It’s Time to Recognize the Project Manager as a Leader
The most challenging leadership positions are the informal roles where an individual leads based on his or her credibility and capability without the backing of a formal reporting structure. These positions are often characterized by a high-level or responsibility for results with little direct authority over the people doing the work. The role of Project Manager matches this description perfectly, with organizations increasingly looking to the individuals charged with project or program management to play key roles in executing on strategic priorities.
Unfortunately, in many organizations, the role of Project Manager is inappropriately disconnected from the strategy process and is often viewed and treated by executives as a mid-level or administrative role. This is wrong. Senior executives would be wise to tap into the unique skills, insights and capabilities of the best Project Managers as they look to build out their leadership teams and to propel their organizations faster.
Want to Change? Manage Strategy in Bursts!
Filed under: Leadership, Organizational Transformation, Project Management, Strategy
Traditional strategic planning approaches often fail to deliver the results that firms require to jump start growth or pull out of a sustained decline. Legacy approaches emphasize a periodic focus on strategy—often an annual refresh against a long-range plan. This “strategy as an event” approach is increasingly obsolete in a world that changes overnight, with markets being born, maturing and dying at hyper-speed. Instead, what is needed is a more dynamic means for professionals to experiment, innovate and to assess results and refine activities in near-real time.
Organizations that learn to work in “Strategy Bursts” are able to learn, adapt and refine their strategic activities faster than more plodding competitors, but this new style requires learning and internalizing a new approach to strategy management and execution. For many leaders and executives, succeeding with this new model requires letting go of old strategy habits and biases.
Sales and Marketing Managers: Use the Lead Refinery Approach to Improve Results
I talk with a lot of marketing and sales managers and have spent most of my life working in these environments. In spite of the dramatic advancements in software tools available, I still find gaping holes in the way many sales and marketing organizations manage and account for the flow of leads into the sales pipeline. Although there are undoubtedly some technology constraints, I suspect that the primary issue is one of process more than anything else. Employed properly, changes in the output of the lead refinery foreshadow expansion or contraction of volume in the sales pipeline.
Here are some thought-starters for employing the Lead Refinery approach to improve your performance:
Would You Work for This Character?
"The only way that you will succeed on my team is if you are married to the job!"
"The reason that I am not in any family vacation pictures is because I’m on the phone. If I’m in the picture, I have a blackberry stuck to my ear."
Yeesh. What a jerk!
The quotes speak volumes about this individual’s leadership style, priorities and character. A "my way or the highway" approach, coupled with an "I will succeed on the backs of your labor and you will help me succeed or else," philosophy. It also speaks volumes about the culture in the organization that tolerates this leader’s style.
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