Shift Happens

I don’t know the source of this information, but it’s plausible and thought provoking…if you know where it came from, please leave a comment!

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Strategic+Information

Shift Happens

I don’t know the source of this information, but it’s plausible and thought provoking…if you know where it came from, please leave a comment!

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Strategic+Information

Computing Awards: IT Leader of the Year shortlist

The VNUNET.com shortlist is out, for IT Leader of the Year, and among it are many familiar names and organisations:

• Mark Akass from BT Global Financial Services;
• John Crane from National Australia Group Europe;
• Richard Cross from ITV;
• Rorie Devine from Betfair;
• my old colleague Benoit Laclau from EDF Energy;
• Gareth Nutt from Mouchel Parkman (I’ll have to look this up!);
• very unsurprisingly Al-Noor Ramji from BT;
• and Darrell Stein from Marks & Spencer.

Congratulations to all, and I’m sure you’ll now be expecting my call, as well as every other product and service vendor in the Kingdom.

I was intrigued by the synopsis paragraphs…each one incorporated a suggestion that the candidate had implemented a strategy and achieved results.  It implied, though without support, that the stategies were brilliant, and the results outstanding.

I found this curious, because this is a leadership award, and in only one case did the synopsis paragraphs discuss leadership behaviours – that of Rorie Devine – who runs ‘fortnightly “talkback” sessions to encourage feedback from engineers, and sends out a weekly email called “Rorie’s Ramblings” to share the ups and downs of a week as a CTO.’

Perhaps all the other candidates do these things too, and it’s VNUNET.com’s technical bias that is showing, but I’m pretty sure none of the brilliant strategies were fashioned, nor the outstanding results achieved, without the support of extensive project teams.  So why not talk about project leadership behaviours when you’re talking about IT leadership?

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: VNUNET, IT, Leadership, Shortlist

Computing Awards: IT Leader of the Year shortlist

The VNUNET.com shortlist is out, for IT Leader of the Year, and among it are many familiar names and organisations:

• Mark Akass from BT Global Financial Services;
• John Crane from National Australia Group Europe;
• Richard Cross from ITV;
• Rorie Devine from Betfair;
• my old colleague Benoit Laclau from EDF Energy;
• Gareth Nutt from Mouchel Parkman (I’ll have to look this up!);
• very unsurprisingly Al-Noor Ramji from BT;
• and Darrell Stein from Marks & Spencer.

Congratulations to all, and I’m sure you’ll now be expecting my call, as well as every other product and service vendor in the Kingdom.

I was intrigued by the synopsis paragraphs…each one incorporated a suggestion that the candidate had implemented a strategy and achieved results.  It implied, though without support, that the stategies were brilliant, and the results outstanding.

I found this curious, because this is a leadership award, and in only one case did the synopsis paragraphs discuss leadership behaviours – that of Rorie Devine – who runs ‘fortnightly “talkback” sessions to encourage feedback from engineers, and sends out a weekly email called “Rorie’s Ramblings” to share the ups and downs of a week as a CTO.’

Perhaps all the other candidates do these things too, and it’s VNUNET.com’s technical bias that is showing, but I’m pretty sure none of the brilliant strategies were fashioned, nor the outstanding results achieved, without the support of extensive project teams.  So why not talk about project leadership behaviours when you’re talking about IT leadership?

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: VNUNET, IT, Leadership, Shortlist

Computing Awards: IT Leader of the Year shortlist

The VNUNET.com shortlist is out, for IT Leader of the Year, and among it are many familiar names and organisations:

• Mark Akass from BT Global Financial Services;
• John Crane from National Australia Group Europe;
• Richard Cross from ITV;
• Rorie Devine from Betfair;
• my old colleague Benoit Laclau from EDF Energy;
• Gareth Nutt from Mouchel Parkman (I’ll have to look this up!);
• very unsurprisingly Al-Noor Ramji from BT;
• and Darrell Stein from Marks & Spencer.

Congratulations to all, and I’m sure you’ll now be expecting my call, as well as every other product and service vendor in the Kingdom.

I was intrigued by the synopsis paragraphs…each one incorporated a suggestion that the candidate had implemented a strategy and achieved results.  It implied, though without support, that the stategies were brilliant, and the results outstanding.

I found this curious, because this is a leadership award, and in only one case did the synopsis paragraphs discuss leadership behaviours – that of Rorie Devine – who runs ‘fortnightly “talkback” sessions to encourage feedback from engineers, and sends out a weekly email called “Rorie’s Ramblings” to share the ups and downs of a week as a CTO.’

Perhaps all the other candidates do these things too, and it’s VNUNET.com’s technical bias that is showing, but I’m pretty sure none of the brilliant strategies were fashioned, nor the outstanding results achieved, without the support of extensive project teams.  So why not talk about project leadership behaviours when you’re talking about IT leadership?

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: VNUNET, IT, Leadership, Shortlist

Flo Radio Part 2 - The Real Deal

A while ago I published a blog piece on the use of sound in the office environment to enhance productivity - and a link to a Pandora radio station I created called Flo Radio.  I know quite a few people now listen to the station, and I’ll keep on refining it because…I like it .  But I’m an interested amateur where environmental sound is involved…

Yesterday at the London Ecademy BlackStars networking day, Julian Treasure gave me a review copy of his book “Sound Business”.  I first met Julian last week; he’s the chairman of The Sound Agency, and we had a long discussion about obscure ‘80s and ‘90s music.  I read his book overnight last night, and Julian is the real deal.

The book is packed with insights about how we perceive sound, how we relate to sound and how we can use it effectively to enhance performance, revenues, quality and workplace mood. 

The book comes with a CD with examples – including a set of loop tracks for working and relaxation.  Try them in your home office – try them with your work teams.  Put them on low in your meetings – notice how the mood changes.

— Philip Greenwood

P.S. The CD content is for personal use only – you’ll need to contact the Sound Agency to discuss commercial applications.

Tags: Environmental, Environmental+Sound, Sound, Music, Birdcall, Effectiveness, Efficiency

Flo Radio Part 2 - The Real Deal

A while ago I published a blog piece on the use of sound in the office environment to enhance productivity - and a link to a Pandora radio station I created called Flo Radio.  I know quite a few people now listen to the station, and I’ll keep on refining it because…I like it .  But I’m an interested amateur where environmental sound is involved…

Yesterday at the London Ecademy BlackStars networking day, Julian Treasure gave me a review copy of his book “Sound Business”.  I first met Julian last week; he’s the chairman of The Sound Agency, and we had a long discussion about obscure ‘80s and ‘90s music.  I read his book overnight last night, and Julian is the real deal.

The book is packed with insights about how we perceive sound, how we relate to sound and how we can use it effectively to enhance performance, revenues, quality and workplace mood. 

The book comes with a CD with examples – including a set of loop tracks for working and relaxation.  Try them in your home office – try them with your work teams.  Put them on low in your meetings – notice how the mood changes.

— Philip Greenwood

P.S. The CD content is for personal use only – you’ll need to contact the Sound Agency to discuss commercial applications.

Tags: Environmental, Environmental+Sound, Sound, Music, Birdcall, Effectiveness, Efficiency

TribeCo.

The morning comes, and with that excited feeling in your stomach you turn up to your new job. You are truly ‘engaged’.. you’ve seen your new employers marketing literature, you’ve bought into the story they tell their customers about their fast moving, innovative, go-getting team, and you are ready to become a part of that; one of the shiny happy faces staring out from the cover of the “new joiners” information pack. One of the high achievers, part of the family… ready to make a difference!

Unfortunately, figures from Gallop suggest that within six months of starting only 38% of employees are still engaged… after 10 years of employment that figure drops to 20%! and worse still…

Flo Radio

Do you work from home?  Sometimes it can be wonderful, and I get heaps of work done. Other times, even when home alone, I find it quite easy to get distracted (I suspect I still get more done than when I’m in the office).

In one of those distracted moments I started wondering what I could do to have more of the “flow” moments – the good ones.  I’ve had a study at home for many years, so it’s pretty established and comfortable, to my mind – although my fiancee calls it “the man room”.  

I realised that the ambiance could be improved, so I did some research: What kind of sounds could be used to help concentration?

Then, using the wonderful Pandora Radio Internet site, I created a radio station for “flow” music – you can share it too, with this link: Flo Radio. It may not be your music preference, but if you keep it quiet, it chugs along nicely in the background, and it seems to have the desired effect.  If there are tracks that you find intrusive to your work, just tell Pandora you don’t like them, and it’ll optimize for you!

— Philip Greenwood

 

 

Tags: Flow, Radio, Work+from+home, Achieve+more

Flo Radio

Do you work from home?  Sometimes it can be wonderful, and I get heaps of work done. Other times, even when home alone, I find it quite easy to get distracted (I suspect I still get more done than when I’m in the office).

In one of those distracted moments I started wondering what I could do to have more of the “flow” moments – the good ones.  I’ve had a study at home for many years, so it’s pretty established and comfortable, to my mind – although my fiancee calls it “the man room”.  

I realised that the ambiance could be improved, so I did some research: What kind of sounds could be used to help concentration?

Then, using the wonderful Pandora Radio Internet site, I created a radio station for “flow” music – you can share it too, with this link: Flo Radio. It may not be your music preference, but if you keep it quiet, it chugs along nicely in the background, and it seems to have the desired effect.  If there are tracks that you find intrusive to your work, just tell Pandora you don’t like them, and it’ll optimize for you!

— Philip Greenwood

 

 

Tags: Flow, Radio, Work+from+home, Achieve+more

Strategic Librarian

Can I get away with that title?  Probably not, but Nina Platt can, and does. Let it be known I read some pretty diverse content.

I loved the fact that Nina is commenting on Change Management – it’s one of the keys to building a learning culture.  I particularly liked the fact she took a moment to remind us that the term means different things to different people.

 

Occult Knowledge

This is a true story:  A few weeks ago god cooked me dinner! (Please note the small “g” – I don’t wish to offend).  It was the last evening of my 39^th year, and the charter yacht was secure on a swinging mooring off the coast of Croatia.  The crew (my fiancee) and I were relaxing at the end of a breezy day of sailing when we noticed a small motor boat pulling into a jetty in the bay.  On board this fishing boat there was a crew of three, including one man – clearly in charge - with long grey hair, a long grey beard, skin brown as a berry, and wearing just silver swimming trunks.  My crew looked at me, and as if reading my mind, said: “Hey, there goes god!”

Occult Knowledge

This is a true story:  A few weeks ago god cooked me dinner! (Please note the small “g” – I don’t wish to offend).  It was the last evening of my 39^th year, and the charter yacht was secure on a swinging mooring off the coast of Croatia.  The crew (my fiancee) and I were relaxing at the end of a breezy day of sailing when we noticed a small motor boat pulling into a jetty in the bay.  On board this fishing boat there was a crew of three, including one man – clearly in charge - with long grey hair, a long grey beard, skin brown as a berry, and wearing just silver swimming trunks.  My crew looked at me, and as if reading my mind, said: “Hey, there goes god!”

Reductio Ad Absurdum?

This question has been playing on my mind:  If stories are the most effective tool of influence, but are an inefficient way to communicate facts, what kind of communication style is most effective in today’s “attention deficit” business world?  So for an experiment, let me try out a communication style:  The “reduced” story line.

MindJet Project Management JetPack for MindManager 7

The good people at MindJet have allowed me early access to their MindManager Project Management JetPack.  As I read that sentence I realize that many readers won’t have a clue what I’m talking about, so let me explain:

MindJet is the company that produces the MindManager application.

MindManager is, at its heart, a brainstorming and mind mapping software tool.

Mind mapping is a knowledge management technique for generating, organizing and communicating ideas or concepts. (Go here for more info)

Powerpoint woes...

I admit it, I am a communications geek. I love seeing artful communicators bring stories to life, grab an audience, and change the world.

Compare business communications with ‘consumer’ communications, and you’ll see a gap like the grand canyon…  but every once in a while you see a presenter that bridges that gap, and gives a business orientated presentation that you would probably enjoy even if you didn’t have to see it.

My two favourite examples? Funny you should ask!… read on dear reader..

Oi! You've been poking my friends...

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Facebook is the new big thing in professional networking.  I signed up while researching an earlier blog piece, and I’ve started to receive friend requests at an increasing rate.  It blur's the line between the wildly successful social networking site MySpace, and the wildly successful (but oh! so frustrating) professional networking site, LinkedIn.

I think that the big difference between Friendster and LinkedIn is the inclusion of a photograph…it sounds trivial, but you get a totally different scale of reaction to finding the picture of a friend, than finding the name of a friend.

There is another huge reason:  Its underlying technology allows other companies to write applications, using Facebook as a platform.  For a detailed analysis of the pro’s and con’s of this approach, have a look at Marc Andreessen’s blog (He founded Netscape, so he knows a thing or two).

One of the quirky aspects of Facebook is the idea of “poking”.  Apparently you can just poke people, and then they are informed you’ve poked them.  And you can see your friend’s friend’s pictures.  I wonder if it’s safe.

— Philip Greenwood (Your Open-networking Project Leadership Friend)

Tags:  Facebook, Professional+Networking, Networking, LinkedIn, Social+Networking

Change Management Isn't a Methodology!

A few years ago I worked on a project with a client (global, ~140,000 people) that had an in-house change management methodology.  I expected that this would make the job easier – after all, they must recognise the value of change management and know how to use it, surely. 

I was astounded to discover that very few people in the company knew how to apply the methodology – I found nobody who even knew where to start!  After hours of studying the methodology I figured out why:  There was no starting point. I was just a cluster of loosely connected tools.

How to Add Impact to your Presentation

Avoid Powerpoint…

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation.

I particularly liked the inclusion of the speaker notes on the last page.

My thanks to David Gurteen for pointing this out.

— Philip Greenwood

Tags:  Gettysbury+Address, Powerpoint, Presentation, Abraham+Lincoln

How Rational Are We?

Many valuable project team behaviours have, at their core, a requirement to accept ambiguity for extended periods. For instance, a project leader must simultaneously reconcile an unshakable confidence that the project will succeed with the recognition that their team, being only human, are flawed in their beliefs, research techniques and decision making processes. 

Dealing with the Doomed Project

Yesterday I was asked this question by a member of the Project Leadership Network – it’s such a good question I wanted to share it with everyone:

“When you work for a software consultancy SOMETIMES there isn't much choice over which project you take-up. Sometime we get so-called 'doomed' projects wherein the customer has tried his level best and when the deadline was right in his face, decided to cry for help to a software vendor. In such situations, what are the things we need to do to safeguard against failure of the Project?”

Here are my thoughts – I’m sure that there are many other prespectives too, so please feel free to comment:

A Repetitive Voice can Sound like a Chorus

Project Leaders need to commuicate influentially… Here’s a recent study from the American Psychological Association that shows how the opinion of a single person, communicated repetitively, becomes accepted as a common belief.

Synopsis:  http://www.apa.org/releases/popularopinion.html

Full Paper: http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/psp925821.pdf

—Philip Greenwood

Tags: research, article

Visual Communications

Indexed is one of my favourite sites for a quick hit of humour. The posts are based on the type of diagrams you find in a traditional business presentation applied to very “non-business” insights.

 

Rat-holing...

From wikipedia:

“Rat-holing is a term used to describe a conversation or process that has deviated from its original productive purpose into a generally unproductive but long and winding detour that eventually comes to a dead end.” 

“The original discussion purpose may be to agree on a course of action. However, if one or more people rat-hole into a specific point of the discussion then the discussion stalls with no actionable outcome.”

Back from a trip to Belgrade, I was catching up with my reading last night, and saw a reference to rat-holing on 43folders. I’m sure that like me, you recognize this behaviour as a regular occurrence in meetings that lack a coherent and engaging goal.

When people aren’t engaged around a shared purpose – in a meeting, a project, or a programme – they lose their way and find their own purposes, they rat-hole to issues they care about.

Rat-holing is a warning signal, look out for it!

— Jason Bates

Tags:  ratholing, 43folders, meetings, purpose

The Empty Wiki

There is nothing that sums up the problems of the modern business world like an empty wiki.

Eventually when Project Leadership tools are as ubiquitous as the Gantt chart – my own company’s mission – business people will realize that the tools for making creative collaboration happen aren’t technological…

…they are social, inspirational, and as old as the hills.

Wiki’s, and Web 2.0 might fan the flames of collaboration, and extend the reach of our conversations, but it will always be inspirational people and their quests that create the vital spark.

Grow a community around a great quest, and those people will find, create, beg borrow and steal all the tools they need.

Empty wiki's are sad :o( but they do teach us something.

— Jason Bates

 

Tags: web+2.0, wiki, empty+wiki, social+tools, community

Reframing - How Perception is "Reality"

A while ago, when I worked for a big consulting firm, there was a phrase that people kept using: “Perception is Reality”.  The mantra was spouted by Subjectivists (people who believe that what they perceive is just one perspective on reality) and irritated the Objectivitists (people who think that what they perceive is Reality – “and there’s no two-ways about it”).  I believe that the Subjectivists have a more powerful approach in the long term.

I was reminded of this difference by my Google Quote of the Day:

“Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.” – HL Mencken

Which is a classic “reframing”, and reminds me to work with the most powerful “frame” I can create.  And then by a curious coincidence, the Google Buddhist Thought for the Day seems to relate to this subject as well:

“While the Tathagata (Buddha), in his teaching, constantly makes use of conceptions and ideas about them, disciples should keep in mind the unreality of all such conceptions and ideas. They should recall that the Tathagata, in making use of them in explaining the Dharma always uses them in the semblance of a raft that is of use only to cross a river. As the raft is of no further use after the river is crossed, it should be discarded.”  – Buddha

Which reminds me to let go of the frame when it is no longer useful, and find a more powerful one.

P.S. If all this talk about frames and framing is confusing to you – or you’re wondering why I mention it on this Project Leadership Blog, then I’d strongly recommend downloading the “7 Secrets of Project Leadership” document from our web site.

– Philip Greenwood

Tags:  Project+Leadership

Leadership, Communication and Influence

I love this site.  I found it while researching keywords, and I thought I should share it with you.  It’s not pretty, but it is absolutely packed with information.

ChangingMinds.org is a site about…changing minds.  And that’s the very stuff of leadership, isn’t it?  Leadership is about how you communicate: What you say and what you do, to influence people – that is, to change their minds:  What they believe, what they think, what they say and what they do.

If you can become elegant at using a fraction of what is documented on this site, then you and your projects are destined for success. (That’s why we’re here, by the way!)

Philip Greenwood

How Visible Is Your Project?

I believe that the vast majority of projects are not nearly visible enough, particularly among the extended stakeholder and customer groups, though I’m constantly under fire for holding this opinion.

The reason teams don’t like visibility, as far as I can tell, is that we humans – in general – like to hide what we perceive as risky behaviour.  We do it as children, and the instinct doesn’t disappear.  (Though once we’ve got the trick mastered,  we’re quite happy to show it to the world to impress them with our daring – just watch the skaters on the South Bank in London).

Global Warming and the Cynefin Framework

Ever since meeting Louisa-Jayne O’Neill of the UK Cabinet Office at one of David Gurteen’s knowledge cafes, I’ve been interested in the Cynefin Framework.  Ms O’Neill wrote an insightful article about the interaction of faith and decision making with respect to the Bush presidency, and that was to be my introduction to the framework.

The Cynefin Framework, proposed by Dave Snowden, helps us understand the nature of knowledge as it relates to different types of situations, and different approaches to decision making in those situations. The space in the middle of the diagram reflects an area of decision making that is affected by faith, or to use a more subtle term a “predisposition to belief”.

On a plane ride to South Africa recently, I watched Al Gore’s documentary film about Global Warming – An Inconvenient Truth.  For two weeks I was a convert; image going on your first safari, thinking “all this will be gone in 30 years”.  I watched the film again on the return flight and, guilt ridden, discussed it with everybody I saw on my return.  Gore’s arguments seemed so compelling; his simple, at times personal, approach to conveying his messages was convincing.

She should have music (wherever she goes)

In 1982, Gerald J. Gorn conducted an experiment in which subjects saw pens of one colour while hearing pleasant background music, and pens of another colour while hearing unpleasant background music.  Later on, the subjects were offered a choice of pens and – you guessed it -they tended to pick the pens that had been paired with the pleasant music.

This phenomenum is known as associative conditioning, and it is used extensively by that most influential of industries, Advertising. Next time you look at an advert, pay attention and you’ll notice that products are associated with humour, particular colours, select music, sexual innuendo and smiley attractive people having good times.  (Go ahead, you can associate these things with us, if you like.)

So what has this got to do with project leadership?  Well, I’m not going to recommend “Eye of the Tiger” as a project theme tune, or even to propose that you are as flagrant as I have been with the pictures in this blog, but I do want to point out that the stake-holders for your project (your team members, sponsors, governance group, customers etc.) have all got those same, sophisticated, “association engines” between their ears that the advertisers use without asking…so maybe you should have a careful look at things like:

• The environment your project teams meet and work in -what does it say about the importance of the project?
• Your use of colour, humour, pictures, multimedia, language, formats and fonts in your communications.

Ensure that they all align to give all your stake holders very positive associations with your project.

Philip Greenwood

Tags: associative, conditioning