When a project succeeds, everyone steps up for a pat on the back. When a project fails, only one person can expect the blame: the manager. To better handle these make-or-break situations, you must improve your softer people skills.
Known as the increasingly popular “emotional intelligence” (EI), these skills help you successfully handle project politics and human interactions and enable you to present yourself in a way so you can be recognized and rewarded every time you achieve a project success.
“EI is about using your emotions intelligently,” says Neil E. Béchervaise, executive mentor, change management consultant and adjunct professor of business, Australian Graduate Institute of Entrepreneurship. “Knowing when you are sad, happy, angry or frustrated doesn't take great smarts, but it does tell you when you need to be careful about how you react with your boss and your work team.”
Competent managers must control their emotions during trying times and determine the most efficient method of communication, which depends on the environment, the circumstance and the relationship between people, according to Tony Paul, a project management consultant and principal of PicoNet Consulting in Australia. “I use my senses to read how my clients, team and colleagues perceive my views and actions in the context of the project and the working environment,” he says. “After all, I am there to make a difference, and reading the mood of the workplace is as important as listening to what is said and reading the brief. Even though we use our experiences to expect communication in a certain manner for each circumstance, an understanding of the individual's expectation is critical to the way in which a message is most effectively delivered.”
Researchers suggest self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management are the key emotional competencies you should practice to succeed in your personal and professional lives.
Emotional self-awareness allows you to understand what you feel, to be aware of all your thoughts and actions, and as a project manager, to better understand your capabilities and to commit only to what can be delivered. When you recognize your emotions, you can avoid making ineffective decisions.
Each of us must understand “the innate weaknesses that are inherent to my ‘emotional’ nature,” says David C. Nes-bit, principal, TheTEMPORARY-Man-ager, Melbourne, Australia. “When I am managing projects, I must be able to improve my social interactions with team members, vendors and suppliers in such a manner that communications are as efficient as possible given that we all have differing attitudes and opinions when dealing with the day-to-day issues and difficulties experienced in our projects.”
Nesbit, who has successfully applied EI to a variety of projects, says emotional self-awareness will have a significant impact on a project's outcome. “The ability to clearly understand the nature of our [own] emotional strengths and weaknesses is vital,” he says. “We must appreciate that none of us function in isolation and that potentially adverse behaviors such as strong assertiveness or over-confidence need to be modified so we are not too over-bearing to other team members.”
EI also plays a significant part in building team morale and cohesion. “EI provides a guide for those areas we need to improve and also areas in which we are strong and know that we will be good at dealing with a particular person or issue,” says Mary-Lou Raybould, PMI‘s Melbourne chapter vice president. “We might even be brave enough to open up to our project teams and disclose areas where we are not so strong as a way of being open and honest on the path to building trust.”
Self-management is the ability to control your emotions with honesty and integrity. In identifying how and what you feel, you will be able to manage most situations confidently, and your peers will view you as a trustworthy collaborator, even when projects get out of control, politics become heated and changes occur unexpectedly.
As you improve your ability to understand how others perceive a situation, you can modify your reactions and any subsequent interactions with project team members and stakeholders. You will know what to say and when to say it, and you can foresee team members’ expectations, their motivations and their uncertainties. In addition, you'll see how to market yourself and how to build a strong peer network.
“Managers who practice emotional competencies are always successful in building relationships and motivating others. They climb to the top much faster than the others,” says Arosha Fernando, CEO of Sierra Projects Australia and Sierra Global Network, a subsidiary of Sierra Constructions Ltd., a multinational infrastructure development company. “They are good at managing their projects as well as building successful relationships with all the stakeholders.”
Balance the Scales
In addition to making for successful relationship building, EI helps in the proper selection of staff and managers. Emotional competencies are now used by many organizations to hire and promote people. While some organizations mistakenly assume project management requires little formal training, there should be a balanced approach in selecting project managers to ensure that they possess project and management skills: both ‘soft’ EI skills and hard technical skills.
EI STEP BY STEP
- Be confident. You are the project manager, and it is your project. Take ownership. When you understand yourself, you will be able to lead with confidence.
- Try to understand your team members’ expectations, motivations, aspirations and individual capabilities to perform the job well.
- Give right priority to the human side of the business. Do not rely on technology to do everything. Consider people the most important asset in your projects.
- Be empathic toward members. Try to understand and trust people. Show them you are there to help. Work closely with your team and show your support.
- Manage conflicts carefully. Do not react to situations before you understand them.
- Always be approachable. Talk to the team members regularly, listen to their problems and concerns and discuss their ideas.
- Motivate your project team members and help them get through difficult situations, while providing support and encouragement.
- Work on building better relationships with all stakeholders.
- Do not rely on technical training completely to achieve project success. Focus on human aspects of projects when you plan training and development sessions.
- Don't trust the process too much. Be flexible to changes and be innovative.
Ericsson Australia uses EI skills as part of its project management competence mapping. “I find it gives us a broader view than just looking at the nine knowledge areas,” says Chris Cartwright, Ericsson Australia manager of project management competence, who worked with PMI to help develop the Project Manager Competency Development Framework. “While it is difficult to provide empirical data in this area I have found that it seems to be in line with the perceptions of the managers.”
Practice Makes Perfect
Lynda Bourne, PMP, a principal consultant for Mosaic Project Services Pty Ltd., Melbourne, Australia, especially appreciates the hard work involved in perfecting emotional competencies. “If the traditional project management processes of developing a good schedule, a work breakdown structure and an earned value chart are considered hard,” she says, “then in my experience, the job of developing and maintaining effective stakeholder relationships at all levels, managing one's emotions and optimizing the internal politics of major organizations to the benefit of the project is much harder.” PM
I use my senses to read how
my clients, team and colleagues
perceive my views and actions
in the context of the project
and the working environment.
TONY PAUL,
PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT AND PRINCIPAL,
PICONET CONSULTING,
NORTH CURLCURL, AUSTRALIA
Madhu Fernando is president and principal consultant with Innova Strategies, a management consultancy based in Melbourne, Australia.
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