This book is all about taking action, and I want to hit the ground running.
Most problems and challenges in life are a matter of perspective. Adopting alternative perspectives enables you to see the problem differently. It doesn’t mean that one viewpoint is right or wrong. It is simply a technique that can give you new insights and potentially, a solution that will work.
So, in this first chapter I want to challenge you to think about project management from a few different perspectives.
This chapter will help you to:
- Understand how attitudes impact action — yours and others.
- Explore your attitudes and beliefs towards projects.
- Analyse the politics around your project.
- Determine the implications for your approach to project management.
- Reflect on your view of what project management is all about.
If you’re in a hurry:
- You need to judge the time to rush and the time to pause. My strong advice is to pause and read all of this chapter, especially if you are a little uneasy about the political nature of projects.
The Importance of Attitude
Two people faced with exactly the same situation will, if they hold different attitudes, see things differently. They will also make different choices as a result of what they see. The ripple effect of these choices can create a huge difference in the performance and results that they get. Imagine the following scenario:
Peter had allocated personnel to two projects run by Ann and Ajay. Both projects were heavily reliant on Peter’s people. Due to an unexpected crisis, Peter had to reallocate his resources temporarily and sent an email to both project managers explaining the situation, apologising for any inconvenience. He also promised to send the people back as soon as he could.
Ann had a negative attitude. She believed that this was typical and illustrated a lack of commitment to what she was trying to deliver. It confirmed her suspicion that Peter didn’t want her to succeed. After all, it had taken lot of pressure to get the people in the first place. Consequently, she replied immediately wanting to know exactly why he had done this and demanding to know when the resource would be returned.
Ajay had a positive attitude. He believed that Peter would only do this if he absolutely had to. It was difficult to get the people in the first place, but with a bit of negotiation they had managed to secure the necessary resource. If Peter wanted them back, it must be serious. Consequently, he adopted a different approach to Ann. His response to Peter recognised the urgency, promised to help his people to refocus quickly so they could deal with the crisis. He also asked if there was anything else he could do to help.
Although the problem presented to Ann and Ajay was the same, their response is very different. It is unlikely that Peter’s behaviour would be massively affected in the short term; he will certainly be feeling very differently towards each manager — wouldn’t you? Should he be able to begin reallocating the resource back to the projects, who do you think he will favour?
The impact of their attitude would also affect others around the situation. Ann is likely to try to cling on to the resource, attempting to pull them back and talk negatively to anyone who will listen about how difficult Peter is being. Ajay on the other hand is more likely to continue voicing his support, helping make things as easy as possible for Peter and explaining to other colleagues that they need to remember the bigger picture.
The impact of these attitudes is far reaching and often unseen until they present a problem. If you had a choice, whose project team would you prefer to work on? How easy would it be for each to recruit team members? How long would team members stay? Which project manager do you think is enjoying their work the most?
Attitudes are built on many beliefs. Beliefs work at a subconscious level and affect how you interpret events. Attitudes are what make you look at the world in a particular way, your perspective. Because they are generally outside of awareness, attitudes are often automatic and seemingly beyond control. Hence, people tend to adopt a perspective automatically almost out of habit.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. To adopt a different perspective all you have to do is pretend that the beliefs and attitudes necessary for it to be true are true. That doesn’t involve you denying what you currently believe. All it needs is for you to suspend judgement and engage your imagination a little.
To begin, let’s start with the perspective most project managers adopt.
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The Traditional Perspective
Project management is a well-established discipline, and consequently has some fairly stable beliefs, processes, methodologies and so forth. I expect that the vast majority of project managers subscribe to this traditional perspective when they are considering their projects. Before I share my thoughts on what this is, I’d like you to take a little time and consider your answers to the following three questions:
- When you think about the topic of projects, what thoughts and ideas come to mind?
- What are projects designed to do?
- What are the three most important things to remember when it comes to projects?
There are no right or wrong answers here, just your views based on your accumulated experience. You might have thought of some of these things:
- The purpose of projects is to organise activity towards a specified goal.
- Performance against clear QDC standards is paramount.
- Projects should draw resources from a wide section of interested parties.
- Strict controls and governance need to be adhered to.
- Projects are impossible to control due to part-time resources.
- Projects represent a logical way of getting things done.
- Resources allocated to projects are often those not wanted anywhere else.
- Everything needs to be meticulously planned.
- Use of project management is critical for all bar the smallest of projects.
These are just a small sample of what you may have come up with. Before you move on, take a time-out and draw some conclusions about your current perception of projects:
- What is your definition of a project?
- What three beliefs are the most important when it comes to managing projects?
- How would you summarise your attitude towards projects?
Now, let me stir it up a little.
The Political Perspective
I’d like to propose that the purpose of a project is to adjust the distribution of power within a social group, organisation or system (such as a supply chain), usually under the guise of legitimate activity. Even when this is not the deliberate purpose of a project, the outcome nearly always results in a re-distribution of power. This may appear a little radical or off-the-wall, and I don’t expect you to buy into this right away, just keep an open mind for the next few pages. In a later chapter, I’ll go into the subject of power at length.
From this perspective, you might have projects that are:
- Initiated by those who wish to gain more power and/or protect their position.
- Supported by those who are going to retain or build more power.
- Resisted by those who expect to lose power.
- Subtly influenced by powerful stakeholders.
- Led by people seeking personal gain, especially by way of new permanent positions.
- Resourced in a political manner.
- Of somewhat questionable benefit.
- Political footballs.
Does any of this sound familiar? I’m sure it does, and that’s because these things are extremely common, and all bear witness to the reality that the vast majority of projects impact the power structure or dynamics of the host organisation. It also means that projects can have a massive impact on the hopes and fears of people working there.
Here are a few examples of projects that support the reality of the political perspective.
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Company Restructure Project
Sally was responsible for delivering an organisational restructure project. She needed to manage the resources to analyse the current structure and the problems they were facing. This involved her team members executing a wide-ranging research initiative which involved staff, clients and suppliers. Her sponsor was the Customer Services Director.
Eventually, the team drew their conclusions and were ready to present a new structure for approval by the board. It addressed many of the problems the organisation was facing and also introduced some additional benefits that could lead to faster product development and enhanced customer service. On the face of it, how could anybody object?
In the coaching session prior to their presentation, I was interested to know who Sally considered to be the most powerful people in the organisation and what impact her proposals would have on them. Without hesitation, she told me that the Sales Director was by far the most powerful person. He was responsible for the big ticket relationships that generated almost two-thirds of annual turnover. If he left, so would the business, and this gave him enormous positional power.
Unfortunately, the solution they had arrived at would result in the sales channel being divided into three. Put another way, her proposal was to divide his power by three. As she started to explore the political setting for her project she realised that if it were successful, her sponsor, the Customer Services Director, would then be much more powerful because of the break-up of a competitor’s territory. Not because he would himself grow in power, but because a key power source would be broken up.
At no stage had this been addressed. The proposal was heading to a decision-making body where the Sales Director was hugely influential. Little surprise that Sally did not succeed in getting the go-ahead to restructure the organisation. It didn’t die straight away, but it did in the end. Basically, it was a costly and perhaps naïve, attempt on the part of the Customer Services Director to gain power.
Interestingly, a few years later, I heard that the restructure had gone ahead without a costly project, and with no opposition. They had made the Sales Director the CEO.
Management Information System Project
Executives need information in order to make decisions. The more up-to-date it is, the better. However, for many executives, this is a distant dream. Despite the technologies available, they still have to wait for the end of month/quarter figures to become available.
Marcus landed the project to implement a new Management Information System and was excited that he had the full backing of the executives. They wanted this to happen and expected it to be a reasonably simple thing to do. So did Marcus.
Yet, when he went to work, he met with silent but persistent resistance. It seemed that the only people who wanted this to happen was the executive team. He wasn’t surprised to find that the finance team was reluctant. A key power source for them was the ability to generate the numbers. Their work was meticulous and took concentration. Therefore, you disturbed them at your peril. The numbers arrived when they were ready, and everyone else, including the executives, had to wait. An up-to-the-minute MIS would remove that source of power, and they had little else to fall back on.
What did surprise Marcus though was the resistance from the other business teams, especially the operational teams. They were throwing up all manner of problems and reasons why it would not be possible to contribute in a meaningful way. Although it was not admitted, he suspected that the real cause was their desire to avoid closer inspection. In the current set-up, they had plenty of time to resolve temporary problems in their processes. Once the MIS was available, the executives might be jumping up and down as soon as a process wobbled. In many ways, this was reasonable. Instead of spending time answering executive questions, they could be focusing on fixing whatever was wrong.
All around, Marcus was noticing that information flows and controls would be changing as a result of the implementation. Ownership of information would be changing (position power) and that was unsettling everyone. What originally started off as a purely technical implementation quickly became one of managing and negotiating at a relationship level. In fact, one of the results was to pay closer attention to the executive decision-making process once they were in receipt of the available data.
To put it bluntly, with the best of intents, the purpose of this project was to shift positional power to the executive team from the accountants and the operations people. What had not been anticipated was the reaction of those who would be losing power.
New Business Division Project
This is actually one that I was the project manager for many years ago. I was coming from one of five existing divisions onto a team established to build a new business. The initiative was the outcome of a lengthy investigation by external consultants into new business opportunities our company was capable of exploiting. Being somewhat naïve, I approached this from the traditional perspective, needing to quickly organise the plans, resources and so on. Luckily, my intelligence quickly caught on to what was really going on.
The first clue was that, to me, the business case didn’t stack up. Although the numbers were compelling, the business model just didn’t make sense. My reservations were dismissed by the guy leading the initiative (let’s call him Bob) and also the lead consultant (Marcel). They were both very intelligent so maybe I’d got it wrong.
The next clue came from my Managing Director, one of the existing divisional heads. “Colin, the reason I’ve put you forward for this is to protect my investment and keep me informed of what is going on.” Who was I to argue? He’d been my boss for several years, and I had a huge amount of respect for him.
Two further things happened which brought the political perspective into focus. Firstly, Bob began to confide in me that when the project landed I was well placed to be appointed to a senior position in the business. His expectation was to create this as a new division alongside the existing ones (very different from what my boss told me would happen). Added to this, I had also overheard Marcel, talking excitedly to a friend about how important this project was to his partnership prospects.
In a nutshell, Bob was using the project to become a divisional head and Marcel to gain his partnership within the consultancy. Much of the projected £3.8m build cost would be heading in their direction along with a large amount of the annual expenses. That the profit was a pipe dream appeared irrelevant to them. Maybe they genuinely believed it would arrive. Personally I suspect that they did and that their personal ambition had removed their ability to be objective about the situation.
By taking the political perspective, I was able to see what needed to be done. I did my duty to the organisation. Bob and Marcel didn’t even see it coming.
If you adopt the political perspective for projects, you will quickly begin to see them in a new light. It doesn’t exclude the validity of a more traditional perspective, it simply allows you to think about it in different ways, generate alternative insights and plan action which may not otherwise have been obvious. It will also help you to learn how to deal with the challenges you face far more effectively. I’ll talk more about how you can do this at the end of the chapter.
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Power and Political Disturbance
Aside from the direct impact of projects on the distribution of power, power can also influence the smooth running of projects in a wide variety of ways. This is because no project exists in isolation. Around it are all manner of other projects, initiatives, processes, and yes, personal agendas. Gaining an acceptance that these things are happening will help you to become more objective about the problems and issues they create for you. It will also help you to learn how to mitigate the risks they pose.
Here are some of the more common ways that power affects projects:
Resource Allocation
If powerful people want to use their resources somewhere else, they will. If your project is not an important thing on their agenda, they will be reluctant to give you their best people, or may delay supplying the resources. It might even be that the project benefits them but grants greater power to one of their adversaries.
This is a good illustration of the principle of supply and demand. The allocators have the power to redirect supply, which you have a demand for. It doesn’t matter why they want to do that, if they do, it is going to affect you. It also doesn’t matter about the rationale for your project, if they feel they have the power to divert resources, they will.
Given the challenge of insufficient resources in project management today, this becomes a critical priority for the project manager and sponsor. Making sure that there are no political barriers to gaining (and keeping) the resources they need is vital. So too is ensuring that they appear on time and are proactively managed. Reacting after the problem arises is already too late.
Part-Time Team Members
It is rare these days for team members to be allocated on a full-time basis. More likely is that they will retain their day job. In most cases, they will come under pressure from their line manager to continue performing their normal tasks. On the surface, the line manager will be supportive of the project and play the role of being a good corporate citizen. Unless the project provides them with sufficient benefit, it will not be long before they are putting pressure on their team member to deprioritise their contribution to the project.
Line managers and team members will be weighing up the consequences and alternatives as they realise they don’t have enough time to do everything (this is a great illustration of some of the principles of power I will introduce you to in Chapter 4).
Thus, team members are placed in an invidious position, stuck between their desire to do a good job for your project, and doing what their boss wants. Remember, it is unlikely they will be rewarded financially for their work on your project, so it is likely that the influence of their day job will prove irresistible. Empathising with this almost inevitable struggle for commitment will help you to build stronger relationships with your team members.
Divided Loyalties
Team members are often drawn from a spread of different departments or divisions. Team members usually return to their department after the project has completed. While they may be committed to your project, they will also have one eye on repatriation back to their original position. This will influence the decisions they take, especially if these may bring them into conflict with their original colleagues and managers.
Again, it is wise to recognise this potential so that you can deal with it more effectively. Although it will be hard to remove the problem altogether, you can factor it into the decisions you are asking individuals to back, and the tasks or meetings you allocate to different people.
This is a good reason why it is worth investing time in really getting to know the people on your team so that you can understand and manage this risk.
Executive Time and Attention
In all large organisations, there will be a large portfolio of projects and initiatives in flight. The powerful executives will be focusing on those which offer them the most potential to achieve their objectives (or rather, which will give them the most power). Consequently, the project you are managing will have political value at different levels for different executives.
Executives will compete with each other to ensure that their favourite projects are focused on, decisions made and progress advanced. When this means they need the input and approval of their fellows, they will influence it to the top of the agenda of any meeting.
If your project doesn’t have the right level of political interest with the right people, you could find yourself waiting patiently outside of the board room for your time to present, and going back to your desk without ever seeing a board member. Even if it does get discussed, it may not get the attention it needs and deserves.
As a project manager, managing a project in the political backwater is hard work.
Political Value
You can learn a great deal about the relative political value placed on a project by noticing the senior people who are taking an interest. Important projects will have powerful sponsors. Indeed, they may even seem to have many sponsors in addition to the one nominated.
It is also important to note the quality of the appointments. Mission critical (powerful) projects will have heavyweight resource allocated. They will also be well positioned within the political structure. The best talent will be offered and/or they will be pitching to get involved.
In my early days as a project manager, I used to hate the imposition of strict project definition documents and steering committees. Governance procedures were an irritation at best. Now, with the benefit of experience, I know the job these things do. I also know that it can indicate how valuable a project is to the organisation.
Projects with high value generally get the attention they need and the resources, to succeed. Those with lower value will be persistently troubled and have a hard path to follow.
Rather than continue to cite examples for you, take a few moments to reflect on your experience:
- How have you noticed power affecting your projects?
- What is the political rationale for the last project you worked on?
- Can you think of examples where projects have failed because of the politics?
Before you start to think that I am attempting to turn you into a political crusader or a Machiavellian schemer, I’d like to introduce you to another perspective for project management.
The Relationship Perspective
In reality, the political perspective may not be practical for you as a project manager. It will be extremely useful in helping you to understand what is actually going on around your project, but will it result in you becoming politically active? Probably not, for a number of reasons:
- You have been given the job of project manager. The organisation is expecting you to organise and deliver.
- Most of the political dynamics surrounding projects are above the level of most project managers in terms of position and arguably, capability.
- Powerful people will be resistant to you becoming an actor and perhaps making life more complicated and risky for them.
- While you may think you have a good political understanding, as soon as you get involved, you will quickly discover there is so much more that you don’t know.
This is not me being disrespectful of your capability, nor wanting to dampen your enthusiasm and ambition. Instead, I want to offer you a bit of realism and also position this appropriate to the majority of project managers. The more experienced and senior you are, the more likely it will be that you will (and should) engage politically on behalf of your projects. For most though, you simply need to open your eyes and begin learning fast about the political reality of your project, and then adopt a relationship perspective to your job as a project manager.
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The relationship perspective suggests that the project manager’s role is to become a manager of stakeholder relations. The main job is to achieve and maintain consistent agreement and commitment to achieve a mutually desired outcome. Absolutely, you have to get a result. That is what you are engaged to do. That it may change along the way is to be expected. The relationship perspective will help you to remain in that process of inevitable change; it will also be possible for you to facilitate and control it too.
Considering your project with this perspective would incline you towards activities such as:
- Building strong relationships with key stakeholders.
- Creating high levels of trust so that they open up to you.
- Really listening to what they are saying and meaning.
- Helping stakeholders to work together, settle their differences and reach genuine agreement.
In effect, it will put you in a neutral position of trust with all stakeholders and evolve your role into that of a facilitator who is intimately connected with the more technical/resource/task implications of the evolving decision process. In this position you are likely to be able to influence the life of your project, your team members and alleviate many of the problems facing project managers today.
Altering Your Perspective
The three perspectives presented above can be summarised as:
- The Traditional Perspective: Where projects are intended to coordinate tasks and activities towards a predefined and agreed outcome.
- The Political Perspective: Where projects are intended to change the power structures of a group or organisation.
- The Relationship Perspective: Where the role of the project is to facilitate the delivery of a mutually desired and agreed outcome.
The choice is yours. In fact, choose them all in turn. You can use each perspective to bring new insight to your work and inspire alternative actions you can take. Adopting a given perspective doesn’t mean that you have to agree that it is right, merely accept that it is an alternative way of looking at your project.
An Exercise in Perspectives
Consider a current project you are working on and adopt the political perspective:
- Whose power will increase if your project succeeds?
- Whose power will diminish if your project succeeds?
- Which stakeholders are disagreeing with each other? Why might this be?
- What political motivations could be working behind the scenes?
- What political motivations or allegiances may your team members have?
- What evidence is there for your thinking?
Don’t let this make you paranoid. This is an attempt to understand the softer side of your project and the political drivers which may be influencing the way project decisions are being made.
Now, adopting the relationship perspective:
- What do you need to do in order to confirm your suspicions?
- How is the political backdrop affecting what is happening within the project?
- Where are the major political disagreements between your stakeholders?
- What action can you take to get closer to the parties concerned?
- How could you facilitate a resolution?
- What action can you take to protect your project?
A Reality Check
The last question is a little problematic for me. Personally, I am not sure that it is right to protect your project from its environment. From a traditional perspective, you might consider that once a project has been formulated, that’s what it needs to deliver. Well yes, and no.
Toeing a hard line about the agreed deliverables is to defy the reality that the host organisation is trying to solve the challenges it faces in order to become more successful. At a given moment in time, a snapshot was taken, and the consensus was that it needed to change in a particular way. Whether it was eminently sensible or politically convenient doesn’t matter. The point is that it was decided to deliver a particular objective. Assuming that it was right at that time doesn’t mean that it will always be right.
Within the organisation, power will be ebbing and flowing. Battles will be waged, wars won, and peace made. The competition for power (like it or not) is raging in most organisations, often just below the surface. On the top of this comes the myriad of projects and initiatives supported and challenged by the personal motives foremost in the mind of many the contenders.
Yet this is not necessarily a bad thing. As I like to point out, power is responsible for all that is good too. What makes it good or bad is the intent behind the moves, the lengths the players will go to, and the depths they will stoop to, in order to realise their agenda.
In fast-moving organisations and environments, especially competitive ones, change is happening all the time. In many ways, it is almost inconceivable that any project will remain the right answer to their problems. Project managers who hold on to their deliverables like grim death are those who will face the most significant challenges. Those who settle into a more dynamic world and drive for delivering what the organisation needs will be those who thrive, and have the most fun.
That doesn’t mean putting the agreed deliverables to one side or ignoring them. Instead, it means progressively evolving them in a carefully managed way. By attending to your job as a facilitator of change, you are more likely to deliver value to your host and have a great deal of fun in the process.
Key Points:
- Attitudes and perspectives have a dramatic effect on thought and action.
- The purpose of adopting a different perspective is to stimulate new thinking.
- Beliefs are harder to change than perspectives. You can simply decide to adopt a particular perspective to help think things through.
- Virtually all projects result in a change to the power structures of groups/organisations.
- If you threaten someone’s power, expect resistance at least.
- If your project boosts someone’s power, expect support at worst.
Suggested Actions:
- If this chapter has challenged your notion of what project management is about, take a few days out to reflect and discuss with a few colleagues.
- For each project you are working on, set aside some dedicated time to consider them from a political perspective. Keep an open mind and see where it takes you.
- Review your thinking with your line manager, mentor, coach or sponsor and see how they react.
- If you’re not quite sure about what I’ve shared here and its relevance to your work, take your time reading the next chapter which looks at the challenges project managers are facing.
Colin Gautrey
Provocative Coach/Mentor | Specialism: Impact and Influence
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