Something to consider the next time you’re quick to rage, or dig in your heels, or generally are terrible at maintaining an open mind and open dialogue.
“It is necessary to hold opinions to make our way through life, but we ought to hold them gingerly.”
– Panayiotis (Pano) Kanelos
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783662442135
Great book on the psychology on/around project management. A few quotes and snippets below.
Humans have the gift of overcoming their own uncertainties with objective arguments and self-construed facts which are then consistently believed by them. If that faith releases a significant amount of energy, it might enable people to actually reach their goals to the extent that was achievable in the first place.
If the prognosis does not come to pass people rarely tend to doubt the facts as they have construed them. They rather seek the reason for the failure beyond the realm of their own responsibility. They find ample opportunity in the form of projecting onto other people, pointing out external conditions, or rationalizing with seemingly reasonable explanation.
W. Salewski et al.
” Expert power, personal power, and reputation are very important for project managers. It is necessary to strengthen these and to develop an awareness for the power conditions that are permanently changing in projects.
– K. Moser et al. (Applied Psychology for Project Managers)
It is a core competency of project managers to be able to recognize when the feasibility of a project is at risk and to communicate this directly to the relevant decision-makers within the organization
– K. Moser et al. (Applied Psychology for Project Managers)
From Mind the Product, and good video on making the client the ultimate manager of the product.
“Execution has an impact on financial performance that is six
times higher than the impact of a strong strategy itself”
” Frontline employees are often not given the authority to make decisions and use their own judgment to create value for the customer and the organization. An “efficiency paradox” exists, whereby companies view employees as components of machinery, rather than as a motivated workforce that can make the difference in successful execution of the organization’s strategy.”
https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=organizational+transparency+drives+company+performance
Recently re-read this paper from 2000. Surprised that I still see so little of this 18 years on.
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/competitive-advantage-strategic-project-leadership-554
This may be so, but I’m not sure who’s telling most companies. Archaic models of support built around rigid SLA’s still prevail.
