PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
DH philosophy is to get to know the team and the stakeholders, understand their drivers, have empathy for clients expectations. Really understand what is required by active listening. Inter personal skills are a pe requisite for successful project management.
When I worked at IBM myself and many other managers attended a course called First Find Your Hilltop by an industrial psychologist consultancy.
The course looked at how best to interact with others with empathy and how to manage what could be termed as “difficult people”.
The course explained how due to family background, education and experience we all have a different internal perspectives even if facing the exact same view – we actually see a different view such from our own personal hilltop.
This has stood me in good stead when working with delivery teams, business stakeholders , senior management and highly technical staff.
A PM must be able to see and understand the drivers that are key to the way in which different people act in a project environment in order to work with them to ensure a successful delivery
Stakeholder Management especially at director level requires clear status reporting and PM must show they are in control of delivery to build confidence and rapport
Delivery Team Management requires team to be happy that the PM is actively listening to their input
With over 20 years experience of managing people I believe I can quickly hit the ground running by understanding the way in which people work and how to manage teams by working positively to get the best results from the team
I was commended recently for my management of a client based in Paris who was regarded by the delivery team and senior stakeholders as a difficult person to work with .
I didn’t see him like that, I understood his perspectives and worked with him to build confidence in how the project was delivered , I listened and acted upon his inputs which were actually very useful to the overall delivery and we ended up getting on really well.
This resulted in a win win scenario and I’d be perfectly happy to work with him again.
I do not believe in fear driven people management my experience of that approach is people do the minimum required to get through the day and will not be open about risks or issues for fear of being blamed in some way.
That’s a recipe for disaster in business and IT change programmes. Transparency is key to delivery.
Building a team environment really helps deliver work successfully.
Acknowledgement – First Find Your Hilltop was written by Roy Calvert, Brain Durkin, Eugenio Grandi, Kevin Martin and is published by Hutchinson Business Books – highly recommended.
