CRITICAL path CONSULTING

1. CRITICALpath CONSULTING management strategies that work for business, projects, and people Managing Your Thoughts: Managing YourPotential Harnessing the Performance Power of Your People Presented by: Melinda Carlisle, M.A. www.criticalpathconsulting.com

2. Harnessing The Power of People • What I have been asked to do today: • To help you harness the wonderful energy and potential of YOU as well as the people you work with: • Could be bosses • Project partners • Employees • Team members • Cross functional peers • People who might be getting in your way • There is wonderful energy in talent in all of these people www.criticalpathconsulting.com

3. Harnessing The Power of People • That energy comes from DECISION-MAKING POWER • When we buy, or hire someone, we are buying DECISION- MAKING POWER • We are not buying their childhood and whether it was happy • We are not buying their race, sex or gender: we have laws against that • We are buying their decision power and we have every right to wonder what it is • Most importantly, we should know what under girds it, what drives decision power, so we can leverage it www.criticalpathconsulting.com

4. Harnessing The Power of People • Decision making is considered “intangible”. • Translation:SOFT • It’s a give away to me when someone says, “That’s soft stuff” • What they are really saying is: They don’t know how to get their arms around it. www.criticalpathconsulting.com

5. Harnessing The Power of People • What I want to give you today: • A way to get your arms around it • Not only that, but to hold it in your hand and really see it. • We’re not talking magic. • We are talking SCIENCE www.criticalpathconsulting.com

6. Harnessing The Power of People • A little known science called axiology • Study of thought, sometimes known as Value science • Follows the norms of any science • Objective, universal, empirically valid • Validity Studies and reviews available at my website • What I want to do today is look at the practical application of that science to project management • It is a science that is at the tipping point and you’re going to hear a lot more about it www.criticalpathconsulting.com

7. Harnessing The Power of People • Axiology: Breakthrough: Robert Hartman • Mathematician and philosopher • Judge in Hitler’s regime • “If we can engineer evil, we should be able to engineer “good” • Took philosophy: the “soft” • and made it mathematical or “hard” • Identified the universal logic of how people value • How people value is the basis for all decisions www.criticalpathconsulting.com

8. Harnessing The Power of People • What he identified: • Everyone, when they are making decisions, has access to the same three kinds of thinking: • Intuitive • Pragmatic • Conceptual • That is what makes us the human family • What makes each of us unique is how we put those same three kinds of thinking together www.criticalpathconsulting.com

9. Harnessing The Power of People • Three kinds of thinking: • Intuitive Thinking: • Gut level- You identify with someone or something • Intuitive thinking doesn’t analyze and doesn’t judge, you are “one” with the other • It’s about how you read people • Pragmatic Thinking: • Is concerned with parts, or components of things • Is concerned with ways of doing something with those parts such as weighing, counting, measuring, comparing • It’s about doing • Conceptual Thinking: • Is concerned with theorizing, strategizing, planning. • Is interested in rules, order, policy and meaning • It’s about ideas www.criticalpathconsulting.com

10. Harnessing The Power of People • The Analogy of “A sunset”: • If I am experiencing a sunset from my: • Intuitive Thinking: • I’m caught up in it • I’m inside it • I don’t notice you standing right next to me trying to talk to me • I am one with the sunset • And there is no sense of time • It’s like one of those experiences where you connect with someone and think you’ve been talking for only 5 minutes but it is really an hour • Yet, if I asked you what the other person was wearing you wouldn’t have a clue www.criticalpathconsulting.com

11. Harnessing The Power of People • If I am experiencing a sunset from my: • Pragmatic Thinking: • I step back out of the experience • I notice the clouds, the colors and the people around me • I am in touch with the real world around me right now • Conceptual Thinking: • When I step back from the “sunset” even further and I ask: • What do the clouds mean? • Do the clouds mean rain? • Where does that red color come from? • This is theoretical thinking • We use it to form diagrams, strategy, plans, goals. • It’s diagrams, flow charts www.criticalpathconsulting.com

12. Harnessing The Power of People • A word about differences: • We need to view all differences in thinking patterns as just differences . • It isn’t about weaknesses • It is about differences in strengths • And you’ll see later how those strengths can trip you up www.criticalpathconsulting.com

13. Harnessing The Power of People Here’s what it looks like when you focus on the different kinds of thinking: www.criticalpathconsulting.com

14. Harnessing The Power of People • None of us are purely intuitive, pragmatic or conceptual • Let’s see how these dimensions combine • What kind of chemistry occurs when we combine them www.criticalpathconsulting.com

15. Harnessing The Power of People The “Get it Done” Project Manager www.criticalpathconsulting.com

16. Harnessing The Power of People The “Look Before You Leap” Project Manager www.criticalpathconsulting.com

17. Harnessing The Power of People The relational, “Get it Done” Account Manager: “I have a gut feeling this will work” www.criticalpathconsulting.com

18. Harnessing The Power of People • What kinds of challenges can we address when we understand thinking and decision making? • Some of my experiences managing project managers: • Client fit: Matching problem solving styles • “Look before Leap” and “Get it Done” • Managing Change: When something unexpected happens to a strong conceptual thinker • Leadership development: Shifting from tactical/ hands-on to leadership and strategy • The business conversation: Where have all the relational people gone? • Getting around the obstacles: Shortage of unconventional thinking www.criticalpathconsulting.com

19. Harnessing The Power of People • Intuitively, I did what you probably do, I leveraged the differences Keep in mind, I didn’t have value science to help me • Capitalize • Intentionally and strategically use the strength • Compensate: • Complimentary teams: “This is what we need to do now!” “We need to discuss it a little bit more before we do anything” “Why are we discussing this?” • Change: • Help and develop the person to be able to access a different kind of thinking www.criticalpathconsulting.com

20. Harnessing The Power of People • Have you ever struggled to: • Develop someone? • Develop a team? • Develop yourself? • How do you know what you’re even working on? Value Science can help us here www.criticalpathconsulting.com

21. Harnessing The Power of People • Be careful….this is quick and dirty • Our tendency is to want to take the little bit that we know and try to figure out how people are • Box them in • Label them • Don’t judge a person by their behavior • All dimensions of thoughts work together in a unique way for each person www.criticalpathconsulting.com

22. Harnessing The Power of People • We need to find out how they are thinking • Not how they saythey are thinking but how they are actually thinking • We need to find out how they make decisions • Not how they say they make decisions • Not how other people say they make decisions • Not how their behavior indicates they are making decisions • They can only sustain behavior that contradicts their thinking for so long www.criticalpathconsulting.com

23. Harnessing The Power of People • You also want to know this for yourself- how do you make decisions? • The more you know about how you make decisions the better you will be at: • Capitalizing on those strengths • Compensating for those strengths • Deploying those strengths • Managing those strengths so they don’t trip you up • Making your talent work for you www.criticalpathconsulting.com

24. Harnessing The Power of People • How are you doing so far? • Do you see what we are saying about decision styles? • We can empirically measure these general, more global decision styles • We can also measure the structure of thinking as it relates to competency: • As we get down to the specifics these unique patterns- unique to each person- are going to express themselves in particular ways that, again… we can measure www.criticalpathconsulting.com

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26. Harnessing The Power of People Some Project Management Competencies: • Integration/Initiation • Scope and Activity Generation • Team Leadership • Human Resource Management • Cost Management • Quality Management • Procurement Management • Risk Management • Communications and Change Let’s rank them in order of what is the most important quality in a project manager. www.criticalpathconsulting.com

27. Harnessing The Power of People • Let’s look at 2 categories and break them down a bit more, go a bit deeper: • What you’re about to see is unique because we have not been able to measure these competencies scientifically as well before • Except by asking people to describe themselves, or asking someone else to rate them • We have been able to measure basic differences in the types of thinking • Now you’ll see that we can go even deeper www.criticalpathconsulting.com

28. Harnessing The Power of People • Let’s look at Communication and Change • Have you ever been in a situation where someone says, “Well the problem around here is communication” • 17 people say it but they all mean something different by it • Let’s look and see what we might want to pay attention to • Specific skills that we can measure empirically • There are hard competencies associated with communication and change • We can go from something that is “softer” to something that is very much hard science. www.criticalpathconsulting.com

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30. Harnessing The Power of People • If I didn’t have this data, how might I know if someone could handle communication or some other competency? • Watch them? • Wait until they mess up? • Keep this in mind: If I know how they think then I can use one of the three ways to support them • Capitalize on their strengths • Compensate for the ways those strengths might be tripping them up • Ask them to Change • If this is you, what might you learn about yourself before your next project engagement? www.criticalpathconsulting.com

31. Harnessing The Power of People • Let’s look at another hard competency: • Risk Management • More specifically, a person’s capacity to assess value and risk • An important core competency for Project Managers • There are mechanical attributes as well as “soft” attributes • Let’s see what competencies we can understand in this area www.criticalpathconsulting.com

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33. Harnessing The Power of People • Suppose you are having trouble with someone in these areas • How would you work with them? • What are some things you can focus on? www.criticalpathconsulting.com

34. Harnessing The Power of People • Asking people to change isn’t always the right solution. • We need to understand ALL of this person’s strengths • Because if we try to change someone without knowing that we’re in trouble. • We may lose someone we don’t want to lose • When what we really want is for their outcomes to look a little different. There are many ways to get there www.criticalpathconsulting.com

35. Harnessing The Power of People • It’s our responsibility to ensure that, when we ask someone to change, we understand them and are solving the right problem • Change is not about fixing something that is broken. • When we ask someone to change we are not saying that they need fixing • YOU don’t need fixing • It is that we want to get somewhere different than where we are now • A problem is just the difference between where we are and where we want to be • The same is true for people www.criticalpathconsulting.com

36. Harnessing The Power of People • Change is about GROWTH! • Example: That laser focused, detail oriented project manager who doesn’t appear to think strategically • We don’t want to change them….. • We want to GROW THEM • We want to expand and stretch capability and competency • And…we want to capitalize on their strengths! www.criticalpathconsulting.com

37. Harnessing The Power of People • Management Myopia: • This is a real condition I see in companies • Management is often highly focused on what isn’t working, what someone doesn’t have • The squeaky wheel • And when leaders are frustrated they often aren’t looking at people’s strengths • Sometimes they don’t even know their own strengths • But extraordinary leadership requires that we get the whole picture of someone’s talent ……….along with how that talent can trip them up www.criticalpathconsulting.com

38. Harnessing The Power of People • And that is the OPPORTUNITY….. • To really understand the full measure of the talent you have www.criticalpathconsulting.com

39. Harnessing The Power of People • Example: Hidden Talent in the Field www.criticalpathconsulting.com

40. Harnessing The Power of People • An Endemic Situation in Project Management: • Hands on technical expertise that doesn’t translate well into a leader or customer manager who can focus on workforce management and strategy • What do you do? • Do you replace the person? • Do you have a second track for career growth that doesn’t involve managing people? • Let’s be realistic- most companies don’t have that luxury • Many can’t hire full time managers • Maybe they have to promote someone technical into management because of company politics • Maybe they have to promote someone into management because that person has done an outstanding job www.criticalpathconsulting.com

41. Harnessing The Power of People • How do we help this person? • How do we help someone we want to promote but you’re not sure has the ability to be a leader? • Maybe that someone is YOU! • Maybe it is someone who isn’t working out well on a team • The first step: • Let them know it’s o.k to be the way they are • Sometimes we indirectly make someone feel that they are less than good • Even though they have been what we want all of their careers, right now they may not be what we want or need • They don’t need fixing • The next step is to get your arms around how they make decisions • Where are their strengths? • Where do those strengths trip them up? www.criticalpathconsulting.com

42. Harnessing The Power of People • CAPITALIZE on those strengths: • Position a highly pragmatic, “get it done” project manager into an urgent situation because they’ll absolutely get it done • COMPENSATE: This superstar might get it done but step on a few toes along the way • Pair them with a team member who is more cautious and likely to weigh, measure and evaluate • Pair them with someone who is more conceptual and structured and who can ask questions such as, • “What kind of problem is that a solution for?” and, • “Why are we doing this?” • Pair them with someone who pays more attention to their gut read on people and who is interested and concerned about people See how this can work? It isn’t about “fixing” www.criticalpathconsulting.com

43. Harnessing The Power of People • CHANGE: • Is helping people access the pieces of the missing link that they aren’t paying attention to • Most people have some of the pieces • “Get it done” project managers do in fact have some components of strategic thinking • We need to help people see those pieces, along with the tremendous resilience they’ve got • We need to help them look at their own whole picture of their decision making potential • We help them learn to listen to the dimension of thinking they aren’t paying attention to by watching someone who is paying attention to it • It’s an exploration www.criticalpathconsulting.com

44. Harnessing The Power of People • Once somebody recognizes they don’t have the fullness of whatever kind of thinking is required to get to where they want to be, either in the moment, or for a particular project, we can help them • They can learn to pay attention to what they need, what the project needs, what the business needs • You can position people intentionally on teams to make this happen • This has enormous implications for hiring and selection as well as succession planning www.criticalpathconsulting.com

45. Harnessing The Power of People • Summary: • Determine what decision power you have in your talent- or in you! • Capitalize on it: Utilize it fully, exploit it purposefully • Compensate for it: Combine talent to leverage strengths and create balanced teams • Change: Coach and Mentor • Remember that we all have access to the same kinds thinking- but we all access it differently Decision Power is Management Power for Business, Projects and People www.criticalpathconsulting.com

46. Harnessing The Power of People See a full color copy of the Project Management Competency Report atwww.criticalpathconsulting.com melinda@criticalpathconsulting.com (408)893-4032 Thanks and have a great life… ………unless you have other plans! www.criticalpathconsulting.com

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