The rise of “the project” as an important means of competing and creating value has profound implications for those in leadership roles. Unfortunately, in many cases, the evolution in leadership practices has not kept pace with the needs of project teams or the needs of organizations struggling to develop competence at executing on projects.
Our traditional models of leadership emphasize the development of skills and practices that focus on individuals and teams generally operating under the umbrella of a single functional leader. However, firms moving towards a project-focused culture tend to start by overlaying a matrix form project management structure on top of the traditional functional orientation. This new and non-traditional environment offers a host of new problems and challenges for leaders used to being masters of their own domains.
As a sidebar, while the project management discipline is well established and the role of the formal project manager is growing in importance and popularity, both my own anecdotal evidence and the many reports and studies on project performance indicate that we’ve not yet cracked the code on managing projects for success. In my work as a consultant and as a project management educator at the graduate level, I have few qualms in suggesting that the majority of the organizations that attempt what I’ve described above…imposing a matrix format on a functional orientation, struggle and flounder with their projects. Leadership or the lack of appropriate leadership support is a key issue in project failure.
8 Suggestions for Leading and Succeeding Inside the Project Matrix
- First, recognize that the rules of the game have changed. Your mission is no longer about optimizing results within your functional boundaries. Your emphasis is on providing resources and support for teams that aren’t yours.
- You enhance your position by supplying the strongest possible talent for work on project teams, not by hoarding this talent for your own purposes. Pony up.
- Your talent development efforts must now incorporate the development of skills and experience working within the matrix. Translation: you need to help teach and develop individuals that are comfortable and competent working on multiple initiatives for multiple teams.
- From time to time, complex project challenges will require your functional area’s direct support for resolution. This is a time for you and your colleagues to shine. Run, don’t walk and offer your help.
- Be aware of fluctuations and perturbations in the matrix. The brunt of the stress and complexity falls on the people doing the work. Communication, problem-solving, negotiation and prioritization are all complex in a matrix environment, and you can help by stepping in and facilitating solution development. Your efforts to reduce stress and complexity will pay off in the form of increased team performance and improved project execution.
- Hug a project manager today. OK, maybe not literally, but it’s a great practice to reach out and cultivate a relationship with your firm’s project managers. These busy individuals are at the epicenter of a firm’s key initiatives and have a unique view on the challenges, opportunities and the organization’s talent pool. Plus, develop a good reputation for supporting the project managers and this will pay dividends when you are looking for support for initiatives that impact your area of responsibility.
- Leverage the emerging project environment to expand your reach and grow your career. Top management is looking for leaders that understand how to help make things happen in an increasingly complex and hostile global marketplace. Your active involvement and contribution to project team success will highlight that you’ve moved beyond yesterday’s approaches to leading.
- Master the role of project sponsor. If you are at the level where you are eligible to serve as a project sponsor, sign-on and do everything possible to help the project succeed. Don’t make the common mistake of viewing this role as a token or honorary position. Good sponsors work hard to support their project teams. And don’t forget the Kevlar vest for others outside your project team that will have plenty of reason to take aim should things go wrong. This is the time when great sponsors shine.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Never turn down an opportunity to enhance your leadership skills. The increasingly important project-orientation of organizations offers a myriad of opportunities for you to develop new skills and try on new approaches. You can remain stubborn and insist on leading from a functional view-point, but in this case, your view might just be from the back of the unemployment line. It’s time to enter the matrix.
Hello Art,
While in an ideal setting, managers across all functional areas would be eager to offer assistance to other areas of the organization. My experience has demonstrated that reality rarely fits that model. Often, managers have been reluctant to “share” their resources in instances where a positive and direct impact to their own measurement scorecard won’t be felt. I am curious to know, if in your experience, measurement tools for “assists” are utilized. I’m not sure that a system that deems it necessary to incentivize cooperation is going to last long. But, I was just curious if you’ve encountered a system that recognizes and measures “assists”.
Jason, thanks for reading and writing. You are absolutely right. I haven’t seen that ideal world too often either. I have observed some firms that are culturally very comfortable with making projects happen, however, they have often moved way beyond the initial matrix to function overlay stage. These more project-mature firms have cultures that not only encourage but require good collaboration. As for your scorecard issue, I agree as well. In that case, it’s generally the scorecard that needs repairing. The same project-mature firms use measures that help align efforts. -Art
Wow Art – great wisdom here. I’ve sometimes thought that our organizations have things turned upside-down. Project managers seem to get no r-e-s-p-e-c-t, and yet they are often leading a matrix of individuals who don’t report to them (so influencing them is difficult when you aren’t responsible for the paycheck!).
I always figured if you could lead an enterprise-wide or matrixed project, you could do almost anything. Unfortunately, I’ve often seen it as the beginning of the end for project leaders through no fault of their best efforts.
These project managers are often talented individuals who take a licking for not giving “stakeholders” everything they want – with good reason because they must compromise and collaborate in order to obtain the best solutions. We should be more mindful of supporting them because they will pick up their considerable talent and skills and go somewhere where they are appreciated.
Here’s to giving more respect to our project leaders!
Mary Jo, I am such a big fan of two classes of talented and capable informal leaders: project managers and product managers. Great professionals in those roles are worth several times their weight in precious metals and gems. Unfortunately, as you point out, the respect factor is often missing. The organizational leaders that actually get how important these roles are and follow the general guidance that I’ve outlined, will truly benefit from the talents of these important professionals.
Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom! Best, -Art
Great insight in this post, Art. Certainly, is really very difficult to obtain a balanced matrix environment. This organizational model presents some unique challenges: conflicts over scarce resources, some kind of diffuse responsibility between project managers and functional managers and so on. I think the most important in this approach is to obtain a full, well defined support from the executive level… for both project and functional managers.
3/3/10: Midweek Look at the Independent Business Blogs…
Every week I select five excellent posts from this week’s independent business blogs. This week, I’m pointing you to posts on strategy, project-based leadership, blame, compensation, and the purpose of a corporation. …
You’ve articulated something I’ve been noticing! Leadership models are changing. This may be an outgrowth of recent theories like the Servant Leader model but, nevertheless, it points to how leaders have to up their skills in the intangibles. Noticing and acknowledging are great ways to send the message that all teams in an organization are contributing to the purpose, mission, and goals of the entire business.
It seems that you are encouraging leaders to become more like patrons, particularly those leaders in the C-suite. Without them, this goes nowhere. The question lies with how to present to leaders that it’s okay to share their “weatlh” in talent and resources. There is a ROI and/or a way to leverage their generosity and forward thinking. Unfortunately, the “what’s in it for me” mentality must be addressed.
Art,
Following the dictum that structure needs to support strategy (or at least mirror it to a high degree), one of the keys to securing cooperation across departments is to make sure that C-level leaders are vocal, active supporters of project teams. Not only do incentives need to be aligned with the importance of matrix-oriented projects, the words and deeds of the key leadership must demonstrate the value that members of proejct teams bring to the entire organization.
It is only when the entire enterprise sees that working within one of the project teams is a good thing for the participants as well as for the business that the obstacles to sharing time and talent across departments and divisions will begin to break down. At one progressive organization where I worked, one measure of your leadership skill was how many of your subordinates were working within matrix teams. Sounds simple, but it really demonstrated the importance of “pony-ing up.”
As the saying goes, “Listen to what they say, but watch what they do.”
Yes, yes and yes. I agree wholeheartedly and this is the world I’ve worked in for ten years. Now, when will we get the headhunter/staffing community onboard? They are the gatekeepers but gatekeepers should be in that role by virtue of their thought leadership. My experience with them, as channels for career advancement, is they are still looking for people whose careers follow a specific narrow, easy to understand career ladder with little texture and little diversion from that model and its traditional title and tasks. I don’t know who has that sort of career anymore, except possibly finance people. If you are in a complex, global, changing organization, and you are charged with leading projects that drive change, don’t expect a search professional to help or even understand your work. They seem to search based on titles only. What I would love for them to know is, if a person is known for the ability to lead a program or initiative, that person will be tagged to lead other initiatives, even when those fall out of the individual’s functional area. Leading projects is the skill and few can do it really well.
Trying to find resources out of our own area is a classic organization conflict. “Collaboration” is still pretty much an aspiration in corporate america. It’s funny how prevalent the resource hoarding practice is.
Great article and insights Art. There is a good book called Collaboration that talks about “T-shaped managers” – today’s leaders have to manage functionally but also contribute to broader organizational initiatives. I would take it a step further and state that leaders need to become adept at cultivating strong talent networks beyond their organizational boundaries as well. Leaders with strong networks inside and outside the organization can quickly draw on diverse subject matter experts for a quick bit of advice, to hire, or to contract with for a specific project.
[…] notable posts include: Art Petty’s Leadership Caffeine-Learning to Lead in the Project-Focused World, Jason Seiden’s Your Job Sucks? Really? I’m Shocked. Oh, Wait: No I’m Not, Anne […]
[…] – Art Petty has a really great post about leadership in a matrix context — very relevant for many of my clients. Available here. […]
Sense making and Serendipity among the Business Blogs…
Almost anything can inspire a blog post, but it isn’t complete until the comments are don…