What If You Get Hit By a Bus?

What if you get hit by a bus?

This is the standard question asked in project management circles to get people to think about risk.  It's sort of the PM equivalent of "it's all fun and games until somebody's eye gets put out."  The idea is to get people to think about the borderline absurdities that can derail a project.  Those things that live in the outer reaches of reality... those unpleasantries that we don't like to think about but still COULD happen.

Here in Des Moines, we need to think of a new project risk management example.  It seems that our bus drivers have been getting too aggressive... clumsy... careless... dangerous.  Last week saw the third bus-pedestrian accident in the past nine months.  Now, for those of you in larger cities, I'm sure you're chuckling right now that we've only had three in nine months... but for us here in the middle of the Midwest, that's a little too frequent for our collective comfort level.

But let's take this back to our projects.  Are we accurately assessing the probability of each project risk event occurring?  Is the probability of the resignation of our key subject matter expert at 10% ... or is it really closer to 70%?  Is the probability of a vendor default really at 90%?  Or is that the assessment of the purchasing manager whose ego was bruised by this same vendor and is more like 10%?

The best risk management assessments in my career were discussed in a group.  We gave our initial gut reaction, and if there were discrepancies, we talked through them until we reached consensus.  Then you can create an appropriate response for each risk.  To do anything less is like crossing the street in downtown Des Moines.

Age of Conversation (x 275)

Why don't people get it?

That's a loaded question.  It's also the question that 275 bloggers will be attempting to answer in the upcoming book, Age of Conversation 2.  Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton are at it again.  Their first book, Age of Conversation, pulled together 103 bloggers to talk about talking... with each other.  This book takes the conversation to a new level... with all of this talking going on, why isn't more of it sinking in?

So here's a nod to my fellow authors in the Age of Conversation 2:

Adam Crowe, Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob Carlton, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Bradley Spitzer, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Clay Parker Jones, Chris Brown, Colin McKay, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Cord Silverstein, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Goldstein, Dan Schawbel, Dana VanDen Heuvel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Darryl Patterson, Dave Davison, Dave Origano, David Armano, David Bausola, David Berkowitz, David Brazeal, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Emily Reed, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, G. Kofi Annan, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Graham Hill, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, J.C. Hutchins, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeremy Middleton, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, Joe Talbott, John Herrington, John Jantsch, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Flowers, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kris Hoet, Krishna De, Kristin Gorski, Laura Fitton, Laurence Helene Borei, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Barnes-Johnston, Louise Mangan, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Marcus Brown, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Mark McSpadden, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Hawkins, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Monica Wright, Nathan Gilliatt, Nathan Snell, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul Marobella, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Beeker Northam, Rob Mortimer, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Cribbett, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tiffany Kenyon, Tim Brunelle, Tim Buesing, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Longhurst, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

Quite the list, isn't it?  I can only imagine what these minds will create.  Should be an awesome book.

How To Destroy Your Manager

(WARNING TO HARRY POTTER FANS:  BOOK 7 SPOILER INCLUDED IN FINAL PARAGRAPH.)

I love to see how people find my blog through Google and Yahoo searches.  They find me through searches on serial killers and chihuahua behaviors.  They find me when they are looking for the Sound of Music and stool softener.  They hunt me down on weird topics like the Weather Channel and bunny costumes.  Most of the time, I just sort of chuckle about how my complete lack of focus (some would call it blogospheric attention deficit disorder) pulls in readers from numerous topics.  There was a search this week that really caught my attention, though:  "How to destroy your supervisor."  They had paired this phrase with "office politics," which is more likely the reason I arrived on their radar screen, but still it intrigued me that somebody was looking for a "how to" on destroying their supervisor.  Mind you, I've had managers and supervisors where I had hoped a house carrying a little girl from Kansas would fall on them.  OK, maybe not hoped, but it wouldn't have surprised me.

If you currently have a less-than-pleasant superior, should destroying him or her really be a goal?  I had to chuckle at a recent letter I answered on Office-Politics.com that wondered when "office karma" kicked in to do the trick.  I shared with the letter writer an early experience out of college with a supervisor and a manager... two of the most wicked and vile human beings on the planet.  Surprisingly, these two taught me the most valuable lesson about bad managers and how to destroy them:  do absolutely nothing to them.  Yup, that's right.  Do what you can to protect yourself, your reputation, and your integrity; they will eventually destroy themselves.  The time frame is out of your hands, but it will happen.

I've yet to see a bad manager who didn't eventually self-destruct.  I thought J.K. Rowling's conclusion of the Harry Potter series was nothing short of brilliant.  Harry didn't kill Lord Voldemort.  Lord Voldemort did himself in.  The same concept applies in business.  Ego.  Power.  Pride.  Selfishness.  Greed.  Backstabbing.  Disloyalty.  All of the same traits which make them so unpleasant will eventually be their undoing.  Before they "get theirs" you may have to decide to move on, or you may be presented with the opportunity to facilitate their downfall (but don't count on it).  Either way, you can get back on your own career path, and they are out of the way.  Then you can refocus on seizing your accomplishments.

It's a Mall World After All

I'm a big fan of dichotomy and paradox.  The more opposite and contradictory things appear to be, the more they seem to appeal to me.  I've always been drawn to contrast, though.  Not conflict, mind you... contrast.  Maybe that's why the only TV show (at least, the only show that is purely driven by entertainment) that's grabbed my attention in the past five years has been Dexter... imagine, a law enforcement forensics expert who's also a serial killer.  Like I said, it's that kind of paradox that just grabs my attention.

For those who have been reading my blog for a while, you may remember the disastrous experience my students and I had with Merle Hay Mall last year during an exercise for my Creativity class.  The security guards and the mall's general manager couldn't have been any more unpleasant if they'd tried.  So I have to admit I was holding my breath when the class exercise came around this year.  I decided not to give Merle Hay another chance to win me over, so I thought I'd give Jordan Creek Town Center a try.

Wow!  Was I bowled over by the difference in reaction.  Martha, a delightful person in the mall management office, was not only friendly about my request to let my students hold their scavenger hunt at her mall, she simply effused enthusiasm.  Then she sent me their "Electronic scavenger hunt permission request form," and I almost fell out of my seat.  Instead of chasing away potential customers like Merle Hay Mall did, Jordan Creek proactively anticipated the need.  Within one business day, I had another positively enthusiastic response.

During the exercise, the security guards were friendly and helpful with my students, providing them with direction and assistance.  The mall's store employees joined in the fun as well.  The result?  My students this year felt like the experience was a great enhancement to the classroom learning experience.  By contrast, my students last year felt defeated by the experience.  Same exercise.  Very different results.

What is my point of sharing this story?  Well, Merle Hay Mall is asking the government for tax-funded grants to upgrade their mall so they can "stay competitive" against places like Jordan Creek.  Maybe they are trying to solve the wrong problem.  Perhaps a replacement of mall management might be a good first step to draw in customers and make the place more inviting and fun.  I know enough community stakeholders who have had equally dismal experiences in dealing with the mall staff.  It could be that a shift in focus would better serve the mall - and the taxpayers - in seizing their desired accomplishments.

What do you think?

The Luck of The Irate

It is Saint Paddy's Day.  Day to wear green, watch parades, drink beer, and pretend that everybody is no more than a generation removed from hopping off the boat from Dublin.

But how green is your project manager?  (And no, I'm not talking about St. Patrick's festivities.)  Are your team's antics making him or her physically ill?  When should a good project manager get involved to help cure the team?

I once knew a PM who was - at best - a "hit and run" manager.  He would get blindsided by conflict (which he would have known about if he were paying attention), get half of the story (whatever made it through his dense perceptual filters), go out, yell at people, and think he had solved the problem.  When the "rest of the story" would surface, he'd end up doing damage control (a lot more work than if he'd just listened up front).

The Tao of Project Management Blog had a great post last year about these kinds of incidents.  Its author, John Carroll (ironically from the UK, neighbor to Ireland), had these wise words to share:

The wise project manager does not interfere with the work of the team unless all else has failed. Delicate facilitation is the way not sudden intervention. By using a sudden intervention the work of one or more members of the team is cast aside and they will feel violated. The team will be weakened and what may, at the time feel like a victory, is actually a failure.

My former PM could have used some of this knowledge.  But oh well, he's still wiggling his way through projects and charming clients into thinking he knows what he's doing.  Then he bullies those less experienced into thinking what goes wrong is their fault.

There's a lot to be said for the finer art of facilitation as opposed to going into a conflict like a bulldozer on a steroid overdose.  Maybe the "luck" of today belongs to those who really are nice (with or without beer), can listen well, and are able to work and play well with others.

"Cry, Sis" Management

"Don't look at me."

"She's doing it again."

"That's not fair."

"Stop that!"

"I don't like you."

"Moooooom!  Daaaaad!"

Living in a house with two daughters means that there is never a lack of drama.  I know several other dads who have only daughters, and we're in agreement that we're always on our toes.  We're also in agreement that the source of conflict is internal... in other words, siblings make each other cry.  (I know, I know, earth shattering revelation, isn't it?)  And we've also noticed the trend that, in our adult male eyes, 95% of the conflict is utterly irrelevant.

We were having a discussion in my Drake leadership class last weekend about nice people and mean people.  What do you do with somebody who consistently goes out of their way to create drama for others?  How do you handle someone who goes out of their way to make others miserable?  One strategy is to hold a Crucial Conversation with them.  We were fortunate enough to have Shirley Poertner come to class to share a brief overview of the Crucial Conversations technique.  If you've never had the opportunity to hear Shirley address a group, you should; she exudes warmth, confidence and credibility.  Better yet, in an hour she provided my students (and me) with some critical skills for handling the difficult people and situations we all face.  (I can only imagine how effectively wow-ing she would be in a two-day workshop.)  Before Shirley even spoke to my students, I gave them an opportunity to practice handling difficult people.  Using a variation of "speed dating," I posted letters written to the Office-Politics.com site, divided the class into groups, and gave them an hour to circulate around the room and respond to as many of the letters as they could.  The result was kind of interesting:  many of them realized that their own internal work dramas weren't as bad as they originally perceived.  I suppose conflict is relative.  For the conflict that's real, I'd recommend looking into bringing Shirley to your organization to speak.

And it may be time to start having some crucial conversations with my kids, too.

Go Dogs Go

Go Dogs Go!  Handle the ball
Go Dogs Go, you will not fall
Go by post, by zone, from line
Go Dogs Go, you're doing fine

Go Dogs Go, 3-pointers reign
Emmenecker, Houston in the lane
The Valley will not be the same
When they taste Drake Bulldog fame

Go Dogs Go, Drake Bulldog rocks
Driven by Korver and Cox
Go Dogs Go, make Keno proud
Go Dogs Go, Des Moines cheers LOUD

Go Dogs Go, you're doing great
Final Four or Elite Eight
N-C-A-A, the "big dance"
Go Dogs Go, NOW is your chance!

Congratulations to the Drake Men's Basketball team on a stellar season, winning both the regular conference and the Missouri Valley Tournament.  Go Bulldogs!!

(Apologies to PD Eastman)

S.O.B.!!!

Hey everybody, looks like things are well underway with planning the Successful and Outstanding Blogger (S.O.B.) conference in Chicago in May.

I attended the event last year, and I had an amazingly surreal time getting to meet some of the best business blogging minds that exist.  Energetic?  Yes.  Surreal?  A bit.  Worthwhile?  Absolutely!

You may be thinking some of the following:

• But I'm not really a blogger... this wouldn't be for me.  My response?  Do you have to communicate with others in your job?  Then whether you blog or not, this conference will help you carry on a higher quality dialogue with your customers and your colleagues.
• I don't have time.  My response?  Nobody has time in this era of busy-ness.  We make time to invest in what's really important.  Relationships and communication are really important and will pay off dividends later.
• Another conference?  Ugh.  My response?  This is not just another conference.  This is a family reunion.  The relationships you will build here can catapult your business, but more than that, they will catapult your life.

So hop on the website, and give up a weekend in May to change how you see the world around you.  I promise that you will have an amazing time.

Happy Blog-iversary

And they said it wouldn't last.

The Carpe Factum blog is celebrating its second birthday today.  That means we're entering the "terrible two's" where anything can happen... and generally does.

Anyway, just wanted to say a huge thank you to all of my readers for making the last two years something really, really special.  You've helped me seize accomplishments I never dreamed possible two years ago.

Have a great day!

Consulting Anthropology

"No prophet is accepted in his own village." -Jesus (Luke 4:24)

I had an interesting discussion today with a friend of mine who is a whiz at software sales.  We were talking about our "home court" of Des Moines, Iowa.  When I first became an independent consultant, I marketed myself quite heavily here in the Des Moines area.  To no avail.  The market is saturated with cubicle-dwellers who call themselves consultants.  Alas, most of what is termed a local consultant around here is merely resource extender, a sort of "consulting Hamburger Helper" meant to make their existing resource budget go a little farther.  For true consulting, local companies bring in people from other cities.  (NOTE:  this assessment comes from many of the other consultants themselves; I just happen to concur with their observation.  So, no, I'm not labeling my colleagues.)

We all know the definition of a consultant:  anybody carrying a briefcase who comes from more than 100 miles away.  My one active consulting client right now is out of state, and I like it that way.  A lot of other service providers (software, marketing, financial services) have noticed the same thing.  When local companies did want my services, they wanted them for (ahem) free... and well, I'm not that cheap.  When one of the major "big box" employers in town was putting on a professional development day for their internal project managers, not only did they want me to come and speak (without a fee), but also they asked if I'd give away books.  I politely declined.  There was no follow-on business for a "deal" like that.  Plus, I'd consulted for this company enough to know what their bottom line looked like... they could have afforded my normal speaker fees.

But a really weird phenomenon has been happening since I've been acting like I'm no longer interested in pursuing consulting (or speaking or training) business here in Des Moines.  Local companies have suddenly been contacting me.  Inviting me to train.  To speak.  To consult.  Am I now considered the outsider?  Or is this relationship something like college dating?  Since I'm acting disinterested, have I suddenly becomeo irresistably desirable (at least as a consultant)?

My lunch comrade and I discussed others who had experienced similar situations.  We sat over our dessert and coffee, dissecting the local market like two anthropologists stumbling upon the ruins of an odd little tribe in the wilderness.

What do you think causes these kinds of relationships?  Is it just weird office politics gone awry?  Is it some kind of twisted mental game that companies play on consultants and service providers?  What do you think?