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05/09/2023

First Harvest

What has sprung up in the team from seeds planted? Maybe you tried a new approach for facilitating team decisions that resulted in higher engagement. Maybe the group created a team charter that built stronger trust.

As project managers and leaders, we plant seeds of change to spur better communication and stronger relationships. Celebrate the growth of your team and the rewards of their willingness to try new things.

PS - this first spring harvest was turned into a strawberry-rhubarb cobbler!

03/18/2023

What’s Your Working Genius?

“The 6 Types of Working Genius”, the latest insights to team dynamics by Patrick Lencioni pulls back the curtain to why team members’ work styles either complement each other, enabling them to move at a quick pace or why teams struggle to find traction even with simple tasks. The 6 working geniuses include wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing, enablement, and tenacity. By first understanding your own working genius types, you recognize the strengths of your team members and where there may be gaps of competencies.. The ease of a high functioning team isn’t luck or chance, but choreographed by each member's ability to work more fully in their zone of genius. A top take away - my working frustration is someone else’s genius; ask for help and appreciate the diversity they bring to the team.

11/08/2022

A new twist on employee performance reviews:

As we wrap up the yearly performance cycle, project managers often provide input regarding team members’ accomplishments.

In addition to verbal and written accolades, how else can you promote your team members’ careers?

Project managers are in a unique position to create learning opportunities within the structure of the team. Here are a few ideas that promote career growth:

- Offer job sharing or job shadowing on your project.
- Encourage team members to work on tasks outside their expertise.
- Provide leadership roles within the team, such as presenting to stakeholders..
- Ask team members their stretch goals and find ways to incorporate them.

Caring about the career goals of your team members and finding innovative ways to incorporate skill building throughout the life of the project will build a stronger team that delivers better results.

11/04/2022

Final Warning Sign Your Team is Disengaging

In the last two posts, we looked at two warning signs a staff member is disengaging, or disassociating from your project and team. We looked at changed behavior of heightened energy around a topic or decision, and the flip side, when a team member who is typically active in discussions goes uncharacteristically silent.

This third warning sign has elements of the first two. The sign can be verbal, for example their word choice or nonverbal, such as body language or responses in chat. There may not be a lot of energy in how the words are said (or typed in chat) but the choice of words tips you off to the underlying currents.

The cues may be harder to pick up, especially in a virtual team.

What would be emotionally elevated words in your team? In my technology teams, if I heard words such as “incompatible” or “security risk”, I know to pay attention. Also, if a team member uses words that are uncharacteristic, that could also be an alert.

In a virtual meeting, you do have to pay attention to the direct comments as well as the “side conversations” happening in chat. They can be important indicators of how the team is responding to the topic. Consider having someone help you keep tabs of the chat box or capture the chat messages after the meeting for you to go back and review. Single words and graphics are becoming part of how we communicate in a virtual environment and even a single word could be an early warning sign.

By paying attention to word choice, especially when they reflect a changed tone or are uncharacteristic of the group, you will recognize early warning signs of tension and can plan your strategy of response.

10/23/2022

3 Warning Signs Your Team is Disengaging cont’d …

In the last post, we looked at the Warning Sign when a team member shows heightened energy around an issue. In this post, we’ll look at the flip side:

Warning Sign: Going Silent

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say likely all seasoned project managers and supervisors have experienced this warning sign. This is also one of the easiest signals to pick up, but not the easiest to address. When a team member who is normally engaged and contributing goes uncharacteristically silent, it is time to dig deeper.

You may decide to see if the silence is across all discussion or if the silence persists into the next meeting. If the answer is yes, this calls for a private and confidential conversation with the team member. Although it may be awkward to approach the topic, I’ll make the case that getting to the root of the silence sooner rather than later is in everyone’s best interest. It is also the fastest route to re-engaging the silent member.

Start the conversation with curiosity and empathy. Share what you’ve noticed and reaffirm the positive contribution of the team member. Ask what the team member needs to feel heard. If you have a relationship built on trust, the team member’s insights can be a gift in helping you understand the team dynamics. Ask what ideas they have for improving the team dynamics and commit to implementing their ideas where feasible.

Strategize how to deal with this situation before your next team meeting. If you noticed the silence, most likely others did as well. By broadly addressing the silence without disclosing confidentiality, the team will see you proactively dealing with the tension. Using facilitation techniques that invite everyone’s input will help get the dialog going again.

In the next post, we’ll look at the third Warning Sign - body language and word choice.

10/16/2022

3 Warning Signs Your Team is Disengaging

Before a team member steps back, or steps out completely, there are signs.

I’ve seen it, and I bet you’ve experienced it too. And yet, we tend to ignore the obvious or hope the situation sorts itself out.

Sometimes it does. But usually the disconnection accelerates until you are forced to face the disintegration.

How can you tune in to what’s happening? How do you proactively invite the conversation hiding in plain sight?

Let’s look at the first Warning Sign: heightened energy around a topic or decision.

The team member’s energy can be in strong support or strong opposition to an idea or proposal. Why is this an early warning sign? The team member is signaling that their idea or opinion is really important to them. As the project manager, it is your role to recognize the change in intensity and respond that you hear the member’s concerns.

The catch is, when a team member shows high energy around a topic, and then is not acknowledged for their expertise and experience, they feel ignored and shut out. It doesn’t take many repeats for the team member to shut down completely.

When you see this changed intensity, it is your responsibility as the project manager to show you recognize the shift in energy.

Here are a couple of open ended questions to try:

“I can see you have a lot of energy around this idea, and sharing background and experience the team needs to hear and process. What is the best way to capture this information and what do we need to do with it?

Or you may ask:
“What is the most important takeaway you want us to understand?”

Next step is to facilitate a team discussion to unpack the topic and get input from others. By recognizing a team member’s intensity around a topic and being willing to explore it with the team demonstrates you have tuned in to what is important to them by recognizing their experience and expertise. The team members will feel heard and continue to show up with their best ideas. You will also build trust and connection with your team, two ingredients in combating disengagement.

In the next post, we’ll look at the flip side of this warning sign.

09/25/2022

The Future of Project Management is in Good Hands

Last week at the Girl Scout Denver Council Gold Award committee meeting, four young women presented their Gold Award projects. These are year long projects each scout designs and develops, manages a team and completes for their community.

The scouts are passionate about making their corner of the world a better place for all. In their presentations, they name the identified competencies they used and improved on. Several listed Project Management as the top competency they gained skills in.

The future of Project Management is in good hands.

As a Project Manager, a Gold Award committee member, 13 years a Girl Scout leader and parent to a Gold Award scout, I couldn’t be more proud or more optimistic about the future.

09/25/2022

Thank you for connecting with me. I'm looking forward to sharing ideas on how to manage your team through tensions to project success in ways that ensure everyone's voice is heard.

BKE Connect

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