Episode 105 – Managing Up for Project Success

05/18/20 • -1 min

Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

VELOCITEACH Manage This The podcast by project managers for project managers. Dana Brownlee shares tools for managing up that challenging boss or stakeholder, while creating alignment and clear communication. Table of Contents 00:58 ... Meet Dana 02:18 ... The Inspiration for The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up 03:54 ... Managing Up Research Study 07:02 ... It Begins with Self Awareness 08:20 ... A Definition of Managing Up 10:05 ... Managing Up Mistakes 11:30 ... Six Difficult Boss Personality Types 14:32 ... A Closer Look at the Clueless Chameleon 19:03 ... A Closer Look at the Meddlesome Micromanager 22:40 ... A Closer Look at the Tornado 25:22 ... The Compliment, Document, and Pivot 27:37 ... More Taming of the Tornado 29:32 ... Self-Analysis for the Project Manager 31:28 ... Get in Touch with Dana 32:24 ... Closing WENDY GROUNDS: Hello, and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. I’m Wendy Grounds and with me in the studio is Bill Yates. Bill, I have a question for you today. How often have you experienced a difficult stakeholder or a difficult boss? What’s your experience? BILL YATES: Oh, man. This is such a loaded question. You’re going to get me in trouble. Andy... WENDY GROUNDS: Yeah, we don’t have to talk any current. BILL YATES: Okay, good, yeah. I was going to say, Andy Crowe’s not in the room right now, but he will definitely listen to this. So, got an outstanding manager now. But yeah, I mean, this is just a part of life; right? We have managers who – sometimes our boss, our manager is super supportive and great. Other times there are challenges, and so fortunately we have Dana to talk with us about some of those challenges. Meet Dana WENDY GROUNDS: So our guest today is Dana Brownlee, she is a PMP, and she founded Professionalism Matters, which is an Atlanta-based corporate training company. Her business expertise has been featured in Forbes.com, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, to name a few. And Dana likes to give project managers tools they can use. Dana, welcome to Manage This. DANA BROWNLEE: Thanks so much for having me. WENDY GROUNDS: Dana, won’t you first tell us just a bit about yourself and how you entered the project management field? DANA BROWNLEE: Certainly. Well, I started my company back in 2003. I’m dating myself a little bit, can’t believe it’s been that long. But I started in project management I guess in the early ‘90s. And in fact I remember it was so long ago, I remember applying for my PMP in handwritten paper. BILL YATES: Oh, okay. WENDY GROUNDS: Wow. DANA BROWNLEE: Like printing it off and writing it out and actually mailing it in, putting a stamp in, so I’m officially old. But I worked in corporate for a number of years, and then I started my own training company, and I went out, and I teach training classes and give speaking events. But I do think that I’ve always been wired kind of as a project manager, I dot my I’s; I cross my T’s. In fact, my husband laughed. He said, you know, “This is definitely for you. You’ve got a knack for telling other people what to do.” So some of it is kind of in my blood. But I love it. The Inspiration for The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up WENDY GROUNDS: Dana has written an excellent book that Bill and I have both enjoyed reading. It’s called “The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up: Project Management Techniques from the Trenches.” And in this book we read about different types of bosses and techniques that you can implement when working with these different types of managers. Dana, what inspired you to write the book? DANA BROWNLEE: Actually, my audiences inspired me to write the book. I never intended to speak on this topic, to write on this topic, but let me tell you what started happening. I give talks, and I provide training on a wide range of topics. So I might be out speaking about communication skills,

Previous Episode

Episode 104 – Crisis Leadership – Lessons Onboard the USS Cole

The podcast by project managers for project managers. The unpredictable nature of a crisis means that leaders have little time to prepare. Our guest Matt Harper, a retired 20 year Naval Officer, talks about crisis leadership lessons he learned onboard the USS Cole during a terrorist attack. Table of Contents 00:37 ... Meet Matt 01:38 ... Matt’s Role on the USS Cole 03:55 ... Background to the USS Cole Deployment 06:32 ... Geographical Location of Yemen 07:58 ... October 12th, 2000 10:02 ... Reacting in Times of Crisis 12:24 ... Events Following the Attack 14:36 ... Responding Well or Responding Poorly in a Crisis 16:34 ... Management vs. Leadership 20:15 ... Crisis Leadership Lesson One: Understand Yourself 21:05 ... Crisis Leadership Lesson Two: Be Comfortable with Uncertainty 22:40 ... Crisis Leadership Lesson Three: Collaborate 24:01 ... Crisis Leadership Lesson Four: Be Ready to do Anything 26:35 ... Crisis Leadership Lesson Five: Lessons Learned 27:35 ... Keeping Motivated in a Crisis 29:42 ... Get up on the Balcony, Take a Different Perspective 33:11 ... Go Beyond Your Comfort Zone 34:41 ... Resolving the Problem 37:20 ... Get in Touch with Matt 38:52 ... Closing MATT HARPER: ...this is the hallmark of the good leader, of the good project manager that says, got it, that’s the way it’s supposed to be done, but we’re in a crisis deadline or whatever the case may be. And this is how we need to do it now. WENDY GROUNDS: Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. I am Wendy Grounds, and with me is Bill Yates. BILL YATES: Hi. Hi, Wendy. WENDY GROUNDS: Hi, Bill. Today we’re talking about what will we do in a time of crisis. We have Matt Harper with us. He is on Skype from Denver, Colorado. Meet Matt BILL YATES: Yeah, Matt has had a twenty year career with the US Navy and we’ll get more into that. Specifically though, he had a unique experience and I’m looking forward to discussing with him and sharing with our audience. WENDY GROUNDS: Matt is going to tell us about his experience on the USS Cole after a terrorist attack in Aden, Yemen, which happened in October 2000. He was decorated for his leadership after this attack and he’s applied that to coaching lessons in crisis leadership, and so I think he’s got a lot of good stuff he’s going to bring to us today. BILL YATES: Yeah, Matt, we so appreciate your time. Welcome to Manage This. MATT HARPER: Well, thanks. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it. BILL YATES: Any time we can bring somebody into a conversation that has the knowledge, the training, and the experience that you do, we know our project manager listeners are going to appreciate it and learn from it. Wendy and I were talking, we feel like the best way to tackle this topic is just start from the beginning. Give us a sense for what happened with the USS Cole and what your role was, or what part you played in that. Matt’s Role on the USS Cole MATT HARPER: Sure. Well, thanks, thanks again for having me. I would like to kind of start out, having a 20-year military background, I’m sure a lot of the people listening to the podcast will have military backgrounds. BILL YATES: Right. MATT HARPER: But for most people who do not, I would like to say that anybody who spends time in the military, what we do on a daily basis is really project management. BILL YATES: That’s true. MATT HARPER: It’s something that we I think don’t do a very good job, we people in the military or prior military personnel, we don’t do a very good job really making it clear that that’s really what we do, probably 90 percent of our day, is really different types of projects that all interrelate to each other. They’re all underfunded; they’re all under-resourced. BILL YATES: Yes. MATT HARPER: And that’s what we do on a daily basis. So about my experience, I originally grew up in San Francisco. I always knew I kind of wanted to be in the Navy,

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Episode 106 – The Ocean Cleanup Project

Manage This by Velociteach The podcast by project managers for project managers. The Ocean Cleanup organization is tackling the largest clean-up project in history. Henk van Dalen shares his passion for the project as he describes the origin of The Ocean Cleanup organization and outlines this bold project to clean the vast amounts of waste from our oceans. Table of Contents 01:55 ... Understanding the Problem 03:19 ... How The Ocean Cleanup Began 05:31 ... Henk’s Involvement in the Project 06:48 ... Ocean Garbage Patches 08:26 ... Facing Setbacks 11:21 ... The Highs and Lows of Lessons Learned 14:48 ... Lessons from Wilson 16:39 ... Not Taking it Personally 20:57 ... Plastic Size and Barrier Specifics 25:44 ... Quantity of Systems Needed 28:00 ... Safety for Other Vessels 30:49 ... What Happens to the Collected Plastic? 32:07 ... Tackling the Problem at the Source 33:50 ... Cleaning up the Rivers 37:00 ... Leadership Lessons 40:24 ... Biggest Surprise on the Project 42:38 ... Learn More about The Ocean Cleanup 44:28 ... Closing HENK VAN DALEN: ...the Garbage Patch out there is so big and persistent, that’s not going to away by itself. It’s almost looking at your house, and you say, “I have a dirty house; but if I close the doors, then, you know, it’s going to be fine.” You still need to clean it up, as well. So for us doing that part is essential, and we believe that the power and the impact that the Ocean Cleanup can make is really in technology. Develop technology. Be able to move quickly to address the problem that’s there already. But also, you know, it’s us also getting the awareness out there that people start thinking by themselves what it is. So if the Ocean Cleanup looked at, but what are we good at and where can we make an impact, it’s creating that awareness, backing it up by science and showing how big this problem is and cleaning up the mess that is already out there. WENDY GROUNDS: Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. We’re glad you’ve joined us for a conversation about what matters to you in the field of project management. I’m Wendy Grounds, and here in the studio with me is Bill Yates. BILL YATES: Wendy, we’ve got an interesting theme that you’ve hit on. I love this. We’ve talked about saving the rhinos. We’ve talked about tracking orbital space debris. We’ve looked at community gardens and food banks; sustainability. And man, have we got a great conversation today. WENDY GROUNDS: I am very excited about this one. I have been following this project for a few years now and have been trying to find someone who will talk to us. And we were very fortunate to find Henk van Dalen. Henk is the Director Ocean Project of The Ocean Cleanup. This is a project that is looking to clean up the ocean. BILL YATES: That’s it, five trillion pieces of plastic that we want to remove from the ocean. That’s a big project. WENDY GROUNDS: Yeah, we’re very excited to hear Henk’s story. Understanding the Problem BILL YATES: Henk, thank you so much for joining us today on Manage This, from your remote location. HENK VAN DALEN: Thank you. Thank you for having me, guys. BILL YATES: One of the first things I want to do is just help our listeners understand the problem. Can you define the problem for us? HENK VAN DALEN: So within The Ocean Cleanup, we’re focusing to clean up the oceans, and that first of all means we need to close up the inflow of the oceans, taking the plastic out of the rivers, preventing it going in. But there’s also the element of a lot of plastic being out there in the ocean itself, and that’s been accumulating there over decades. And our focus primarily is now on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. So that is the area of the ocean located between Hawaii and California, and there is a plastic soup, you could say, floating around which is twice the size of Texas. So that is an immense amount of plastic,