Why Project Leaders Need Power Skills
Transcript
STEVE HENDERSHOT
So much of project success hinges on communication, collaboration and creative problem-solving—a few of what PMI calls power skills. Today we’re going to shine a spotlight on those skills and the value they deliver.
SWAPNA YADAVALLI
As project leaders, we’re trying to drive initiatives, and we’re trying to get people together to work on them so that we see an outcome. Understand why we are doing it, what’s the benefit that we are going to get from it and how I bring in all the cross-functional team collaboration to drive this agenda—that’s why power skills are extremely important for project, program and portfolio management roles.
NARRATOR
The world is changing fast. And every day, project professionals are turning ideas into reality—delivering value to their organizations and society as a whole. On Projectified®, we’ll help you stay on top of the trends and see what’s ahead for The Project Economy—and your career.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
This is Projectified®. I’m Steve Hendershot.
Power skills are in demand, both on project teams and in the work world at large. That’s evident in a new report from the job website Monster that finds communication and problem-solving among the most sought-after skills by employers. And these skills are in demand for a reason: They have a big impact on teams’ success. Look out for PMI’s Pulse of the Profession® 2022: Power Skills, Redefining Project Success for more on which power skills have emerged as most important in helping project managers turn ideas into reality.
Today we’ll speak to a couple of project professionals who know firsthand how power skills can power-up a project, helping teams achieve greater alignment, avoid pitfalls and gain additional value. We begin in Pune, India, with Swapna Yadavalli, VP of technology program management at Mastercard.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
STEVE HENDERSHOT
How do you see your team’s work improving as a result of leaders who have a good grasp on power skills, whether it’s the day-to-day flow or the outputs and deliverables?
SWAPNA YADAVALLI
These power skills make a more collaborative environment across cross-functional teams. If I were to give an example for Mastercard, we are so many teams that [are] required to come together to deliver something in a program. A strategic initiative will require at least about 50 teams across the organization, multiple geographies, to come together to deliver something. Communication, listening, the ability to understand other teams’ priorities and then also try to drive what you need for the program, all this becomes the key needs.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
What about the inverse: What are teams at risk of losing if a leader lacks power skills like collaborative leadership?
SWAPNA YADAVALLI
If you do not have these power skills, and if you think from a single direction, then we are going to get into a mode where we just think about what we want to achieve. I think the great part of program management is that when everything comes together and we are able to achieve the strategic objective, that is when, for us, the delivery is complete and the benefits are recognized. I can do the best piece of development and I can do the best operations, but until it comes all together, it doesn’t meet the need of the objective and we cannot recognize those benefits. So the power skills now [are] the most essential component for us to drive these strategic objectives.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
Let’s talk about your power skills inventory. Where are you strongest? Which power skills have you developed the most over the course of your career?
SWAPNA YADAVALLI
I think ability to drive a specific agenda with the initiative of the program in mind is my biggest strength. The transformational part is something which I have learned over the years. For example, from a software developer, when I got into a technical leader role, I would think I’m doing this at a certain window of time. The team that’s working with me also should be able to pick it up quickly; they should be delivering. Then, over a period of time and getting into a people manager role, I understood that I am as fast as the slowest member on my team. So I have to focus and then play with the strengths that my team members have and help them to work on their focus areas, too. So that has been a learning, and that is something which I developed over a period of time.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
Can you share a time when you had to lean into one power skill or another to pull a project through? How did relying on these skills lead to success?
SWAPNA YADAVALLI
We were driving one program where we run a payment scheme for a country, and we had really critical timelines to meet. With the level of teams that were engaged across multiple geographies, I think it was essential to, one, have the right communication strategy, and second is collaboration across all teams because everybody is looking at their area of work alone. They’re not looking at, “If I do this and if I’m delayed, what’s the dependent impact, and how it derails the entire delivery?” The challenge was to drive the message to the entire cross-functional teams to drive and work through a common agenda to deliver this to the customer.
So getting the right level of communication, collaboration, driving for collaboration, resolving impediments, getting their leaderships engaged as and when needed. Sometimes I’ve seen that the teams wouldn’t go upward if they’re running into difficulty. They try to find the horizontal way and say, “Oh, this is my problem.” Making it multiple levels of governance so that there is clarity; their leaders know what their teams are doing. At the same time, we are able to track how we are progressing and getting everybody together. And the most important of this is also the rewards and recognition part of it. When teams do a good job, it’s very important to recognize and celebrate. They do feel motivated, and I think that comes a long way in the journey.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
How would you recommend that other project leaders try to develop their own power skills?
SWAPNA YADAVALLI
I would recommend training in these areas. In our organization, I think quarterly there are such events that run, and people are asked to sign up. So if my peers are interested in catching up on any of those, even for a refresher, I would recommend strongly that they would join them. We have a whole platform where we have a lot of trainings uploaded. Now at the same time, if there are other businesses who are really looking for that, “I need this for my teams to come through for a business unit,” our L&D [learning and development] department will definitely run a session and engage partners, either internally or externally, to deliver them. And second is I think peer mentoring is also one of a very good way of helping my peer leaders to develop, and I will also learn along the way. It’s all about knowledge-sharing, learning and contribution.
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STEVE HENDERSHOT
Great communication is a challenge on every project, even when most of the team members and stakeholders are under the same roof. When you’re spread around the world and dealing with cultural, language and organizational barriers, then it gets even harder—and more important to get right.
I spoke with Manuel Segura Pérez, head of project and construction management at energy company Repsol in Madrid, about how he relies on power skills to deliver value amidst those challenging circumstances.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
STEVE HENDERSHOT
Communication and collaboration are so important. What are the keys to building a team culture that excels in those areas?
MANUEL SEGURA PÉREZ
Communication is not only delivering information and messages. I think that there has been no other time in history where we exchange so much communication as we are doing nowadays. We have plenty of different ways and media to exchange information. I think we are losing the communication in terms of getting the people aligned toward the same goal, toward the same aspiration, toward the same horizon, and making sure that you are understood and you are also able to capture the needs, the expectations and the desires of your team members.
So, all the power skills, all these capabilities that we are trying to develop, need to be based on this communication—understood as really aligning the visions and the expectations of the teams and relying on a more empathetic way of working together. So, all the time you can invest in knowing your team, knowing their personal background, which are their worries and what they expect, and making them understand their position within the team, which is the value that they add in the team and to the project, delivering a mission that all can share and they all can commit to. And from that point, then you can build all the other pieces that you need in order to be successfully delivering your projects and achieving your goals.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
You worked on a joint venture where you led teams located across the globe. Can you share any lessons learned from that project on how to foster better communication and collaboration?
MANUEL SEGURA PÉREZ
There was a certain period of time where it was clear that even if we were exchanging information or the project communication was flowing, there was a breach in the personal communication, probably because we were not taking into account cultural differences and expectations from our partner. It wasn’t until one day with a conversation with one of the colleagues from there, they were telling me, “We do not understand each other.”
So we have to put together our team, asking them, with no pressure, to share and to openly speak and communicate issues that were affecting their performance, their work, and at the end of the day, the project development. And from that point on, and once we were aligned, knowing what we were expecting from our partners and solving these communication issues, we were working together in a much more effective way.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
To what extent can power skills be learned? Or is it better to hire leaders that already excel at core power skills?
MANUEL SEGURA PÉREZ
I think that all these skills can be trained up to a certain level. I think it’s critical to select the right people to become the future leaders of your projects from those who are already showing some hints of these skills and potential and then develop from that point. If you really believe that having these power skills at the highest degree as possible is key for the success of your organization, try to select from your team those persons that will become leaders, having already the basics in all this.
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STEVE HENDERSHOT
The pursuit of project success hinges not only on technical skill and operational excellence, but on the power skills like communication and problem-solving that keep teams rowing in the same direction and creatively addressing the inevitable obstacles they encounter along the way.
NARRATOR
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