Ever hear of Buzzword Bingo?

I used to work with a guy named Bob. If there was a buzzword in our industry, Bob could drop it into a sentence like nobody’s business. What’s the latest way to say something? Bob would know.

During conference calls when Bob was on the other line, we would occasionally play Buzzword Bingo. In short, we created some makeshift grids of buzzwords. As soon as Bob would spout one over the phone, you got to mark it off if it was on your grid.

Get 5 in a row? Bob was always a bit confused when he heard someone exclaim Bingo from a remote office.

It all made for some good fun (at Bob’s expense). But increasingly I feel like I’m intersecting with company cultures that Bob created. Dan Pallotta observes this in his entertaining and insightful article for HBR entitled “I Don’t Understand What Anyone is Saying Anymore”.

In many of our workshops there is some time allocated to introductions. That’s always an opportunity for Acronymitis and an occasional case of Abstractionitis. I have a colleague who has a favorite diagnostic question for clients these days: “What’s your strategy?” He’s been seeing a rash of Meaningless Expressions and Abstractionitis flaring up, with the business version of Valley Girl 2.0 thrown in for good measure.

I’m increasingly seeing the illness spread during status meetings (see my article How to Report the Status of a Problem Project).  Requirements documents become meaningless with the diseased phrasing (“The system must be fail-safe and user-friendly.”). Is there any wonder we struggle to deliver as we attempt to “exceed customer expectations?”

Do you want to stand out from the crowd these days?

• Take a step back and actually listen to yourself. Have you caught one or more of Pallotta’s communication diseases?
• Stop replying to questions with the word, “So….”
• Take your audience into consideration. If they are already inoculated with complete knowledge of your acronyms and lingo, go for it. But if the people you are speaking with are from other parts of the business or otherwise much less exposed to the verbal viruses of your domain, beware. It’s our responsibility to adjust to them if we want the communication to be effective.

It’s when I present to international audiences that I become acutely aware that I use too much slang. How about you? Which strain of Pallotta’s epidemic are you struggling with? Let’s work on this together.

It might take the fun away of playing Buzzword Bingo in meetings but we’ll all have a better understanding of what’s actually being said!

P.S. To create your own Buzzword Bingo grids, check out http://lurkertech.com/buzzword-bingo/. You’ll also find a brief history of the term as well.

Unquestionably the answer is “Yes!”

Last year CNN published an article entitled “Why introverts can be great leaders.” It offers up some solid research that backs up the article title and is worth the read.

I recently interviewed Jim Kouzes who is the co-author of classic leadership books such as The Leadership Challenge and Credibility (interviews are available for free at http://bit.ly/CredibilityPart1 and http://bit.ly/CredibilityPart2). In both books they present extensive research into what it takes to be an effective leader, including what followers want from their leaders.

So, what do followers want? The top 4 include a leader who is:

• Honest
• Forward-thinking
• Inspiring
• Competent

(Side note: it struck me that those are four qualities we don’t normally associate with politicians these days! But I digress….)

In that list, Inspiring might be the closest associated with extroversion. I asked Jim about that in the interview and he insisted that it does not require one to be extroverted. Granted, it’s difficult to inspire if you never leave your desk or spend time with people. But thinking that one must be extroverted to be inspiring exposes a myth about what we believe to be true about introverts.

One of my favorite interviews related to introversion was with Devora Zack, author of Networking for People Who Hate Networking (see http://bit.ly/DevoraZackCast for the discussion). I highly recommend the book for anyone who considers themselves an introvert and wants to grow in their ability to build relationships.

I’m currently preparing for an interview with Rob Cross, author of multiple books including The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations. Earlier this year he co-authored a piece for HBR on “A Smarter Way to Network.” There’s an insightful HBR audio interview available at http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2011/07/getting-networking-right.html. Rob’s research over 15 years shows that one’s success doesn’t come down to “She with the most relationships wins!” Rather, a more important factor is “bridging relationships”, those connections that bridge levels up, across, down, and outside the organization. Introverts can certainly build such relationships without worrying about quantity.

Further, Rob presents an intriguing finding. Success was even more impacted by the degree to which a person tends to energize those around them. This doesn’t have to be energizing in an extroversion sense, as in being a high-key cheerleader. Bob Sutton says it this way in his book Good Boss, Bad Boss. A key difference between a good boss and a bad boss is how you feel after you interact with them. Did they energize you or drain you? I can think of extroverts and introverts who land on both side of Sutton’s assertion.

Interestingly, Rob has found that “energizers” tend to pull (or attract): opportunities, talent, information for decisions, etc. De-energizers tend to repel those same things, which ultimately impacts one’s ability to lead and succeed.

As with most things in life, our ability to successfully lead isn’t as simple as one factor such as personality type (though how we’re wired can both give us a head start as well as hinder us). If I had to personally boil it down to one factor based on my experience coaching hundreds of executives it comes down to what Justin Menkes mentions in his book, Better Under Pressure: an individual’s sense of agency. In other words, if someone has a teachable spirit, a hunger and willingness to learn, and a sense that they have the ability to take action (as opposed to being a victim), they have great potential to lead others.

That has nothing to do with introversion or extroversion and much more about how they see themselves and their world.

Indeed, introverts can make great leaders.

“The project status is…. white.”

I sat with a former coaching client this morning to catch up with what’s going on his world. He told me about a major project at his company that is about a year behind schedule. Yet when the top-level leader in his part of the organization reported up to the CEO on the status of the project, he didn’t say the status was red. To the leader’s credit he didn’t say it was green. But he also didn’t say yellow. The project status is white.

For the record, that company doesn’t have an official project status of white.  So, I asked my former coaching client, what did white mean?

He didn’t hear the intended meaning but the joke internally was “White Hot! Hotter than Red!”

Though I don’t know in this situation, I’ve seen it all too often on struggling projects…. There is likely all kinds of project spin going on. I can imagine the leader saying, “The project is white because we’re looking into some factors and cannot accurately assess the status. We’ll get back to you.”  Interpretation: “This project is so screwed up that if we really told you the truth we would all get fired so we’re busy figuring out who to blame and when we have that information, we’ll get back to you.”

Later today I’m interviewing Justin Menkes, author of Better Under Pressure: How Great Leaders Bring Out The Best in Themselves and Others. Justin found in his research that the best leaders–those who thrived under pressure and were able to maximize the potential of themselves and those around them–exhibited the attribute of realistic optimism. That is similar to Sir John Templeton’s first rule of creating wealth: “To achieve success, be neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but a realist with a hopeful nature.”

We can pretend a project is going OK, even though it’s not. We can slather lipstick on that pig, put some pearls around its neck and proclaim it a beauty. But it’s a pig nonetheless. Games get played with project status all the time (such as, “schedule chicken“). But as Colin Powell observes, “Bad news is not like fine wine–it doesn’t get better over time.”

Rick Morris told me over lunch last week that he instructed once by a boss that he could not show red for a project status. The problem is that the project was in trouble. How did Rick handle this? Did he go along with the game and just say green, hoping that it will all work out? Or did he whip out a new status of white?

Rick told me, “I didn’t show up for the meeting.”

Once we know what reality is, we can come up with ways to manage it. A key responsibility of a leader is to understand reality and then marshal the best minds around them to develop a plan to create a vision and path to a new reality. That can certainly be easy to talk about and much more challenging to execute. Let’s face it: political waters are full of sharks and shipwrecks.

But painting the ship white and calling it seaworthy when the hull is breached, hoping that enough bailing will keep us afloat, is a recipe for project disaster.

P.S. Our keynote Lipstick on a Pig: How Illusion Leads to Crisis goes into these ideas more fully can help you and your organization improve your ability to deliver projects successfully.

For an upcoming episode of the Project Management Podcast, Cornelius Fichtner asked me to answer this question: “What is the number one challenge that project management is facing today and how do we best address it?” Here is my response:

The number one challenge that project management is facing today is relevance, and here’s why I say that. I have the real privilege of intersecting with hundreds of organizations around the world. If only you could see the body language of people walking into, say, our Essentials of Project Management workshop. Often they’re in the workshop because they were volun-told by their management to be there! I just don’t often hear people saying, “Awesome! We’re going to learn about project management today!”

Interestingly, when people leave at the end of the workshop, we regularly hear comments like, “I really enjoyed this! This was so much better than what I expected! I can use this stuff!”

As much as I’d like to think it was brilliant facilitation, I know better! The problem is that expectations were so low coming in! Why? Because most people see project management as relevant–for someone else! “It’s for those people over in IT, right?” Or, “PM? Yeah, that’s for those really big companies. It just wouldn’t make sense for us.” Or my favorite: “Oh, we’re agile so we don’t need a process!”

Project management is often viewed as too academic–good in principle but not relevant to me. It’s the classic Person in the Pew syndrome who listens to a sermon and says, “I know someone who needs to hear this!” instead of realizing the message was for me!

The challenge for project management is for people to understand it is completely relevant any time we want to go from idea to delivery. Ultimately that’s what project management is all about. It’s not process for the sake of process: it’s about delivery. The problem isn’t that project management is an immature field of study. Let’s face it: we’ve managed projects since at least the pyramids or The Tower of Babel! The problem is that we often don’t see project management for what it is: applying the knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to help us deliver. Us. All of us.

So, how do we lead the charge for relevance in our organizations, especially when the culture isn’t exactly tuned to this mindset? It’s tempting to think we have to change the culture first. I walked into a company some years back and saw their credo on the wall. One line in it said, “We will plan less and execute more!”  I thought, “Hmmm…. this will be an interesting environment to teach project management!” And yet the class went great. When we truly understand how relevant project management is, we can find ways to adapt it into the culture.

But isn’t it better if we change the culture first? Chances are you’ve heard of author and Harvard professor John Kotter. He’s been a brilliant voice on leadership and change for decades. I interviewed John on The People and Projects Podcast earlier this year. John’s classic teaching on leading change puts culture change last, not first. This correlated with my interview with Dr. Ed Schein, the MIT guru who invented the term corporate culture. Talking to Ed was like talking with Yoda, and yet even Yoda agreed that if you try to change culture first, you’re efforts will be dead on arrival. I won’t elaborate here, but the good news is you don’t have to change your company culture before project management is relevant enough to make a difference.

So what do we do? First, make sure you have a firm understanding of how relevant and practical project management really is. If you still think it’s about Gantt charts and Microsoft Project and filling out forms and creating PMO kingdoms, you’re in trouble. When you realize that it’s not a matter of if change will occur on your project but just a matter of when, and when you can progressively elaborate your plan so the gap between the plan and reality is minimized, you’re well on your way to seeing project management as your friend, not a foe.

Second, instead of trying to change the culture, find where the culture is most dissatisfied. A clear principle of change is that if people aren’t dissatisfied, they’re not likely going to change. Pilot some adapted project management processes to address where there’s dissatisfaction. Where a little more planning and coordinated management of change shows value, highlight the benefits and then do it again. As people see how, for example, a little risk planning helps you become better problem finders instead of problem solvers, the culture can, over time, change.

Third, commit yourself to being a learner. Just being a regular listener to Cornelius’ excellent podcast shows you’re already on that path. But I want to stress this because, quite frankly, I regularly run into people who say they have 15 years of project management experience but they really have one year of experience repeated 15 times! They aren’t committed to
continually refining their skills, learning from past mistakes, and actively networking with people in the field. Commit yourself to being a master at this craft. And teach those around you as you learn, which is certainly a key responsibility for any of us who aspire to be effective leaders.

So here’s my bottom-line: Project management is relevant any time you or your organization needs to deliver. It’s when we see how relevant and practical project management is that we will see even greater contributions made. Get on board with that mindset, find strategic places to showcase the value, and commit yourself to keep getting better. It’s a bright future for you and project management as a trade as we do this together.

I went on a video shoot with my 16 year old son this afternoon. He has an interest in video production and filmmaking for a living some day so instead of wondering about what university to go to or classes to take, we’ve been hitting the pavement and developing videos for local companies. It’s been a fun experience, and today was no exception.

As we drove away from today’s shoot, I asked him, “So, what went well? What should we do differently next time?”

The truth is, today’s shoot went great! The equipment checklist that he has been working on helped make sure we didn’t leave anything signficantly important at home. And the list of questions were very helpful for the interviews with customers. But we did come across a couple ideas on what to do differently. For example, we were once again reminded that an extra extension cord would have been helpful. It’s now on his equipment list.

Asking these questions reminded me of one of my favorite HBR bloggers: Peter Bregman. In this article he expands on the value of asking questions like these at the end of the day. We think of post-mortems or lessons learned for projects. But why not after a meeting? Or as we wind down a day at work?

Enjoy the article. Then let me know, “What did you like?”

I opened my inbox today to a message from our online backup provider. It seems they miss me. My laptop was turned off over the extended Independence Day weekend so it wasn’t backing up.  They were concerned.

I’m so glad to be missed!

I don’t say that because I feel unappreciated! Rather, traditionally it’s been rare for me to be offline that long. Whether on family vacations or extended trips when giving keynotes overseas, it’s pretty normal for me to have laptop in tow and to be online daily.

Which is a problem I’m working on.

There really is something to the phrase that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Time away–getting a break–can help us be so much more productive when we return. Tony Schwartz from The Energy Project is a clear voice on this topic, which we discussed in a two-part episode of our People and Projects Podcast (see http://bit.ly/TS-1  and http://bit.ly/TS-2).   Tony’s concept of pulsing has been enormously helpful for me and my coaching clients this last year.

For me, I’m working on not having to be shackled to my laptop as often as I have been in the past. For some of us, it might be taking a step away from the desk and take a lunch more often. To be more plugged in and focused, it might just mean we need to unplug more than we do.

I’m working on Tony’s suggestion to timebox activities to 90 minutes or less. I even use that concept in our workshops–making sure we never go more than 90 minutes without a break.

So with this in mind, here’s my challenge as we head into the second half of this year: Look for ways to step away. Look to do more pulsing instead of pushing. Then watch for how that time away pays off with more focused productivity.

P.S. For additional skills on managing your time and  productivity, check out our e-learning module entitled 5 Keys to Getting More Done with Less Stress.

My flight from Chicago to Las Vegas this afternoon provided a helpful illustration… I was sitting in the last row on the right aisle on a full flight. Across from me was a young woman who I couldn’t help but notice. Any time there was an odd sound or movement of the plane due to light turbulence, she sat up in her seat with a very concerned look on her face. When I say “concerned”, I mean panicked. She grabbed the seat in front of her (a bit to the dismay of the guy who was sitting in that seat, who couldn’t help but feel her presence) and strained to look out a window in the rows ahead (as ours were blocked by engines).  When the turbulence dissipated, she rested back in her seat until the next wayward bump or drop or sway appeared to torture her.

As we neared Las Vegas, the turbulence became more pronounced. If you fly a lot, it’s fair  to say our turbulence was strong but not extraordinary. Yet that didn’t stop the panicky seat grabber across the aisle from me. She was on full alert!  Once we landed, she hugged her seatmate with the passion of someone who just escaped death! I fully expected her to break out in applause and then kiss the floor when she exited the jet bridge!

For some reason this all made me giggle a bit inside. There was a day when I was a nervous flier so it’s not that I’m unsympathetic. It’s just that over the years, you learn things, right? Like what normal turbulence feels like and how the planes are designed to handle it. Like when it’s windy or hot or you’re going over mountains there’s more opportunity to have turbulence. That you’re statistically safer in the airplane than you are riding to the airport. With experience, you learn that this is not a situation worthy of panic. It’s just a bumpy flight on a windy arrival.

Experience allows you to calmly finish a Sudoku puzzle when the rookie is freaking out. Experience teaches you to watch the flight attendants. If they’re flipping, then it’s time to call for your mommy! But when the aft flight attendant was happily reading her People magazine while my fellow passenger was desperately holding the seat in front of her like it was the last life jacket on the Titanic, you learn to realize it’s just not a big deal.

Experience, as it turns out, is a big deal. In some industries (dare I say flight attendants in some cases?), seniority becomes an excuse to not work as hard. “We’ve paid our dues” could summarize the mindset. I don’t subscribe to that line of thinking. Rather, experience is a gift that gives us the excuse to be more productive and make less mistakes rather than just make excuses.

Experience can help you lead with peace and a clear mind since this isn’t your first day at the rodeo. Whether a seasoned passenger on a bumpy flight or the veteran bull rider getting on an animal named Vicious Tornado, experience provides perspective.

Are you freaking out today over a situation on a project or on your team? Maybe not on the outside, but on the inside do you feel like Vicious Tornado has been bucking through your digestive system?

Cast your gaze toward those with more experience. Watch how they react. Seek to learn what experience has taught them. And call back to the bumpy flights you’ve survived, whether on a plane or on projects. Experience can tell you when to get back to your Sudoku puzzle and when to get mommy on speed dial.

This year’s Leadership Fast Track Program is officially open!

Click here to download a program brochure!

Are you (or do you have on your staff):

• A high-performing manager who the organization wants to continue to pour into?
• Someone who knows the business or technical aspects of their job but could use some help developing their people skills?
• Someone who is not currently in a management role but is seen as a future leader?
• Someone who doesn’t have time to be away in multi-day meetings?

If one of more of those apply, our Leadership Fast Track Program is designed for you! To learn more, including early-bird discounts, visit http://www.i-leadonline.com/leadershipfasttrack-2011.asp. I look forward to working with you!

Hey, what are you doing in early May? Let’s go to Orlando for STAREAST!

STAREAST is the premier gathering place for software testers, developers, and managers to interact and learn how to improve software-testing practices. This year’s line-up features over 100 learning and networking opportunities.

Come join me for a new keynote at STAREAST this year. It’s entitled How to Win Friends and Influence People–and Deliver Quality Software. Click here and use the code AKSE and save up to $400 on registrations prior to March 4, 2011.

Come join me at STAREAST! I look forward to seeing you there!

Too much on your plate today? Feeling stressed about all that you are responsible for?

Andy Stanley shared on a recent podcast episode that stress is more about what we are doing than how much.  The idea is that if you are engaged in your job, working on projects that are aligned with your passions, gifts, and abilities, you’re less likely to experience the stressful feeling of being overwhelmed–even if you have a large quantity of work.

Do you buy that?

I’m quite sure I have more quantity of work in the last 10 years of running my own company than ever before. Yet what I do is so closely aligned with what I truly enjoy: developing people and helping them to succeed. Though I have significantly more volume of work, I rarely have the same sense of stress that I did as an executive who spent more time slaving over budgets and corporate politics. My what is more closely aligned to who I am, allowing the how much to not feel as overwhelming.

It may feel to you that going off and starting your own company may not feel like an option for you this year. There was a day when I felt that as well. However, in my case, I started speaking at conferences while still an employee of a company. I was moving closer to what I loved to do each year. Eventually launching the new business was possible.

But that’s my story, not yours. Here are some coaching questions for your consideration:

• What changes could you make at your current organization to better align what you do with who you are?  Are there some alternative positions you could start moving toward? Are there some changes in your current role that you could talk to your manager about?
• What are those things on your plate that you really should be giving to other people? Particularly if you are in a management role, what are you doing that really should be delegated to others around you?  What are those things that you are best at doing, that provide the greatest value to the organization. Focus on those. To the degree you are able, seek to delegate the rest as much as possible.

Howard Hendricks says it this way: the secret to concentration is elimination. As you look at this year ahead, there are likely many things that you need to stop doing. Seek to put your focus on those most important projects and tasks. Consciously look for ways to align your what with who you are.

Those are keys to a less stressful and more fulfilling year ahead.

P.S. In the coming weeks you’ll hear more about our Leadership Fast Track program that will be kicking off in the second quarter. Through a combination of assessments, web-based workshops, and one-on-one coaching, you will learn more about yourself, be more effective at influencing and leading people, and improve your ability to deliver projects.