“Yay” and “Meh”.

If a person thinks his hopes (positive expectations) are coming true, he’s motivated, productive and energized. The same holds for anyone who assumes his fears (negative expectations) are not becoming a reality.

That’s “yay!”

If someone sees his hopes shattered or fears become true, motivation drops, reluctant behavior may appear and they are generally low on energy.

That’s “meh.”

You don’t have to focus on the expectations of the people around your project.

You don’t have to ski downhill either. You may try it the other way round.

Some things are just easier.

Image by Jesslee Cuison.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Yay. And Meh. A Leadership Theory. is a post from: Project Shrink.

Fun, creativity and team building. It does work, if it’s not done in an awkward, artificial, icky way. If you’re a jerk at work, being all fun and laughter for one evening doesn’t cut it. Actually, it will make the whole evening strange. Not in a good way.

Fun and creativity does have an amazing effect on how people work together. It’s actually a shame that fun and games are treated like an add on, a nice to have.

“We don’t have time for that.”

Or.

“You are not paid to have fun.”

Or. Better.

“The customer doesn’t pay you to have fun and be creative.”

The customer doesn’t pay for the air conditioning either.

Yeah. Yeah. We have a goal to satisfy. Sure. And yes, we are professional and serious.

But we can do that by boring the socks of our team, or by putting a smile on their passionate faces.

Remember I was going all over this “diversity” thing? You know.

“Diversity creates different viewpoints, different ways of problem solving, other ways of looking at the world in general. This clash of perspectives produces creative solutions.”

You know what? Forget that. Forget that I said that you need all kinds of people on your team. I was wrong.

You already have all kinds of people on your team. You just probably bore the heck out of them. Or are putting boundaries on their fun and creativity.

I changed my tune. I am currently more in the “use the beautiful cards you’re dealt with” camp.

So we need to party?

That was not the fun and creativity I meant. Although. Parties are always good. For everything.

I am talking about the use of multi media to align your communication.

I am talking about using movies or pirates as team metaphor.

This doesn’t cost extra time or money.

It does take fun and creativity from your leadership.

Suggestions needed.

I am looking for an occasion to put this online karaoke to good use. We all know. The secret to a successful project is awesome karaoke. Any suggestions?

Image by emilydickinsonridesabmx.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Fun In Projects? Ha. Humbug! is a post from: Project Shrink.

It’s what transformational leadership is all about.

“Transformational leaders motivate others by engaging their intrinsic interests (e.g., being associated with a particular cause) as opposed to engaging their extrinsic interests (e.g., salary or pay).”

But you don’t have to be the next Do-Gooder.

An awesome project goal makes things easier, but this also works for, uhm, lets say, normal projects.

Somewhere between the Millennium-bug and Euro-conversion projects, I worked with a small team creating interfaces between information systems. A lot of interfaces. Basically, the same work over and over again. It’s hard to stay motivated.

At this time XML was just discovered by tech marketers (let’s say it with me: HYPE!).

So, there was this way cool new tech, that everyone was talking about, and there we were, building interface after interface with our old school stuff.

Ping.

What if we could use the new shiny stuff to build our programs? Functionality would be the same, costs identical, but the development team could learn and use new technology. They would be excited to be involved in something “state-of-the-art”.

Instant motivation.

This story is not telling you to keep on switching technology. This story is telling you to be creative within your own circle of influence. You will be amazed about what you can accomplish.

Giving team members a role they desire, instead of what it says on their functional title.

Crazy.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - What If Your Project Goal Is… Well… Uhm… Dull? is a post from: Project Shrink.

The topic of our chat is the alignment of individual and organizational objectives.

Andy is founder of Capability Alignment Professionals. His company is a leader in building focused business communities that leverage the lessons from social networks. It’s all about close communications and alignment to goals.

You should also check out his blog.

You can view the video below… or follow this link to YouTube.com.

You may also want to check out…

Successful Virtual Teams With Jessica Lipnack
Project Management And Social Media With Cornelius Fichtner
Working In Japan With Kimberly Wiefling
Self-Organization In Teams With Esther Derby

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Alignment Of Individual And Organizational Objectives With Andrew Meyer is a post from: Project Shrink.

The answer might be: Hot Causes and Cool Solutions!

In his book “Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations“, author Hayagreeva Rao explains that …

“… if you want to mobilize networks of people and markets to embrace and spread an idea, you need the one-two punch of a “Hot Cause” and “Cool Solutions.” A hot cause like deaths from tobacco or medical errors can be used as springboards to raise awareness, spark motivation, and ignite red-hot outrage. And naming these as enemies is an important step in mobilizing a network or market.

But creating the heat isn’t enough; the next step needs to be cool solutions. This doesn’t just mean identifying technically feasible solutions, it also means finding ways to bind people together, to empower them to take steps that help solve the problem, and to create enduring commitment to implementing solutions.” (as mentioned by Bob Sutton)

If your offshore team isn’t performing well, it might be that your objective stinks and you are using old school technology.

Being at the other end of the world can give you a sense of “being left out” or “in the dark”. When you are working “just for the money”, you are not likely to provide exceptional results (or even pay attention).

Being part of something bigger, using the coolest, latest, state-of-the-art technology will light everyone’s fire.

When facing your next problem, think: Hot Cause, Cool Solution!

This resonates very well with my “Be Like Al Gore”-philosophy and “Project Tribe” concept.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Hot Causes And Cool Solutions is a post from: Project Shrink.

Photography by Suneko.

Scientific Management

Traditionally we are used to a directive and central leadership style. This can be largely attributed to the rise of Scientific Management at the beginning of the previous century. Frederick Taylor became famous with his Principles of Scientific Management. He actually walked into factories with a stopwatch, actually measured how fast people were assembling widgets and how many hand movements it took to assemble each one. Though today’s average worker might find this behavior intrusive and disruptive, it made sense within the mindset of the Industrial Revolution. A company was regarded as a machine, a newly invented tool that made a previously inconceivable degree of progress possible. Within a machine, one would find many cheap nuts and bolts that could be easily replaced. Every element in the machine has a single, simple function. The ultimate goal was to create an organization that wasnt dependent on a single individual; every single worker could be replaced in this efficient machine.

Taylor took processes and broke them down into smaller steps. The smallest steps would be optimized for efficient performance, which also meant that people were doing the same step all of the time. This lead to the separation of planning and execution, where other people would determine in detail what workers should do: the dawn of middle management. If your goal is achievable by, and defined in terms of, efficient and repeatable steps, there is no room for a trial-and-error approach. Steps were analyzed upfront, planned and perfectly executed. The result had to be good. If the output was not good, the plan was not executed correctly.

The problem with this reasoning is people are not machines. You cannot throw an instruction to the bottom of the corporate food chain, expecting that the employees will pick it up and without questions will execute the instructions. No way. People need motivation, people need to be involved in the creation of the tasks they will have to perform.

Reliance on a command and control leadership style to achieve short-term results undermines the quality and maturity of the workforce. It creates a dependence on being told what to do which undermines innovation and initiative. (source)

Another side effect of the Scientific Management approach is that people are most of the time judged by how well they comply to the preset goals in the plan. If you do not comply to the goals this is seen as a failure. The creative solution to counter this is just to rapport that you met the goals, even if you didnt.

Photography by Audi Inspiration.

Bottom Up Management For A Better World

A main force behind my thinking is the conviction that a management style from the bottom up, instead of top down is more effective. Main reason for this is that by being stimulating and facilitating people are better equipped to perform their tasks: higher motivation, less stressed and more able to absorb complexity. If you read the article about metaphors you can tell that I am convinced that if this style of management is in your brain, you have a more tolerating, productive and positive mind set, one that is based upon trust instead of fear. I am convinced that educating around the globe about this style (instead of the old top-down directive leadership style) will have an amazing impact on more than just how businesses are run. It is about a better human-human interaction.

Do I dare to say, a better, more ethical sustainable world?

Some managers would object to this style; they think that if you leave people unattended by themselves, they will do only the stuff they want to do, the tasks they like. And that ain’t work. Concepts like student-syndrome and Parkinsons-law are often quoted in this context. However, in reality it seems that only very few people are out to sabotage the work of a team. Student-syndrome and Parkinsons-law are merely consequences of low job-satisfaction, so not some fundamental evil dark side of humans.

This doesn’t mean that everybody will have ideal, Utopian behavior. But this also doesn’t mean they are all out to kill a project. And even if there would be 1 in many that might have a tendency to show disruptive behavior, you would be applying the top down, authoritative style only for him, this very, very small minority of the team population. The most intrusive influence on a team (the management style) would be based upon a particular kind of behavior with a very low probability of happening. In other words, you are punishing the majority of the team, just because you might have one goofball.

The answer to the dilemma from the first paragraph is in my opinion definitely bottom up. And I am not suggesting that we should sniff each other like ants to coordinate (although we might learn something from paying more attention to animals). I don’t think we should write of the Project Manager. Yet. You have to think more along the lines of “a PM as a project concierge”. He is taking care of the mechanisms, making sure all is working fluently. Provide the team the information they need. Be the guide.

Now we only have to proof that this will lead to world peace, and the acceptance of this leadership style is in the pocket.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Bottoms Up: Leadership Style For A Better World is a post from: Project Shrink.

Every time someone mentions that he will work from home instead of being in the office, I get visions of the Dilbert comic in which Dilbert is walking around in his bathrobe, unshaven while telecommuting. I know, my bad. I have got to have more faith in humanity and find a cure for my cartoon-operated mind.

Nevertheless, when one of my team members is asking if he or she is allowed to work from home, I have the bath-robe flash. And the answer is not an immediate “yes” (unless the request is for one afternoon). I know of all the great benefits telecommuting has (assuming telecommuting is used as a employment benefit and not to reduce labor cost):

• Flexibility
• Degree of self autonomy
• Increases the productivity
• Solution to child and elderly care
• Reduced commuting time
• Saved cost in company real estate
• Reduction of absenteeism

All in all [TAG-Tec]motivational[/TAG-Tec] factors for the employee, and some cool benefits for the company.

But not everything can be fine and dandy. Otherwise I should not have any doubts. There are problems associated with working at home:

• Boundary control: boundary control is the ability of a manager to affect how an employee divides their time between work and non-work.
• Isolation: there is a tendency for full-time telecommuters to quickly feel a sense of alienation due to their isolation from fellow workers and the organization.

How do you counter those problems? Is it just a matter of trust and having the right collaboration tools? It cannot be that simple.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Telecommuting: Just A Matter Of Trust? is a post from: Project Shrink.