Build a Culture of Engagement & Accountability

This is the second article in my series on Project Management Excellence, and it builds upon the initial installment (Change Your Mindset). In this article, we’ll focus on two key topics.

First, we’ll cover a challenge that many people experience (not just PM’s) – how do you hold people accountable when they don’t report to you? And second, we explore multiple avenues for delivering through engagement vs. leading with “the stick.” The latter, although it can be effective in the short term, isn’t always the desired path, and it may become very costly and inefficient for your organization and/or client. These tips and perspectives will help you more effectively engage your team and stakeholders, hold people accountable, and sustain your ability to deliver in both the near and long-term.

Accountability starts with you

Holding a team accountable when they don’t report to you can be a fine line to walk.  The best approach is to have accountability start with you.  So what does it mean to hold yourself accountable?  Simply put: do what you say you’re going to do, and call yourself out when you don’t. 

Own the outcome, which includes your mistakes and focus on resolution instead of playing the blame game.  The blame game will only take you so far; an example of this, came from a mentor of mine.  He told me a story about his former boss, who when he resigned gave him two letters.  His instructions were to not open these letters until he got into a situation in which he saw no way out; at that point, open letter #1.  About a year later, he found himself in a position in which he saw no way out, so he opened letter #1.  The letter read, “Blame me.  I am no longer there, and it will be fine to blame me, however wait to open the next letter until you are in a similar situation again.”  About two years later, he found himself in another situation where he did not see an avenue out, so he opened the second letter.  The second letter simply read, “It’s time for you to write two letters.” 

The blame game does not build and engage project teams in the long term; instead it tends to act as an agent of dis-engagement.  The best approach is to have accountability start with you. 

A common misunderstanding regarding accountability is that we only hold people accountable after they make a mistake.  I prefer taking a more proactive approach to help avoid common mistakes and oversights.  This is easily accomplished by reminding people of action items, coaching them on expectations, and prepping them around meetings and content.  This can help avoid missed actions items which cause delays, and it prevents unproductive tangents during meetings because people are now “read-in.”  By being proactive, you can both engage the team while holding people accountable.

Perspective is Reality, so Change the Perspective

The projects we lead are not one dimensional, but instead span across multiple dimensions and functions (e.g. people, process and technology, and across numerous Business Units).  Understanding the perspective of ALL stakeholders is a critical part of building engagement. 

Understanding the perspective of your team/audience is critical because it helps you provide the right context.   Chances are, the teams you interact with only have a small glimpse of how you spend your day, with limited insight into how the project is coming together; they do not attend every meeting you’re in, and they are not part of the multiple side discussions and follow ups on specific topics.  All of this becomes important context that only you can provide when it comes time for decisions, direction and obtaining buy-in.  We are in a position to walk people down the path by providing background on why the conversation is important, what led up to this point, and the impacts of the decisions being made.  If you clearly explain the situation, the perspectives of other stakeholders and the implications, you’ll become the go-to PM.

Another key perspective for PM’s to keep in mind is that many of the people you’re working with have “day jobs,” and other responsibilities outside of providing support for your specific project.  Awareness of this balance (and often tension) is a key perspective to acknowledge, so when you engage their teams you can provide value in your project delivery approach.  Creating this kind of goodwill with a team is invaluable, because as new projects arise as your organization continues to evolve and innovate, many of the same stakeholders will need to be engaged.

Scheduling meetings is another critical skill that impacts the stakeholder and project team’s perspective, as well as the overall efficiency of your project delivery.  Change the perspective on the quality of your meetings; five to ten minutes of thought before scheduling a meeting can lead to more effective, engaged meetings.  When trying to juggle multiple objectives and busy schedules, it is easy to become reactionary when scheduling meetings.  I often see folks sending out calendar invites just to check it off their to-do list, but this is perhaps the easiest and best task to start approaching with a different perspective.  Think through the objective, if anything is needed in advance, who really needs to attend, and any timing implications.  Too often meetings get scheduled without regard for people’s calendars and without understanding dependencies or the kind of preparation required.  In order to ensure you have the attendance you need to achieve the desired outcome, take a few minutes before hitting send on the meeting invite and, think through the following:

• What are we trying to accomplish?

• Are the right people invited/available? 

• What materials are needed to help move the meeting along?

A few other tips regarding scheduling meetings: 

• If you know there will be multiple meetings required, schedule them all in advance (this helps set expectations, respects the stakeholders’ time by getting it on their calendar and helps to avoid last minute invites, which often results in limited attendance and/or engagement).

• Consider the law of diminishing returns.  Instead of scheduling 4-hour sessions, try to break the meetings into 60 - 90 minutes; these usually lead to high-levels of engagement, resulting in increased productivity.

• When cancelling or rescheduling a meeting, put a note in the updated or cancelled invite; multiple reschedules or cancellations without awareness of why leads to dis-engagement.

• Prior to the meeting, reach out to the meeting participants to confirm attendance if they haven’t responded, confirm the presenters have the materials they needed and if you know someone is uncomfortable, or may have questions related to details that could derail the meeting, address them prior to the meeting.  These small steps help build engagement and proactively hold accountability, which lead to more productive meetings. 

Team Work makes the Dream Work

Project delivery is a team sport; whether facilitating weekly status updates, discovery sessions or building out and updating the project plan or WBS (work breakdown structure), it’s all a team effort.  As the PM, you help the team achieve its objectives but (1) you’re not the expert and (2) you’re not the one performing the actual delivery work.  Keeping these points in mind, when it comes to meetings this means you shouldn’t be the one speaking the majority of the time.  There’s a difference between leading and facilitating meetings.  Let your SME’s (Subject Matter Experts) speak to their expertise, and the delivery teams speak to their work; you should be keeping the meeting on track, kicking off it off, transitioning topics, summarizing actions and next steps, as well as asking questions when necessary, either for your own clarity or for the clarity of the project team. 

In contrast to a PM who wants to talk the majority of a meeting, another pattern I’ve witnessed is that PM’s who are nervous or afraid to speak up in meetings.  Personally, I reference a quote from Abraham Lincoln (which I keep taped on my laptop): “Be sure to put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”  This resonates with me because if you’re doing things, asking things for the right reason, and saying things for the right reasons, you should never be afraid to do so. 

Another area where team work is required is in the development of your project plan.  Too often, I’ve witnessed the Project Manager working in a silo to build out their project plans and WBS’s, instead of building it in collaboration with the team.  Building out a detailed plan before reviewing with the delivery teams, results in re-work and could lead to disengagement.  I recommend taking the approach of “aim small, miss small.” If you translate this advice for  project planning, it would lead a PM to getting feedback along the way; build out a small portion of the plan and validate it with the team before continuing.  Working with your team in the right way not only builds accurate plans, but it leads to engaged and motivated teams.

Bridge the Gap

Gaps are highly prevalent in a large project - knowledge gaps, perspective gaps, and engagement gaps – it is these gaps which often times drive the need for effective project management.  PM’s help companies overcome these gaps by following a few key principles:   

First, communicate, don’t talk:  Too many PM’s speak in terms of their function (e.g. IT), which isn’t always understood by the other functions or business lines, and at times speak in meetings just to talk, with limited value add.  In order to be effective, we need to bridge the communication gap, understanding IT’s perspective, and relaying that in business terms.  We’re not there to talk through entire meetings, but instead set the stage to ensure the correct message is being delivered, translating when necessary, and ensuring we’re driving to decisions when decisions need to be made.   

Second, there’s no such thing as over communicating:  People want to know what’s going on, how things are progressing and how their work is impacting the project delivery.  In order to help keep teams engaged, proactively keep the lines of communication open, even when you don’t have an answer yet.  This means mentioning action items that have not yet been completed but are still on the to-do list, or sending follow up emails to people letting them know that you’re still working on x,y,z and if appropriate, sharing updates on projected resolution/completion - keeping people informed helps keep them engaged.

Next is conversation over email:  Email is a critical tool, and I’m not suggesting we avoid using it, I’m simply suggesting it should not be the default method for communicating.  The tone of email is vague and things can be lost in translation, or for complex topics requiring a lot of context, it means writing a novel (which may not be fully read), which could also then prevent the kind of quick response you need – in situations like this, pick up the phone or walk down the hall and have a quick conversation – don’t be afraid to wait outside someone’s office until their meeting finishes – remember if you’re doing things for the right reason, never be afraid.

Lastly, be a uniter not a divider:  Always work toward alignment and engagement, especially in view of the project team; a simple rule to remember is ‘praise in public and coach in private.’   Time-compressed and/or complex projects can lead to tension.  I’ve found myself in situations where key stakeholders were at odds on delivery commitments, aggressively voicing their disagreements in front of the project team.  The tension between stakeholders has a tendency to trickle down and impact the project teams.  Seeing this interaction, I sat down with each of the stakeholders (individually, then jointly), to discuss what transpired.  My “ask” of each of them was to have those disagreements in private.  With such a short timeline to deliver and given the criticality of the project for the organization, we needed the project team to be engaged, which meant the team needed to see they were both engaged and working toward a common goal.  There shouldn’t be sides on a project; if the project fails, the team fails.  Industry regulators and competitors don’t care whose fault it is if your organization is not able to implement the change required.

Learn to be the go to across all functions; meet everyone you can, and understand what they do.  Doing this will position you as the ‘go to’ person; although you don’t have the answers for everything, you become the resource who knows how to find the person who does, quickly.