Three Simple, Low Cost Ideas to Help Jump-Start Leadership Development
One of the most frequent questions that I get at seminars or workshops goes something like this:
"Art, I’ve read your leadership book, I’ve listened to you in the workshop and I understand how important it is for me to put time into the development of leaders on my team. Where should I start?"
It’s actually a great question, and one which some creative and conscientious leaders have offered me some great, low-cost, easy to implement ideas that I am happy to share with you.
Improving The Executive and Project Manager Relationship
I’ve recently become immersed in developing a much better understanding of the role, challenges and contributions of Project Management to an organization’s success, and I cringe when recalling the many examples I observed of executives strong-arming the project process to fit their objectives. In the spirit of candor, I recall one or two instances where I might have asserted executive will to try and change the forces of the universe and get a new product out the door faster than my project manager said was humanly possible. I also recall that the Project Manager ended up being right.
As professional project management practices (and project managers) grow in importance to a firm’s success (see my post: Struggling With Strategy? Think Project Management), it is critical that top leaders learn how to support the process rather than beat it into submission. And because as the saying goes, "it takes two to tango," Project Managers need to learn how to "manage" their executives to minimize unproductive involvement or outright interference.
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