We all have Googled someone. Put his name into the Google search box and hit enter.

And the results you find, influence your perception of the person. And your perception determines your attitude and communication style.

Blockbuster Appeal And C-Level Moviestars

This can be a good thing. This can be a bad thing. Basically, it just is.

The rise of social media, virtual teams and the Internet in general create a hybrid business environment in which what happens online influences your face-to-face interactions. And vice versa.

This hybrid environment is a scary space.

You act differently in the comfort of your living room than standing on the field in a stadium with a microphone in your hand.

If everything you say is recorded and permanently stored and accessible to anyone, well, that’s, uhm, something else.

You can see the benefits of your employees engaging online, spreading the message, but how do you make sure your employees are communicating topics that are beneficial for the overall goal of the company, and are not just wasting time?

If you recognize any of this, you can use a good metaphor.

Movies! Yeah.

Movies are a fantastic metaphor to describe the relationship between organizations (projects) and employees. Every great movie has a compelling story, one people really want to follow. Every great movie has a cast of actors that contribute to the story with their own specific properties.

In a hybrid world, stories are very important.

Workshops! Trailers.

For months I am working on this hush hush undercover stealth project. Two workshops. They address effective operation in a hybrid environment and are inspired by movies.

I will create some decent sales pages. With benefits and value propositions and arguments to take away any objections you might have. Half that page will talk about how much fun this experience will be.

For now. I have a trailer. Actually, I have two. To create anticipation.

Please read in a deep voice.

How To Give Your Organization Blockbuster Appeal.

Plot: “You run a professional organization. Your employees engage in social media to enhance the online presence and the brand. But you wonder what they have to say? Do we need rules? How do we make sure that… well… everything!?”

Become A C-Level Movie Star. Fame. Bling. Parking Space.

Plot: “You are a C-level professional. A manager. Team leader. You are looking to use social media to leverage your personal brand. You. A Brand. Wow. It is not just for the fame. Of course. Being more self-aware improves your communication skills. And skills are good. And parking space.”

If you are not into movies, I also have a services page that doesn’t talk about the big screen.

Ahhh. Building anticipation.

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. - Blockbuster Appeal And C-Level Movie Stars. is a post from: Project Shrink.

If you are a Project Manager that operates for a short period of time in a foreign organization, with a team you don’t know, in a domain you would not know how to spell, I would say you have some challenges.

Think about this Project Manager as a person in a huge network of interacting people. The PM can interact only with a few of them (his team, the stakeholders). The stakeholders interact also with others. People the PM knows, but more likely with people invisible to the Project Manager.
Because of the size of the network, because of limited visibility on the network, because of the complexity of the network, the PM is getting partial information, always.

For the same reasons the PM has only partial influence. He cannot interact with “everyone”. He has no “power” over everyone.

Yet, he has a goal to reach. And he only has a couple of months to reach it. A short period of time before he moves on.

How do you get your job done?

First of all, the goal is reached by the team. A team with a leader might be ineffective at worst, but a PM without a team is, well, useless.

As Anthony Mersino once wrote:

“Project Management is Getting Work Done Through People!”

The only way I know to get such a complex task done in a short period of time under these circumstances is by means of culture.

Create goals, create an identity that the organization members want to be associated with. Create rituals, rules of engagements, language and visual clues that turn a collection of individuals into a tight and focused group. A group with a purpose. A group that feels special and a little different from the rest of the organization.

I am personally fascinated by how this works in a global and virtual world. There is no denying that the digital online world is playing an increasing role in our lives. Private and professional. Communicating through digital channels is different and at the same time it is familiar. Human interaction is still human interaction.

However, the visible clues we provide by what we are, what we think and, more importantly, with which groups we are associated are becoming more persistent (the web never “forgets”) and more dominant (it’s more obvious and in-your-face).

I thought about naming those clues “tags”, but I am not quite sure about that now. But still, as I explained:

“The kicker in the virtual space is, you actually use real tags. We see them. We use them as keywords in our filters. We use them in our one sentence pitch on LinkedIn. But still. Always the same principles. It’s about group affiliation and identity.”

I will never suggest that you need to do all your project work online. But I will state that hybrid operations will emerge more and more, mixed teams, mixed communication channels, offline and online.

And I am happy to tell you, no worries. Mechanism is the same.

Culture.

The observable traits or characteristics of an organism are called “phenotypes”. Your entire digital footprint is a phenotype. And so is the parrot on your shoulder if you associated yourself with being a pirate. So tags are phenotypes. Rituals are phenotypes.

Boyd and Richerson in Culture and the Evolutionary Process (1985) define culture as “information capable of affecting individuals’ phenotypes which they acquire from other conspecifics … by teaching or imitation.”

Providing information and teaching are therefor essential tasks in building cultures.

But this view also provides a different angle. The culture (in this case the project) adds to the individuals phenotype. So, to the legacy of the individual team member. It is not just his resume he is working on, it is larger than that, it is about creating his own identity and life story. His storyline is made up of a sequence of quests he is taking on. And one of those quests might be your project.

The essence of this observation is that culture cannot be separated from the project and the individual professional paths.

In an attempt to create a visual representation of the story I am telling at Project Shrink, I came up with the following.

The quest is the goal of the project. I call it “quest” as it also applies to e.g. online communities.

The small circles are the individual team members. The arrows between them represent their interaction.

The rules of engagement are the set of rules the group agreed upon for the way they interact.

The leader (PM) can use a mix of rituals, badges (visual clues), motivation, facilitation, communication and setting the example to ensure interactions and quest are followed as agreed (explicit and implicit) by the group.

The individual storyline is the combination of the “history” of the person (which determines his reputation) and the profile (a snapshot of who he is at this moment, the current role or expertise). The storyline moves into the direction of a persons ambition.

I hope this provides some structure in a sometimes complex story

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. - The Essential Role Of Culture In Projects is a post from: Project Shrink.

“I learned that you cannot jump from the PMBoK directly to topics like “mental flexibility” and “emotional intelligence”. I am sorry to tell you, but most people cannot make that jump that fast. A path to “project enlightenment” has to be defined. Conveniently, I think I have one… In Buddhism teachings are presented in Turnings of The Wheel Of Dharma. Each turn builds upon the previous one and brings the student to a higher level of consciousness.”

I have been going back and forth this year between “Second Turn: Structure For Resilience”, “Third Turn: Global Pool” and “Fourth Turn: Flexible Mind”.

While writing, talking and discussing about these levels, I have found a more effective, easier to explain version of the 4 Dharma’s. The message doesn’t change. But the emphasis and words are slightly different.

Three Spaces: Personal, Reputation And Project

Basically, I just went from 4 to 3. I currently talk about:

• Personal Space
• Reputation Space
• Project Space

The idea originates form the Social Media presentation I’ve been giving this year (see slide 24). In order to use social media skills on your project, you have to learn and master them on a personal and professional level first. The elements of Project Leadership require strong personal and interpersonal knowledge and skills:

“Goals and Means on individual, project and organizational level
Alignment of goals and means on all levels by communication”

Or as I conclude my presentation on Project Leadership: “Develop Project Leadership Skills To Get Your Team To Self-Organize.”

So, you work on your own stuff, you master the skills before you can help your team.

Mastering Your Personal Space

If you are communicating clearly, without fear of expression and with respect for the conversation partner, under all circumstances, you have truly mastered you own personal space. Within your space you get to know what you are about, what your thing is and how to shift the mental models of your mind.

Mastering Your Reputation Space

The topic of this blog is running projects. The network that knows about you in this context is your Reputation Space. You can view this as your professional network, your community of practice or just your local office.

Your Reputation Space is your training ground for professional interaction. You practice communication skills, you get knowledge and provide knowledge back to your network. You use skills from your personal space to participate, and you use insights provided by the interaction to enhance your personal skills.

While doing this, you build your reputation (hence the name). This reputation becomes important as it is used in communication with people that don’t know you, or hardly. Reputation is used to “create trust”. Reputation is used to get an idea about what you are about. As creating an audience is also a form of self-actualization, there is a direct link to the Personal Space.

Mastering Your Project Space

In the context of projects, the essence is captured in the earlier described notion of Project Leadership. For details, check out this presentation on Project Leadership.

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. - Mastering Three Spaces: Personal, Reputation And Project is a post from: Project Shrink.

Marketing: Tech People Hate It. Boy Are They Going To Need It!

“If your are into software project management, you are into marketing. If you are planning to keep on working on software projects in the years to come, you better get darn good at it. It seems to be a dirty word among technical people: “marketing”. But it’s not about selling your soul to the devil. It’s not about tricking people into buying stuff they don’t want.”

Dear Project Manager: Why Should Anyone Want To Work For You?

“If it’s not your reputation that’s going to kill your job, it’s your poor, old school skill set. Project organizations are getting more and more distributed over our globe, team members are becoming more mobile. The project manager will have to deal with an increasingly multi-cultural, global and mobile environment, in which the employees are working on more fragmented tasks. You desperately need to update your skills.”

Define Yourself As A Professional With Margaret Meloni

Earlier this year I had an interview with Margaret Meloni in which she answers the following questions:

• Why is it important to define yourself as a professional?
• How do you get to know what you bring to the table?
• How do you broadcast that to others?

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. - Project Shrink Rerun: Knowing And Promoting Yourself is a post from: Project Shrink.

Social media is all about having a “conversation”. An exchange of information between persons.

You can write your question in a word document. Upload it. Send me a mail. I check the mail. Download the document. Answer the question. Well, you get the idea.

Yes, it’s a hassle. But that is not why this conversation isn’t “social media”.

Photography by From A Second Story.

Social media puts the emphasis on the person in the conversation.

It is not only about the message itself, but also about the persona’s of the people involved in the exchange.

That is why we love big photos of REAL people next to the conversation. That is why it’s important to have an prominent “about” page on your blog.

When we have a conversation the actual content of the message is only a small part of the story. Based upon our perception of the other person we fill in blanks, we create assumptions, we draw conclusions and color the message to a more “detailed” image.

Social media supports multiple mechanisms to help us fill in the blanks.

LinkedIn displays the badges of the groups you are a member of. People see the groups you are associating yourself with and create assumptions based on that. I am a member of the Triiibes group; so I must be cool.

The mechanism works the same as the “I am a PC, I am a Mac” campaign. If you have a PC, people think you are a nerd, if you have a Mac, people think you are cool and creative.

LinkedIn provides recommendations. People write recommendations for other people. Building a reputation. If I need a plumber, I ask my neighbour. I trust my neighbour, so I trust the plumber he recommends. The reputation that is build up and propagated is used by me to build up a mental construct of the persona.

Social media puts the person back into online conversations. That is what makes it “social”.

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 Makes Social Media Social? is a post from: Project Shrink.

With an increase in geographical and cultural distance the aspect of “trust” becomes all important. When people have never met, there are only two mechanism we can fall back on:

• reputation: what others are saying about the other person, and
• trying to read “telltale signs“, look for behavior or other marks that they identify with trustworthiness.

This second mechanism might be as simple as being friendly and saying “hello” every time you see someone down the hall. People attempt to detect the tell-tale signs of trustworthiness not only based upon behavioral markers that society associates with it; it has also to do with the similarity of the other with you. Persons that are more viewed as being equal or “the same” are more likely to be considered honest and sincere towards you.

Back to “reputation”.

Technology has brought us the challenge of working with people we really, really, really don’t know, but it has also provided us luckily with a reputation mechanism by transparency. The question we all ponder: does this help? Is the transparency and the resulting reputation reliable? And does transparency lead to more ethical behavior?

As for the first part, that one is easy: every system can be manipulated. Especially on the web. Entire PR companies are in existence simply to provide “a good vibe” about a person or company on the web. All the “experts” are recommending each other. The eBay seller reputation system has been mislead before by people selling stuff for a penny just to get the needed recommendations. The system is just as reliable as the people using it.

But even when the system is working properly, even when transparency makes sure people’s behavior will be noted around the globe, this doesn’t mean you can take the benefits from it in your project or business. Although with a good reputation a lot is to gain, having a bad rep puts a lot at stake. So people will play things save. They will create low-risk behavior, resulting in the end into mediocrity..

A good example of this is illustrated by the following:

“While the typical CEO is only too happy to pocket the lucrative financial rewards that come with the mantle of leadership, some seem reluctant to accept this degree of accountability – especially if it means personally taking the rap for non-compliance with the law. I guess not many corporate heads are convinced that a minimum-security sabbatical in an orange jumpsuit will be as good for their careers as it seems to have been for Martha Stewart’s.”

Humans have a preference to fail conservatively. For me personally this is a surprising one. However, I do recognize it. The idea behind this is that people would rather choose an option that they know, that they have done in the past, EVEN if the outcome is likely to be unsuccessful, than try something new, where the outcome may be positive, but unsure. If they fail, they can also hide behind the notion that they did everything everybody else is also doing.

Let’s hope that the future doesn’t only contains of people conning the reputation systems by “influencing” information that tries to pose as “transparent”, and people that fear the system and stick to mediocre accomplishments. Otherwise, performing global projects will become a though job.

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. - Does Transparency Lead To More Ethical Behavior? is a post from: Project Shrink.

You know about globalization, you know this makes employees competing with people from all over the world. Have you considered The Other Consequence? That you have to compete with other GLOBAL companies and Project Managers to get good people to staff your projects?

If developers, testers and other talented individuals can work for any project all over the world, why should they work for you?

Let me start with the answer:

Because you have a project that is life changing, that is worth their effort. Because you provide an awesome creative and inspiring environment. You provide leadership that inspires people to rise to the occasion, to become larger than themselves. You give trust, and you can be trusted.

A few weeks ago I called this working environment a Project Tribe:

“The central element of a tribe is the leader and the idea, the goal. You need a leader who can inspire, one that can present Big Audacious Goals that seem to rock the world. Your project needs Al Gore, your project needs goals like “Save The Planet”. That’s why people join the gang. That’s why people want to be part of it (…)

The leader will set some rules of interaction. The leader will keep efforts aligned. Within this context the teams get self-organized and the Big Hairy Audacious Goal makes sure it’s all in the right direction.”

This is a “happy view” of the world. It is optimistic. It assumes the best in people. Some people might consider it a naive picture of their “real world”. But everybody determines his or her own world view, their mental picture that determines how they view and experience things. If you assume people cannot be trusted to perform work on their own, that’s your pitty choice. I choose to believe empowerment works:

“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?“

Photography by Elvire R.

WOW.

Isn’t that worth working for? Isn’t “a better, more ethical sustainable world” worth an extra mile?

And yes, it’s us, the Project Managers, that play an important role. If changes have to be done, you hire a Project Manager:

“People will turn to us to get thing done. We are the Getting-Things-Done-Squad! We have to drive these changes trough the swamp of corporate and global politics; we have to go full speed with zero-visibility; we have to make it all fit together in the end. There is no time for ass covering, compliance-for-compliance-sake, review-upon-review, no-you-cannot-change Project Management.”

You see, you really need to be this all engaging, empowering, inspiring, purpose providing Leader (with a HUGE L). It’s the only way to get the right people. It’s the only way to contribute to society.

For those of you who want to con the system, and keep on squeezing the last drop of performance out of depressed employees… Do it once, do it twice.. and you’re out of a job.

“The Internet introduced deadly transparency. The flattened and connected world makes sure reputations spread faster than you can say “Geronimo.” Over a decade ago it seemed almost impossible for someone in Europe to have a clue about the reputation of some person in Africa. With the Internet we have reputation systems in place where crowds share opinions among each other. It is not only that books and other products are recommended or thrashed, like on Amazon, but now people are taking a turn. LinkedIn provides a functionality to recommend. “

Who is going to work for you if you have a shady reputation?

If it’s not your reputation that’s going to kill your job, it’s your poor, old school skill set. Project organizations are getting more and more distributed over our globe, team members are becoming more mobile. The project manager will have to deal with an increasingly multi-cultural, global and mobile environment, in which the employees are working on more fragmented tasks. You desperately need to update your skills. If you’re a guy, sorry, but times will hit double hard on you:

“So, women are going to take the lead within project management? You bet! Multi-tasking, social and communication skills are natural properties for the ladies; no trick, no profession, just natural. Tom Peters, the famous management guru, has been getting all excited about it for years. He even wants to assign a degree to women: MnML/WR: Master of non-Masculine Leadership/Women Rule.”

If you are not engaging, empowering, inspiring, purpose providing, multi-culti, social Communicator (with a MONSTROUS C) nobody will work for you, and you will suck at your PM job also.

And this is my happy view on the matter.

Things You Can Do. Now.

• Be kind. Be tolerant.
• Study, learn and practice your soft skills. It’s not everything, but it’s the best start.
• Inflate your project goal. Make it BIG. Make it Life Changing.

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. - Dear Project Manager: Why Should Anyone Want To Work For You? is a post from: Project Shrink.