You got these personality traits? You are a natural leader

P

eople buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. - John C. Maxwell

Leadership is a skill which can be learnt and developed over a period of time. However, if certain traits come natural in your personality you are blessed and a natural born leader (and you should be proud and happy about that 😊). Let’s have a look at those: 

 

You adopt to the changes quickly 
You are open to the change, whether it’s just a new idea at workplace or outside, or big organizational strategic transformations. Also, you plan effectively to manage the complexities involved in the changes and you also help other people do the same.

You build trust with your behavior 
Your behavior build trust at work place and outside. For example few of them are: 

• Being Honest
• Delivering results
• Improving yourself continuously
• Full filling your promises
• Leading by examples
• Listen to others first

You focus on bigger picture 
You know the core objective of a project or business and you think broadly and strategically rather than focusing too much on details. You know you can leverage other people’s strengths and specialties in different areas of project effectively to achieve the bigger objective. You do not try to multitask yourself and are able to delegate effectively other works to the team, while you focus on strategy.  

You are self-aware 
You know your strengths and weaknesses. While you take leverage of your strengths you also work on certain areas where you are weak. You are open to feedback and take advantage of it to improve.

You have a fair idea of how your behavior impacts other people around you. 

You have control on your emotions 
You have ability to control your emotions even during difficult and stressful situations. You stay calm and confident during disappointing situations. You know there are ups and downs in every project or business or performance and behavior of the people. Rather than overreacting to a situation you focus on resolution and lesson learnt.

You have good people skills 
You are able to communicate effectively both verbal and non-verbal.

You are empathetic to other people's thoughts, experiences and emotions.
You are good at resolving the conflicts. You listen to non-judgmental way to perspective of both parties involved and offer a suggestion of compromise which is win-win.
You have tolerance and patience and sensitive to others needs.

You take responsibility of your actions / behaviors

You do not avoid responsibility. You do not blame others for your actions and take stand even during unpopular issues or decisions.
As Arnold Glasgow has said “A good leader takes a little more than his share of blame, a little less than his share of credit “

Did you like this post? You have more to add to this list on what other qualities a natural leader possess? You have questions or suggestions? Please hit the comments and share your thoughts.

Managing Global Remote Teams – Quick Tips

In the era of globalization, when many companies going global, most of us who are leaders are already managing global teams and those who are not, would certainly be doing at some point in the future . This has become one of the essential skills for all the Managers and Leaders. You cannot survive without being really good at this.

This is a detailed topic and difficult to summarize in a short post. However, let me list down some of the quick tips which I found most useful while managing my several global teams spreads across different geographies and locations on different projects: 

1. A Team charter is must

This is really important. Although this is not project charter, however I would suggest Project Manager to also highlight the objective of project in this document. This is important for team members to know the purpose why they are working on the project and how they are contributing to this objective and especially when they are spread across locations. As sense of purpose unites the team.

A team charter should clearly underline that how the decision would be made in the project. This should contains communication plan, conflict resolution process, backup plan and personal responsibilities of team members in different situations.

This charter should be prepared taking all the team members in confidence and this should be their plan which they have agreed to and own (not imposed to them)

2. Understand the cultural preferences

When you are working on the team with the people from different countries and cultures, understanding the cultural diversity and giving respect to that is important. 

For example - when I do my Project Plan and I assume less or no resource availability during Christmas week for US, Australia and UK teams, I also assume that most of the team members from team in India would not be available during week of Diwali.

Certain cultures are not very open to ask questions and while other are very forthcoming. Try to understand these and tailor your communication according to that.

3. A Daily stand up or Catch-up

I use this learning from my Agile projects. However, later I found this a must if you are managing a remote Global team irrespective of Project Management methodologies you are using (Agile or traditional). 

Find a convenient time of the day, when team members from all the locations are available. Get everyone on a phone or Video Conferencing call. Quick 30 Minutes call every day at the same time, get the status, set the priorities for the day and quickly discuss any key risks or issues. 

If you want to keep your project on track, I find this a must to do when you are managing virtual teams, otherwise you might lose your hold on project after sometime.

4. One on One sessions with team members

When you are working at the same location, you have the opportunities to walk to a team member’s desk or catch him/her over the coffee and do some informal talk which would build personal relationship.  However, in case of virtual team this is not possible. Make sure you have scheduled quick One on One sessions with the team members on agreed frequency and mode (Over call or VC).

If you have big team and it’s not possible to do One on One with everyone, do this at least with the leaders in the team and ask them to do the same with their teams.

5. Leverage the collaborative technology to maximum

I really like the screen sharing tools where one person is sharing what he is talking about and others have a common perspective. Be it video conferencing, phone conference call, content management solutions or apps like slack  for quick updates on cell phones, use the technology to maximum to collaborate (and thanks goodness ! we have so many options available now a days on these tools).

6. Daily end of day reports from team members

I found this very useful when you work with remote team in different time zones. Team members sending a quick bullet points email before leaving for the day on what they have achieved throughout the day, Whether they are facing any current issues, what they are expecting their counterparts in different time zones to focus on for their rest of the day and what they are planning to do tomorrow.

I have done this myself and found this really useful. This gives you a purpose for the day and the sense of accomplishment when you draft the work done by end of day each day. 

7. Make use of Sun Model

Assuming you already know ‘Follow the Sun Model’ where teams working in the different time zones on a same project and tasks are passed around daily between different office locations. 

When I was working out of USA and liaising with client and if they had any query or issues to resolve , I used to pass this on to my team members in India and they used to work during my night time on those (their day time 😄)  and I was ready next day when I face the client.  

8. Virtual Team Building activities

Be innovative to find ways to do this. May be you organize games over Video Conferencing or some online contests.  When a local festival celebrated in one office, you can have people in other offices join through VC. When you do award ceremonies, do not do it location wise. Do it for all the team members even though some of the team members are available on conference call or VC. 

9. Rotate team members to get some face to face time

This all depends on how much budget you have, however highly recommended. Rotate team members to visit other locations during key activities of project. 

For example - if design team in a country has to handover designs to development team which is in another country, few team members of them can visit for a short duration, do the handover and at the same time would meet the team members in the other location and build rapport.

If not possible for all the team members to do this due to budget constraints, I recommend this should be must for the Project Manager to visit all the locations and meet team members face to face at least once in the start of project. 

10. Reward team members for being responsible to others

Collaboration is so important in a virtual team and team members who are good team players, helping other team members succeed and show respect to cultural diversity and collaborate for success using all the available resources should be rewarded. 

This should be one of the key goals for their performance appraisal and evaluated appropriately by Project Manager and provided feedback on continuous basis highlight areas of improvements, if any.

If you have any questions or suggestions on how to manage a virtual global team more effectively, please feel free to comment.

Why Basics of Project Management should be part of school’s curriculum

After working so many years as Project Manager, sometimes I wonder, Whether I would have managed my days in school, college or in my earlier life in a better way had I been taught basic principles of Project Management early in my life. And I find the answer a ‘yes’.   
Yes, I would have been and things would have been so much different in a positive way.

I have seen (especially in India) children are asked to do home works and work on several projects (Many of their assignments can be treated as project where they needed to produce something while working with others like teachers, parents or classmates),however, they are not taught anything about managing these projects. 

A larger part of Project Management is life skill and I find no reason why this should not be in the school’s curriculum as any other subject.

Whether or not children choose professional Project Management as their career path, however these skills can help them manage well many of the work they do in any profession of their choice and even several things in their personal lives. 

I have listed down few of many reasons why this should be part of school education:

1. Children will learn to work under constrains and manage resources well

They would learn that resources are not unlimited and any deviation to planned resources will impact the cost or quality or scope. These all are interdependent and children are needed to do a balancing act in order to achieve the project outcomes.

2. They will learn the importance of planning the work

This is something they can apply anywhere in their life. 

As Larry Elder has said ‘A goal without a plan is just a wish’. Project Management teaches a detail planning on any activity you have to do considering the outcome you want to achieve with the resources that you have.

3. This will impart Team skills and Leadership qualities

The ‘P’ in PM is as much about ‘People Management’ as it’s about ‘Project Management’ 
 – Cornelius Fichtner

They would understand the importance of working as a team and also that everyone in the team is crucial for success of project regardless of activities they have to perform in the project.

They will learn the true meaning of leadership where they needed to take whole team along and achieve the success. They will learn that key to successful leadership is influence and not authority.

4. They will learn that communication can be planned well and importance of good communication

Needless to say this is so important in any walk of life. The best thing about learning that communication can be planned (when, how, to whom, what, how much) depending on your audience.

5. Importance of Risk Identification and Mitigation

This is again a skill which can be used anywhere in any profession or in personal life.
However, knowing the methodologies to identify the risks and taking proactive measures to mitigate these makes the whole lot of difference.   

Also, for schools -  in order to include this as curriculum not needed to create any additional infrastructure. This can be the part of many activities children are already doing. They just needed to taught the concepts and to be planned and guided to apply them when they working on any school projects.

Here is a video where PMI worked with a school in UK to teach young students the Project Management techniques and students worked and presented their projects after training sessions are over.

Have a look to see the outcomes:

 

Project management is art to make things happen and don’t you want our kids to know the basics of this art?

Please hit the comment button and provide your feedback / suggestions or ask any questions you might have.