Are you tired being an average project manager, working on average projects, being passed over for promotion, and getting an average performance review? You need to understand something right now. Being a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), proficient in the PM knowledge areas and having successful projects under your belt, is not enough to be a top performing project manager. There are new challenges and expectations today that require every project manager to evolve to the next level. If you do not take action now, you will be left behind.
New Challenges
Think of all the challenges you face on a daily basis: Motivating teams who are harder to mold and direct than those in the past. Introducing new services more swiftly to keep up with competitors. Managing change in all its variations from new company regulations, methods, policies, etc. Managing higher customer expectations. Managing higher company expectations.
Being a project manager with a traditional “tyrannical management and control” management style does not succeed in this new business environment. This is one of the reasons why there have been so many project managers, from all industries, let go in the past 3 years. Business executives realized their traditional project managers were not adding value to the organization. They could not meet new challenges and expectations. Traditional project managers are considered dead weight and on the endangered species list.
Meeting these challenges demands leadership. Why would you want to change your management style? Well, let’s see. Who is the best motivator? A Leader. Who gets the greatest effort and most insightful thinking from people? A leader. Who always meets stiff challenges and goals? A leader. Who summons from people old-fashioned workplace virtues like loyalty, commitment, and on-the-job exuberance? A leader. Who gets promoted? A leader.
Traditional Project Manager vs. Leader
So why are there so few leaders? Many believe the traditional “tyrannical management and control” management style based on ordering people around, kicking butt, and taking names gets results quicker. This can work, but there is a huge negative impact to employee morale, team performance, and long term success.
Review the following list, A Leaders 13 Core Competencies, and see whether you are a traditional manager or leader. To keep your current project management position or advance your career, you need to understand the difference between the two and which leadership core competencies you will need to work on for future success.
A Leaders 13 Core Competencies
Management Style. Traditional project managers supervise, control and correct. Leaders strategize, inspire, and motivate.
Goals. Traditional project managers focus on short term goals and follow endless series of internal processes to the letter. Leaders think and act like an owner of the company, recognize the importance of long term goals, have vision, and are committed to succeed.
Thinking Style. Traditional project managers are satisfied with incremental gains and follow ideas that worked in the past. Leaders are constantly searching for new knowledge and new ideas, willing to learn better methods and make sure employees expand their knowledge base.
Communication. Traditional project managers engage in one-way communication, give orders, and talk at people. Leaders encourage interactive communication, are receptive to both positive and negative feedback, and listen to employees and customers.
Emotion. Traditional project managers are analytical and coolly detached. Leaders produce emotional energy. They inspire employees and customers to consistently achieve goals.
Trust. Traditional project managers are firm believers in Murphy’s Law. They constantly monitor their employees. Leaders maintain a high level of trust with their employees.
Openness. Traditional project managers are closed minded, need everything proven to them, and take pride in saying “NO!”. Leaders embrace diversity and are highly receptive to new ideas and people who are different.
Action. Traditional project managers gather good ideas and rarely implement them. They over analyze, resist making decisions and avoid risk. Leaders are self starters and action oriented, they think fast on their feet, come up with solutions to critical situations, and take calculated risks.
Mentoring. Traditional project managers rarely coach or mentor employees. They focus on how things should be done and strictly follow procedures and checklists. Leaders help employees develop the habits they need to be more successful, empower employees to make decisions, observe performance and provide feedback.
Change. Traditional project managers like things the way they are, will do anything to avoid change, and see change as a threat. Leaders stimulate and relish change, adapt quickly to change, do not fear it, and see it as an opportunity.
Attitude. Traditional project managers are pessimistic and not approachable. Their first priority is to satisfy the boss, then customers and employees. They are judgmental and push blame down the line. Leaders realize the impact of a positive attitude, they treat everyone as special, remain objective, apologize and admit mistakes, and maintain a positive frame of mind.
Value System. Traditional project managers do not have personal or team values documented and they don’t know their own corporate value system. Leaders document and refer to personal and team values daily, they believe values guide people, and values are something considered worthy in and of itself.
Performance Measurement. Traditional project managers rarely measure or review performance. When they do, the measurements are judgmental, and employees rarely know how they are performing on a day-to-day basis. Leaders are always measuring data based performance, track employee progress, involve the employee in tracking their own performance, and use the performance measurements as a training tool.
How To Become A Leader
Were you born a leader? Of course not. Can you be a leader? Yes.
Leaders are made rather than born. To be successful and meet the new business challenges, traditional project managers must concentrate on developing the 13 Leadership Core Competencies. Leadership training, mentoring, experience, and daily dedication to the core competencies will be the key to your success in the future.
To get started on your path to becoming a project management superhero, you need to take the first step.
The following is a list of my favorite project management and leadership web sites that will help you take the first step: www.btrconline.com, www.ccl.org, www.pmi.org, and www.business.com.
My favorite leadership books include: “One Minute Manager”, “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”, “Who Moved My Cheese”, “Not Bosses But Leaders”, “The Leader Manager – Guidelines for Action”, “Enlightened Leadership”, and “First Things First”.
Good luck with your future success.
Meeting New Business Challenges - The Next Generation Project Manager
3 Tips For Every Woman Starting A Home Based Business - Challenges To Expect, Keys To Succeed
More and more women today work from home, and even more want to. Some are single moms or widows who need to earn a living. Others just want a little extra income or a sense of independence. Particularly for women, starting a home business presents a unique set of challenges. Lesley Spencer, founder and president of Home Based Working Moms (http://HBWM.com), suggests three steps to help ensure success:
1. Consider Your Options
The first obstacle in starting a business is figuring out which one’s right for you. Before making any decisions, find out what’s available to you. Almost anything you can do—whether it’s graphic design, sales and marketing, or administration—you can do from the comfort of your home. Before determining a direction, look at all factors involved:
• Your skills and interests. You’re much more likely to persevere and succeed if you enjoy what you’re doing.
• Your personality. If you’re extremely shy, hosting home parties might not be right for you — even if you really like the product you’re selling. Many women fail because they jump into the first thing they see, and it doesn’t work with their disposition.
• Your needs. How many and what hours can you work? How much money do you have to make? How much flexibility do you need in your schedule?
Once you’ve researched your opportunities and analyzed your skill set, you can make an informed, intelligent decision about which career move is right for you.
2. Make a Conscious Effort to Develop Your Customer Base
Many women are good at what they do, but don’t know how to market themselves to reach customers. Spencer advises, “Make a conscious decision to do something to market your business daily, or at least weekly, whether it’s a mail-out, an email campaign, or offering a special.”
Word-of-mouth referrals mean more business, so focus on doing a good job for the clients you have. Always do follow-up — you want to stay in contact and remind people you’re there. Having a web site, an online presence, is another tool you can use to attract new customers.
3. Don’t Be a Lone Ranger — Find a Support Network
You don’t have to feel alone or try to handle everything yourself — there are many online communities that can provide you with support and advice. Http://HBWM.com, and many online groups, offer what’s called a ListServe that lets you post questions that all members of that site can see and respond to. Says Spencer, “You can save hours of research just by asking someone with experience.” Whatever business you’re in, there’s a forum for it. Seek out people that have already succeeded — find a mentor.
Business Owner's Essentials - The 5 Biggest Challenges for Today's Business Owner
Copyright 2006 Andy Warren
Some of these challenges have been around since business began and others are new ones that are being faced as technology and the marketplace evolves. As a business owner, you need to be sure that you are handling each of these effectively and looking out for where they might destroy your business.
1. Cashflow Management
This is the number one essential for all businesses, no matter what stage they are at. Even the most successful businesses can fail if they take their eye off the ball on cash. Your cashflow is the difference between how fast money comes into your business from your customers and how fast you pay it out to your staff, your suppliers and the tax man.
Many business owners don’t realise that their cashflow can be at most risk when they are growing fast or taking on big orders. This happens because, in most businesses, products and raw materials have to be bought and paid for before they can be provided to customers and billed. This is also similar for services, where your employees and contractors have to be paid at the end of the month but the client may not be billed until the following month or when a job is completed. And they may not pay you until some time after that.
In periods of high growth your costs can go up and out of the door long before the cash from the increased sales comes in. And suddenly you find you have a cash crisis on your hands.
2. Your staff
Your employees can make or break your business. When you choose the right ones they can massively add to the value of your business. When you get the wrong ones they can be a drain on your time, your money and they can hold back your business.
The usual mistakes made include recruiting people who are not as smart as you so that they make you look good; Hiring too fast and firing too slowly; Not investing in training and development for your staff; Not listening to what they’re telling you; Not taking up proper references when recruiting; Not adopting good, consistent and fair HR policies within the company.
Many business owners find that employee issues are the number one drain on their time and attention. And often the issues don't get resolved and lead to litigation and expensive legal bills.
The first key is to recruit high quality people, who are smarter than you, who are motivated to build and grow your business and who come with a good track record. Also, always take up references and carefully check CVs or Resumés for any gaps or inconsistencies.
The next key is to treat your staff fairly and reward them for good work. Whatever you measure and reward will get done more, so consider this carefully. Create clear and consistent policies for employee development and training and make sure you allow good time for one-to-one reviews where the discussion is allowed to be open and frank.
And above all, keep the lines of communication open and clear and trust them.
3. Getting Noticed in a Crowded Market
You may have a great product or service but unless your potential customers know what you provide you’ll never have a great business. You need to get out into the market and deliver your message to the people you want as customers.
The challenge comes with the fact that today people receive an average of 3,000 marketing messages a day. And they’ve become immune to many of them. Your job is to be able to cut through all those messages and stand out enough to get noticed by your customer.
The best way to achieve this is by focussing on a niche. This way you can target your marketing with a laser focus to match your desired customers directly. And when you specifically target your prospects with a message that is tailored to them and their needs, they’re far more likely to take notice and listen.
The standard reaction to this is to worry that by focussing on one niche you could miss out on other customers. The reality is that the scatter gun approach that throws your message out to anyone and everyone is extremely hit and miss in its results. And it rarely works now because the message becomes so generic that no-one believes it applies to them. Remember, you can always select another niche once you’ve worked the first one. So you can eventually get to all of your potential market in a far more effective and targeted way.
4. Poor planning
It’s said that when you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. This means that without a clear plan and objective you can get distracted and diverted all over the place and never achieve what you really want for your business.
When businesses fail to plan they find themselves losing money, losing staff, losing momentum, losing customers and losing business.
Without a plan, you won’t know whether you’re on the right track and you’ll have no guide as to whether you need to go faster or approach the business in a different way. Stumbling through simply doesn’t cut it for a good business.
Making plans allows you to prepare for more eventualities. It allows you to foresee potential problems and avoid crises. It actually gives you more flexibility because you can flex around your plan and revise it as you go. It also makes it easier to make decisions because you have something to judge the outcome against. You’re able to assess whether taking a specific decision takes you further along your plan or moves you away from it.
5. Neglecting customers
The final challenge that is faced by every business in this supposedly service oriented world is neglecting customers.
After all the uphill struggle of finding a prospect, telling them about your product or service and closing a sale, are you just going to let them go? Many businesses do. They are so focussed on making new sales that they forget that the best source of additional sales and new business referrals comes from their existing customer base.
They also forget that when you neglect a customer and lose them, they will tell others. And as a customer with experience they will be believed and that can knock a significant hole in all your marketing efforts.
It costs significantly more to find and sell to a new customer than it does to keep and sell more to an existing customer. Make sure you get your customers' contact details, look after them and keep building and strengthening the relationship. The first sale should be just the beginning.
And a happy, satisfied customer can do more to market your business than almost anything else.