment without the needed care and calibration. Your organization ensures that those responsible for the care and upkeep of this huge capital investment have the requisite technical expertise to protect your investment; you wouldn’t dream of leaving it to someone that didn’t know what they were doing. Yet why are we okay doing that to our largest investment: our employees.

The current conversation about “back to the office” seems a lot more like 1964, the year that Gary Becker published his first book on human capital. He rocked the world of economics and business with his work on the value of human capital ––  people were one of your most valuable assets.  It paid to further invest in them now that their life span was longer and technological advances made new skill acquisition imperative.

We sit here in 2021 as the seeming randomness of Covid deaths and quarantining has given Americans plenty of time to pause to reflect on the meaning of life. For many Americans, they are finally understanding their worth as a unique model of human capital.  They’ve grown to understand the distinctive sets of skills that they have acquired, honed, and refined over the years AND the optimum conditions under which they perform.  When an employer doesn’t understand that, enter…

The Great Resignation

One of my favorite Total Rewards thought leaders, John Bremen, has written a great article, advising how organizations can turn The Great Resignation into the Great Hire.  He very rightly points out that more people have been hired in 2021 than have quit – which side of the equation is your organization on?

Solution? It’s not about going back to “the way we always did things.”  It IS about recognizing the conditions under which employees can turn in peak performance and earn their organizations more gold.

 

True Grit

True Grit

by | Feb 9, 2021 | Corporate Culture, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Human Capital, Leadership Agility, Productivity, Strategy, Work Place

By Lisa Aggarwal

Commonwealth HR Consulting is a firm composed of women who love math. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the movie Hidden Figures resonates with several of us. 

We are told from a young age that we can do hard things. “Things” have certainly been hard lately. Who better to learn from than women who looked hard in the face and told it to try harder.

One of the most amazing things about this movie was that no embellishments were needed to tell the stories of these female African-American “human computers” whose work and dedication was critical to the space race. This, at a time when WHO they were (African-American and female) was an inherent obstacle to their own success…still to this day. 

Instead, they were pioneers who charted their own courses. Katherine Goble Johnson became the best known of this group when she received the Presidential Medal of Honor; she calculated the trajectories of the Apollo 11 and Space Shuttle. Mary Jackson was the first female African-American engineer at NASA. Dorothy Vaughan was the first African-American supervisor at NASA … because she taught herself FORTRAN. 

 “Their path to advancement might look less like a straight line and more like some of the pressure distributions and orbits they plotted, but they were determined to take a seat at the table.” – Margot Lee Shetterly 

How was their world altering success accomplished, against all odds? GRIT.

There are many ways to describe grit: being resilient, having a strategic mindset, continuously striving for self-development. It is a competency, or innate behavior. You can sometimes develop it, but it is usually a part of a person’s make up.  Without leverage, without a voice, the heroines of Hidden Figures demonstrate so many aspects of grit, then out-prepare and then out-perform their peers.  It is a muscle that they have been using their whole lives.

The easy path is rarely the most rewarding. Invest your time in someone you see has potential, or in yourself. Sometimes, in order to get some traction, you need to put some grit down on that slippery slope and see where it might take you. 

How many more weeks of Covid?

How many more weeks of Covid?

by | Feb 2, 2021 | Covid-19, Future of Work, Human Capital, Inspiration, Pivoting, Productivity, Strategy

If Covid had a mascot, it would be the groundhog, at least in the United States. Various animals in different northern regions have stuck their necks out to foretell if winter is over.  Every year on February 2, many cultures look for a sign that winter might end.

Recently, a podcast caught my attention; hadn’t hit start, hadn’t heard of the book, but who wouldn’t keep listening about a book called Wintering when it is January in the snowy North? The author, Katherine May, read a passage: 

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt.”

Suddenly you recall an Aesop’s fable, of the Ant and the Grasshopper.  One creature is busy storing food for the cold weather, one plays in the sun and does not. You probably first heard this tale at about the age of five, and Aesop wrote, or at least recorded it, 5,000 years ago. 

In her interview, the author says she feels that Covid has been one L O N G Wintering.  Many of us have forgotten how to winter—how to store away preserves in our cellars for the seasons in which the harvests are not plentiful. Companies either don’t retain earnings for a rainy day or are pressured to pay them out to shareholders.  

This February 2, the groundhog represents us emerging from our Covid Hibernation, looking for hope, an efficient vaccine distribution system, some semblance of normal. As we all know we will have at least six more weeks of Covid Winter, but perhaps we can resolve to prepare a bit more for our next “wintering”—whatever it may be—so that we might be more prepared, like the ant, and not have to go underground, like the groundhog.