Finding a Mentor in the World of Project Management

We all need help at sometime, and a mentor is an excellent way to go. Project managers (PMs) often work in isolation and in competition with their fellow, PMs so finding one in the same organization is difficult. The best way to find a PM is to approach someone you have gotten to know. Who you respect, is ethical and knows your ethics, and someone who has had experience in your current environment or at least a similar environment. You should ask them face to face if they would be your mentor. You do not want to make that person feel you are attempting to to get all the information you can from them, and direct communication is they way to go. Do not email, or call them. Do it in person during a time you are both relaxed. This would bring a greater understanding to your relationship.

If finding someone within your organization is impossible  try PMI.ORG. There are two primary ways find a mentor within the PMI framework. These two ways are mentor  forums, and regional PMI chapters. Networking is the key to success. I believe in person contact trumps other forums of contact. Pursing a mentor through a local chapter is an ideal choice of action if finding a mentor within your organizations failed.

A mentor I learned a lot from was a manager I had with Company X a few years ago. Tom had leadership down to a science. At the time, I did not realize it but after maturing within a professional environment I know realize he was a great role model. Tom taught me about:

• Personal and group visioning.

• Building relationship with customers.

• Putting others, especially customers needs before his.

Tom exhibited Ferraro’s “Strategic Project Characteristics” (110-114) with every office goal, and every customer. He approached each situation by:

• Understanding its uniqueness and risk.

• Seeing and reacting to the ambiguity of each situation and customizing his approach to each.

• Tom could  take decisions that affected him, and the functionality of the office.

• Tom properly interacted with a matrix of service providers to accomplish his goals.

When I look back at that time I am very thankful Tom was there. He took the time to insure I became the best person I could be by instilling the traits in me that I listed above. Not all mentors are about x’s and o’s. I believe we can all grow when it comes to interpersonal communication. So if you are the best number cruncher in the world, and do not need a technical mentor, try a social mentor. You will be thankful you did.

A review of Stephen Coveys Leadership Blog

One leadership blog I find interesting is Stephen Coveys found at https://www.stephencovey.com/blog/. Too many people forgot about Covey after his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Other books he has written include but are not limited to:

• The 8th Habit

• The Speed of Trust

• First Things First

• The Leader in Me

• Principle Centered Leadership

• Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times

I am sure you can guess the content of his blog is based on his books, and lectures. In my opinion, Covey's blog is a great read because he wrote what I believe to be one of the top 10 greatest books on self-awareness,  and leadership of all time.

Some of the topics on the main page of his blog are:

• Start Small with Your Resolutions for 2010

• Success on the Far Side of Failure

• What do You Want to Be Remembered for at Work

• Nothing Fails Like Success

I find Coveys blogs and responses to them very insightful. I listen to a book a week on these subjects, so I hear many of the same topics repeatedly.  Hearing these discussions put another way is helpful. I believe I can hear one topic discussed 10 times, and one of the ways one topic is presented will stick with me.

An example from Covey’s blog is titled Nothing Fails like Success (http://www.stephencovey.com/blog/?p=38 ). This blog’s main theme is many leaders have been successful in their past, but they fail to do so today. Why? Because many leaders become in their thinking, and rely upon the methods they used in the past to lead to the present. Covey writes about our need to change, and need to always examine or current paradigm. This relates to what was mentioned in our notes of “failure in not an option.” I believe leaders feel pressure not to fail, and because of this pressure, they rely on what lead to success in the past not to fail now. Covey says this fact can lead to failure if the leader is not able to adjust to the environment around them, and customize their approach.

I suggest you take a look at Covey's blog. If you can learn one thing from it, you will be better for it.

Is self-management of your emotions important to project leadership?

I believe without a question self-management emotion is important for project leadership. Merisno (p. 26) states “We have all experienced people and situations that have pushed our buttons and tried our patience. Self-control is what helps us to maintain our cool and not lose it.” If the only reason self-management of emotions is important is not to lose a person’s cool that would be sufficient for me to have this trait.

I am sure we have all been in situations where someone has “pushed our buttons (Merisno, p. 26). Sometimes we can avoid these situations such as not going to a store that has poor customer support, and other times they cannot be avoided such as having a manager loves to push buttons. Self-management of our emotion's acts as a framework for our emotional state to follow. By following this controlling framework, we are able to control our emotions, and not have our emotions control us.

When a project manager which loses control over their emotions such as getting angry by yelling or snapping at people, can only lower their credibility as a leader thereby potentially disrupting or derailing a project. At the very least they will disrupt the project for a few minutes. The more a project manager loses control over their emotions the more times they disrupt the project, and I believe these disruption's compound themselves. Project team’s members will begin to dwell on these out bursts (both negative and positive), and they will spend more time recovering from subsequent disruptions. Compounded disruptions can lead to team members feeling they are being treated with a carrot and sticks management approach, or causes them to become disassociated with the project.

Project managers which have self-management of their emotions balance their emotions in the areas of SASHET families of emotions (Merisno, p. 34) which are: Happy, Excited, Tender, Sad, Angry, and Scared. If a project manager can control their emotions, they can focus on guiding the emotional state of the project team, stakeholders, sponsor, and customer.

In Stephen Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he writes about the emotional bank account. Basically, the emotional bank account is when you put in enough positive emotions into a person, or group you are able to take out some of those positives emotions when you happen to operate outside of your normally positive manner. This is important to understand because no one is perfect in this area.

A project manager that is not able to keep control over their emotions will create a negative environment for the project to operate in. Overly negative and positive emotions can lead to misunderstanding, miscommunication, or lack of support for the project by outsiders. A negative emotional state by the project manager will obviously disrupt, and can even derail a project.

Can individual can have significant impact on an organization through his or her actions, beliefs, or failures?

I believe an individual can have a significant impact on an organization through his or her actions, beliefs, or failures. I will answer this question by stating my opinion on how I view the importance of being in touch with my actions, beliefs, and shortcomings and how my leadership can impact others.

An unknown author once stated:

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

I believe that once I have gone from thoughts to words and then words into actions. I form habits. My habits will become the way I am judged by others because in general, people are judgmental, and they judge by what they see. If people disagree with their perceived judgment of me, this could affect how they interact with me as a project manager. Their reaction might be to not fully adhere to the project goals and objectives because they do not believe in me as their leader. By not adhering to the project goals and objectives a project may not become successful. An unsuccessful project can impact an organization's profit and loss, influence future projects, and cause me to lose my job.

I definitely have my own set of beliefs. A belief system based on proper morals, education and experiences is crucial to making me who I am, and I should always follow my beliefs. A problem will occur when I am inflexible in my beliefs. To avoid this, I follow Stephen Covey's statement of "first seek to understand and then to be understood." Other people can sense when I am being inflexible, and not listening to what they have to say. This could cause them to feel their opinions are not important, that they are being judged, and make them hesitant to share their opinions, feelings, or suggestions on a project. Without question when this happens a team’s ability to perform successfully will be diminished.

I believe my "failures" are never failures. I believe people spend too much time on the definition of that word, and if they feel like they failed, they will either be ove serious on projects, or scared of them. I take the approach that if I failed in a project than at least I learned what not to do in a particular situation and use that knowledge as a baseline for future projects. This makes me more confident going forward, and this confidence is noticeable to others. Confidence in me will instill confidence in others, and my future projects will have a better chance of success.

I believe a proper leader will have emotional intelligence and be able to address their actions, beliefs, and failures similar to the examples I gave above. If a leader can manage their own actions, beliefs, and failures this ability will impact their teams and as Anthony Mesino states, "PMs that master emotional intelligence will set themselves apart from other PMs."