Tag: Team

Ever wondered why your project team isn’t working together as effectively as you had hoped? Perhaps it’s the people mix. About 10% of the typical workforce is classified as falling into the Difficult People category. Some people are surprised it’s so small. Sometimes it feels like they’re everywhere! What is a difficult person? Perhaps the better question is: what is a difficult person for you? Perhaps it’s someone who is disruptive. On the other hand, it might be someone who is too quiet and hard to draw out; not a good listener and always interrupts; someone who bullies and is very abrupt.

The effect they have on a project team or, indeed, on the organization varies greatly, but usually involves the following: Low morale, increased conflict, group attitude goes as their attitude goes, intimidation, insults, team demoralization, decreased productivity, rising costs, increasing project risks, need for additional resources, etc.

What happens to you when you deal with a Difficult Person? Everyone has a slightly different reaction, but some common reactions include a rise in blood pressure, racing heart, lump in the throat, “fight, flight, or freeze” syndrome, or getting red-in-the-face.

One thing you can be sure of: If you don’t do something about whatever it is that someone is doing that makes life difficult for you, you’ll continue to get more of it.

There are many types of difficult people. In general, they can be rolled into these main groups:

• The Steamroller
  This is the bully of the group – always interrupting, insulting, and yelling. We all know these types.
• The Sniper
  These are the folks who hide in the back of the room, always sniping – taking shots at everyone, constantly nit-picking back at you, sending out comments, etc. They always want to do this from “under cover.” If you call them on it they say, “Oh, I’m just kidding,” or, “Can’t ya take a joke?” or, “I didn’t say anything!” They always have a comment.
• The “Can’t Say No” person.
  Will not say no to work. The problem is they won’t say no, they won’t say no, they won’t say no . . . and then they finally just collapse!
• The Know-it-all
  Do I have to say anything else? Need I say more? They know it all!
• The Complainer
  Chronic complainers! Chronic whiners! To them, life is one big complaint!
• The Staller
  The Indecisive Staller. This is the person who just will not make a decision. They will not commit to anything; they are always stalling.

Time to Take Action!

No matter which one of these personality types is the difficult person for you, you must learn to effectively deal with them.

So that leads to the question: How do you go about it?

Dealing with the Steamroller

When dealing with a steamroller, also known as the verbal “big bully,” stay calm. Typically, they are trying to “rile you up,” wanting you to elevate your emotions to their level. Don’t let them do it. Keep eye contact with them. Remain assertive. Let them go on and on, let them unwind. Then when they spool down a bit, interrupt them!

When you interrupt them you will have the chance you need to become assertive. That’s when you pick up the ball. One effective approach is to use an approach that is close to Muhammad Ali’s Rope-A-Dope! Muhammad Ali was known to have the ability take a great many punches to his mid-section. He would lean against the ropes, and let his opponent “box himself out,” get tired. He would wait for his opportunity, and then, BAM! He would knock them out. In a similar fashion, you should do the same thing verbally when dealing with the steamroller. Allow them to verbally wear themselves out, and then, when you see your opportunity, BAM! You take your turn.

Call them by name, and then say, “OK, now wait a minute, I have something to say. I’ve been listening to you, now you listen to me.” You will start, and what will happen? They will interrupt! What should you do? Be assertive! Say, “Hey, I said wait a minute. I listened to you, now it’s my turn.” Don’t back down! That’s what they expect! Also remember to keep eye contact. Just don’t back down. You may not “win” the argument or discussion, but once you stand up to them, they typically will become your best buddy. It only takes one time! They may still bully other people on your team, but they won’t bully you any longer. By going toe to toe with them, you may have just earned their respect.

Dealing with the Sniper

Again, these are the folks who hide in the back of room, sending out comments, always sniping, taking shots at everyone, constantly nit-picking back at you. Think back to your high school classroom days. What would your teacher do with these guys? Most of the time, the teacher would call them out. For example, the teacher may say something like, “Excuse me, did you have something to say? Something to share with the entire class?” Of course they would rarely, if ever, stand up and say anything; they would always back down and say something like, “Oh no I was just kidding,” or, “No, I don’t have anything to share.”

This approach works most of the time. Call them out; don’t let them get away with it. Clarify: “Excuse me, but I thought I heard something in that comment. Do you have something to share with everyone in the meeting?” One word of caution: be careful. Most of the time they will stop their sniping behavior but, occasionally, they will shift gears and become the bully – the “Steamroller.” But now you know what to do with a bully. Simply switch tactics, do your own version of the rope-a-dope, wait for your opportunity and, when it’s time, seize the moment.

Dealing With the “Can’t Say No” Person

This is the person who has a hard time saying no, especially as it relates to work assignments. They will attempt to undertake any assignment, even those given to them by people other than their own boss.

Why would they do this? Some people really are afraid to say no. They are afraid to be seen as incompetent or unable to carry enough of the load. Some people simply do not know their limits, or worse, they ignore them.

In other situations, it is because the employee is a rookie on the team and doesn’t want to let the others down; for others it is a personality issue, or even the result of the culture they were raised in. In some cultures, saying no is highly discouraged. As a result, people raised in this environment have a hard time when it comes to balancing the work-load effectively.

In dealing with the “Can’t Say No” person, the first thing you want to do is to build a relationship with them. You need to earn their trust and get them to be comfortable with you. Then, let them know what you are concerned about.

Once you have built a good level of trust, you can begin by asking questions that are designed to help them understand that they are out of balance. Be careful, though, as they will often be very sensitive. In their mind, they are doing a really good thing. From their point of view, if they were not doing the work, it really would not get accomplished. Quite often though, even if they do manage to complete all of the work that they have taken on, the quality of that work will suffer.

Occasionally you will find the “Can’t Say No” person who is able to accomplish all the work with an acceptable, and even excellent, quality level. The problem here is that rarely will they be able to maintain that momentum, and they will eventually burn out. At that point, they will be of no use to the team, but more importantly, they will have done harm to themselves. Recovery from a true burnout stage is more than difficult. Our goal is to prevent the “Can’t Say No” person from ever reaching anything close to that stage.

There are several things that you, as the boss, can do that will be helpful.

You can make suggestions for alternatives; there may be many people who can do the work that they have taken on, but they will not see that. You can point out the obvious, but quite often you will need to become their work filter. You will tell them that they are only allowed to take on work assignments that are passed through you. No one is allowed to give them an assignment that does not come by your desk first. They will resist this, because they will feel it to be an embarrassment. They will try to stall you and put you off. Just be firm, and reassure them that things will be fine, but they must continue to trust you.

You will need to keep on top of them, continually getting agreement that this is the best approach. You need to be their sanity checker. You can do a workload histogram to show them exactly how much work they have been doing. This will show them exactly how much they have been out of balance. It’s almost like a 12-step program. They need to learn in baby steps that it’s okay to say no, at times, and the world really will continue. The work really will get done.

In the next Project Times, we will offer tips for dealing with the “Know it all,” the “Complainer,” and the “Staller.” In the meantime, in the words of Mohammed Ali, “Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.” Just be sure to do it verbally, and only when appropriate!

Tim McClintock is an instructor with Global Knowledge Training LLC.This article was originally published in Global Knowledge’s Management in Motion e-newsletter. Global Knowledge (www.globalknowledge.com) delivers comprehensive hands-on project management, business analysis, ITIL, and professional skills training.

Copyright © Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved. 3/09

Managing employees is never easy, but it poses a particular challenge when teams are lean and the economy is uncertain. While some of the obstacles businesses are grappling with may be new, the strategies they can use to foster teamwork in a troubled economy are not.

With increased business pressures in an uncertain economy, supervisors are often required to accomplish more with fewer resources. By learning from the strategies managers have employed in past downturns — both those that worked well and those that did not — companies will be better prepared for when the economy eventually rebounds.

Following are seven of the most prevalent mistakes managers make in a downturn and how to avoid them.

1. Thinking your staff can’t handle the truth. If you haven’t before, now is the time to treat employees like business partners. Talking openly about the effect of the downturn on your firm can help staff members feel they have some measure of control. Discuss issues that arose during the last business slowdown. How did things turn around? What was learned from that experience?

2. Blaming those at the top. If you’re a middle manager who has to deliver bad news, you may be inclined to tell employees that you would have done things differently, but the choice wasn’t yours. While this may temporarily take the heat off of you, it sends the message that you are out of sync with the company’s leaders, which may be disconcerting to staff. Instead, present changes and the reasons behind them, including how your firm will persevere.

3. Feeling people are lucky just to have a job. It may be true that many employees feel fortunate to have a stable position, but this doesn’t mean managers can ignore staff members’ desire for positive recognition and career support. Top performers, in particular, require extra attention; not only are their contributions especially critical now, but they are always attractive targets for competitors.

4. Not asking for employees’ help in expanding client relationships. Ask staff members to think about things they can do to help achieve business goals without sacrificing productivity. You may be pleased to discover how resourceful they are. When appropriate, involve your team in efforts to generate new business. This can mean expanding relationships with existing clients as well as identifying and pursuing new prospects.

5. Making work “mission impossible.” Hiring freezes and tighter budgets may mean that one person is doing the work of two or more people. If this is the case, help your employees identify which projects are mission-critical. Delegate remaining tasks, bringing in temporary
professionals if necessary, or put these items on hold. This will help you avoid overwhelming your staff.

6. Shifting the focus from the front lines. Client service matters even more when times are tough. Are you doing everything possible to make sure your front-line professionals have the right attitude and send the right messages? If these employees come across as indifferent or
inexperienced, you could lose both prospective and existing customers.

7. Waiting to try new things. Even in uncertain times, playing it safe can backfire. If you have a promising new service offering or client niche you want to pursue, don’t wait for a turnaround to act. By taking well-calculated risks, you can get a jump on competitors and possibly carve out an additional revenue stream.

Mike Gooley is manager of Robert Half International’s Toronto operations. Robert Half International, www.rhi.com, has more than 360 staffing locations worldwide. The company has just released its guide, The 30 Most Common Mistakes Managers Make in an Uncertain Economy. Readers can request a free copy of the guide at www.rhi.com/30Mistakes.

The Project Management Maturity (PMM) model is a pretty hot topic these days. There are waves of consultants who can help organizations assess their “maturity level” which is pretty much always listed hierarchically with less mature being worse than more mature. Proponents of the concept say the PMM model shows the capabilities of an organization to manage projects. Whether you’re a fan of this assessment or not, there is another kind of maturity model that I’ve experienced personally and it has to do with the use and deployment of Enterprise Project Management (EPM) systems.

When we work with organizations that are deploying a project management system, it’s very common to find that the desires of the people doing the deploying is that they’ll get to enjoy every element of the new system they’ve just had demonstrated. While there are a few showcase organizations that have been able to do this it’s much less common than you’d hope.

What is more likely is that there is a sequence of usage of such systems.

At the most basic level we tend to see planning as the first wave. Some organizations never get beyond this. They make a basic schedule, bronze the GANTT chart then mount it on the wall of the project team’s office. People refer to the plaque from time to time nostalgically as they remember the fine state of their schedule just before the project started.

While I’m being a bit cruel at those who are only using their expensive project management software to make a bar chart, there is certainly value in doing so. Creating an organized schedule tends to make the project participants think about how the work should be put together and is much more effective than doing nothing or just making a spreadsheet list.

Next in line in our experience is typically tracking. An organization which is a little more “mature” in the use of their project management system will not only plan, they’ll track their schedules, advancing them on a regular basis with the progress to date and even look forward with projected schedules as the plans advance. For many organizations, stopping here is effective. They’re planning in their project management system, then they’re working the plan by updating it regularly and even giving useful reports to management.

Once planning and tracking are handled, organizations tend to look to the resource management problem and how it might get resolved using their project management system. Resources can have many aspects as I’ve discussed in here before but at the most basic level, resource allocation (assigning the work to resources) is a big step, followed by resource analysis of some kind.

Cost management is the fourth typical area and many organizations never get here. At a basic level, having a cost estimate broken down by phase or better yet by task in the project is a good costing start. Tracking the actual costs either by hours or by dollars is the next level.

I’ll put a fifth area here for “Advanced” subjects and put Risk Analysis, Document management, automated workflows in here. There are also advanced areas in each of the other four areas I’ve discussed so far. If we were to diagram this the way that such things are most often diagrammed, we might end up with this:

This is the sequential kind of thinking and the problem I have with this is that it implies that level 1 is worse than level 2 and if only you could “get” to level 2 you’d have a better organization. In fact, I think the diagram would be better represented like this:

In this kind of representation, at least we get away from the notion that each level higher is a better thing or that each block to the right is better than the block to the left. In fact, even though I’ve described that, in our experience, most organizations start to use their project management systems to do planning, it’s probably a good thing to imagine that they could start almost anywhere. Some organizations could start working on resources, perhaps, or on risks, or on document management.

For each element I’ve described, we can also imagine more effort being put into that element to advance it further. If we think about that for a moment, we might end up with a diagram looking something like this:

Now element that I’ve described has more depth of usage of the project system and perhaps can return more value from the system. Planning for example, can be extended to include multi-project planning. The algorithm for scheduling could be further extended into Critical Chain scheduling. More detail could be added still and we could work with inter-related schedules with inter-project links. The same goes for tracking. If we extend beyond just percent complete, perhaps we now can look at tracking the resource usage along with the tasks. Or perhaps we go from percent complete to remaining duration tracking which is more advanced. From remaining duration tracking, we go to weighted milestones, something that’s often used in Earned Value calculations even when costs are not involved.

Each element can be extended further. We could probably make a third level out from the center and then a fourth.

I think, looking at the Project Management Systems Maturity model like this, we can start from anywhere on the diagram. Indeed, I’ve seen organizations not start their advanced use of their project management system in the planning area but rather in the cost area. The organization does its planning from a cost perspective and, before you know it, they’ve extended the costs section in tremendous detail yet haven’t done much with resources or risks.

There’s no “right” way to advance in your use of your project management system or is there a “wrong” way. As I’ve said in these columns before, what is most important is that you look first at what you need to accomplish in order to be more effective as an organization and from there design the solution to that challenge.

Use of your project management system is only one aspect of a possible solution and it’s up to you to decide how “mature” you should be, and in what areas, in order to make the management of your projects more effective.

Chris Vandersluis is the founder and president of HMS Software based in Montreal, Canada. He has an economics degree from Montreal’s McGill University and over 22 years experience in the automation of project control systems. He is a long-standing member of both the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) and is the founder of the Montreal Chapter of the Microsoft Project Association. Mr. Vandersluis has been published in numerous publications including Fortune Magazine, Heavy Construction News, the Ivey Business Journal, PMI’s PMNetwork and Computing Canada. Mr. Vandersluis has been part of the Microsoft Enterprise Project Management Partner Advisory Council since 2003. He teaches Advanced Project Management at McGill University’s Executive Institute. He can be reached at [email protected]