Compassion is not weakness, it is a mark of a true leader

Some people believe that compassion and especially compassion in the workplace is a form of weakness. Perhaps they think survival of the fittest in the corporate jungle leaves no room for something like concern for other people and their feelings. March ahead, take no prisoners!

Yet report after report shows that us that those who have a high degree of emotional intelligence come out ahead at work. Empathy is an important part of emotional intelligence. To relate to others, you need to be able to see things from their perspective. That means acknowledging that some of your actions could be causing them distress.

Consider active listening for a minute. To have successful communications with others we should employ active listening. This involves really understanding what the other person is telling you, again trying to put yourself in their shoes.

It is difficult to successfully show empathy and active listening without caring component, you the part where you truely care what this person is experiencing?

Of course compassion is more than just understanding or acknowledging the feelings of others. It is going beyond & wishing to alleviate their suffering. If you continue to interact with others and as a leader or influencer do not try to improve their situation(where possible & appropriate), then quite frankly - you suck as a leader.

It is easy to bury your head in the sand and ignore when others are having a difficult time, it is easier to make their difficulties their fault, to feel anger at them, to blame them for bringing difficulty onto themselves. It takes much more courage to step in and take action, to actively work to improve their situations.

Compassion in workplace and on your projects takes strength & courage. Bring that to your project management style and trust me, the results are phenomenal.

Communicate Expectations The Right Way

If you hold clear high expectations for your people they may automatically rise meet those expectations. However, I might add that when you urge your teams on to greater achievement, how you urge them is as important as what exactly you urge. Great expectations can easily go awry if they're not communicated the right way. Here are a few tips for doing it right.

Declare very high expectations. Sometimes seemingly impossible goals are the most likely to be met. Ordinary expectations can be self-defeating because people realize such goals won't be hard to accomplish, so they don't try very hard. Thus you should set goals that will at first provoke the response that they can never be attained. Be clear that you are expecting something truly out of the ordinary. As you declare and continually reinforce what you're hoping for, those from whom you're desiring it will start working toward it with such a focused effort that the ball should quickly start rolling toward the goal.

Communicate your expectations clearly. Make sure that there is no ambiguity about what is expected. Describe what you're aiming for fully and in a positive way. There should be no confusion in anyone's mind about what you're demanding. If your goals and priorities are clearly articulated those who will execute them will be able to focus all their effort on attaining them.

Make sure those expectations fit their recipients. A leader should make sure that he declares the right expectations to the right people. He should consider his audience's backgrounds, abilities and circumstances before setting expectations. There is no point in setting a goal that's far removed from what someone has any experience and expertise in. Only establish expectations that have a real, strong chance of succeeding--even if they do sound impossible at first.

Communicate your expectations at every level. A leader must reinforce his expectations consistently, in both personal and public settings, formally and informally, inside and outside the organization. Every moment you spend with a person should confirm your trust that he will grow to the level you expect. At the same time, you should also make sure your high expectations for that person are reinforced by being conveyed to others inside and outside his immediate milieu.

Reconfirm your expectations constantly. Do not be discouraged when someone doesn't immediately grow to fit your expectations. Rather, continue to encourage by being clear that those expectations persist.

I am the smartest guy in the room effect!

In Greek mythology Narcissus was a favorite of Apollo and considered one of the most handsome young men alive. His beauty has been compared to Adonis, whom Aphrodite the Greek goddess of love herself, loved.The story goes that Narcissus, having come to a pool of water to quench his thirst, saw his own reflection in the smooth surface of the pool and fell in love with it. Since he could not obtain the object of his love, he died of sorrow by the same pool. The nymphs grieved the loss of Narcissus, but when they prepared his funeral pyre, they could not find his body—only the flower that bears his name. Supposedly, Narcissus still gazes upon his own reflection in the waters of the river Styx, in the underworld.

Yesterday, CIOZone caught my eye with an article they titled, Sometimes IT Leaders Are Too Smart for Their Own Good, where they suggest that, "Even the smartest person in the room can benefit from listening to others, provided those people have been chosen wisely." The author, RD Lewis calls it "Social Cognition-driven Hierarchy Level Establishment and Positioning (SCHLEP)."

He suggests, "The subject isn't emotional intelligence. People who lack that can't effectively work with other people—a related but different affliction." He suggests that these people "...don't listen because they don't see the point."Lewis asserts, "It's the intellectual version of a well-known tendency among male, muscularly-advanced high-school students: looking at their social world as a pecking order, within which they seek their level—preferably, someplace near the top—but through intellectual rather than physical pushing and shoving."

I think most people who have been in the workforce for any length of time have had to contend with a narcissistic personality at one time or another. Sometimes they are called "the smart person in the room," Lewis calls them "SCHLEPers," I just call them "Narcissists."I once worked with a guy who thought that he was the only one with any brains. He wouldn't listen to anyone and his fingerprint needed to be indelibly stamped on every initiative. In fairness, he was very smart, but his organization couldn't grow beyond what he could personally control. I didn't stay there very long.

I don't think it matters whether you are the project manager, the CIO, or the CEO—surrounding yourself with people who know things that you don't know is smart, very smart. Having the self-control and trust to actually listen to them is brilliance—and critical to accomplishing things greater than oneself.Lewis suggests that, once you "[s]tart down this path you'll discover something wonderful: Many people who are far less intelligent than you know something important you'd be wise to learn from.

It has to be this way, because no matter how smart you are, and how little sleep you think you need, you only have 168 hours in a week to add to your fund of knowledge. Line up nine decently smart employees who each spend 20 hours a week learning more about their professions, and every week one of them will know something you don't.""Most people know something you'd benefit from hearing," he continues, "You just have to help them figure out what it is."Regardless of how you manage project-based work or your particular project management software, always being the smart guy in the room just isn't a good idea. It alienates both stakeholders and project teams—and ultimately inhibits project success.What do you do when you need to work with a narcissistic personality? Or, if you tend to be what Lewis calls a SHLEPer, what do you do to foster dialog and keep from always being the smart guy in the room?

Leadership Skills: A Never Ending Quest

We never really arrive at the end of the road in our quest to become leaders. We may achieve leadership status in some way but it is always a moving target.

Indeed, I believe it is our own movement on a continuous basis that can enable us to maintain ourselves as a leader. One way that we can do this is by continuously evaluating our own leadership capabilities.

I have run across an interesting way to do this regular evaluation of ourselves and would like to share it along with a couple of thoughts about it. I found this simple evaluation in a “Leadership in Project Management 2007” publication of the PMI.


Here is the evaluation:

Rate yourself by selecting one of the choices “never”, “sometimes”, or “consistently” for the following six statements:

1. I verbally communicate with team members in a manner that gets my message across while grasping the message of the other person.

2. I coach and motivate my team.

3. I am able to identify different personalities on my team and respond accordingly.

4. I am able to resolve project conflict with various stake holders.

5. When crisis such as a death or natural disaster strikes a team member, I have resources and strategies to help them return to optimal levels of performance.

6. I use stress management tools to allow me to stay calm and maintain a high level of performance.

In my own experience, using these simple evaluation points is pretty to easy to do on a regular basis. I think that “regular basis” is something that we can each define for ourselves. For me, I simply do it “periodically”. And I find that it keeps my awareness of where I stand high and does influence my behavior in positive ways.

Are you an effective leader?

Does being a control freak make you an effective leader? Micromanagers take perfectly positive attributes - an attention to detail and a hands-on attribute to the extreme. Either because they are control-obsessed or because they feel driven to push everyone around them to success, micromanagers risk disempowering their teams. They ruin their teams' confidence, hurt their performance and frustrate them to a point where they quit.

Here are some traits...

• Resist delegating


• Immerse yourself in overseeing the projects of others


• Start by correcting tiny details instead of looking at the big picture


• Take back delegated work before it is finished if they find a mistake in it and


• Discourage others from making decisions without consulting them

Start by asking yourself, what is wrong with that. The diagram above attempts to explain how to create an environment of energy and innovation for successful outcomes.

What is Program Governance?

The process of developing, communicating, implementing, monitoring & assuring the policies, procedures, & org structures and practices associated with a program. Program governance is concerned with controlling the organization's investment.

So, let me give you some concrete examples as opposed to just theory. Program governance ensures the "Program" have:

The Right People

• Business managers whose problems the program is trying to address
• Senior leadership sponsorship & engagement means
• Identification of skills, needs and solutions
• Common roles (e.g. Project Director, Project Manager)
• Co-ordination of PM training and mentorship programs

The Right Projects

• Identification & selection of projects
• Alignment to strategic objectives
• Rank & priority assessment
• Risk management
• Capacity management
• Balanced allocation of resources

The Right Process

• Program management framework
• Co-ordination and facilitating the development and administration of common controls, methodology standards and tools
• Align corporate processes with group/divisional processes
• Regulation & compliance

The Right Tools

• Change & communications management techniques
• Central repository for programs & projects in the corporate portfolio
• Integration of tools to improve project management capability
• Research and communicate on latest global development in thoughts, techniques and tools

The Right Culture

• Sponsorship for initiatives
• Co-ordinate and facilitate enhancing project management capability & culture
• Sharing knowledge and experiences
• Forums for project managers
• Coaching & mentoring
• Performance recognition (awards)

This is how the word "Governance" needs to translated into actionable tasks for execution so that successful outcomes can be achieved.

Outcome Management Vs. Project Management

Outcome Management is a set of methods, processes, tools and techniques for planning, selecting, managing and realizing results of benefits. It addresses: What problem are we trying to solve? So begin with the end in mind..

However, very often it is confused with project management. The table below attempts to point out some differences between the two and hopefully broadens your perspective on outcome management.