Sponge vs. Trampoline

Recently Mark Langley, the CEO for the Project Management Institute, posted a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article on LinkedIn. The article was about listening. As kids and even many educators and academics tell us that active listening is about being silent while the person talks, giving visual and oral clues that acknowledges we are listening. And finally, paraphrasing what the person heard.

However, the HBR article equates this to being a sponge and really is not active listening and it does not help either party. What is suggested in the article is to be a trampoline vs. a sponge. The trampoline listener asks questions periodically that may include challenges to old concepts, provides a positive experience which includes suggestions (and criticisms), and are not defensive by any party.

Portfolio management is about being a trampoline. As a portfolio manager, your discussions with leadership should be about listening but actively asking questions about what you are hearing, challenging old styles of portfolio thinking and making suggestion. Will the leadership be open to this type of listening. Maybe not, but you don't know until you try.

Also, leadership will slowly come around to this style of active listening. Remember you must couple your trampoline listening with results. There is another part of the portfolio family that also needs trampoline listening, the project and program managers. The project and program managers provide updates to the portfolio manager. Your active listening will help to create and update a more realistic roadmap. You, the portfolio manager, need to understand how to provide the best value to the portfolio and this is done with benefit realization. To do this, the portfolio manager needs to have a keen understanding of the health and the resources for each project and program. This can only be done with trampoline listening.

So, will you continue to be a sponge or will you jump towards being a trampoline?

Incorporating Millennials

 

Millennials get a bad rap. Some think they are lazy because, let's face it after college they go live with their parents and do nothing. They always have some device in their hand. Don't be so quick to judge. This generation of young adults are the most educated of the last five generations. Many  have a graduate degree.

Think about the economy when the millennials graduated. Nobody was hiring. It was hard to find a job let alone a brand new graduate with no job experience. My take is that companies are short sighted.

Everything we do today involves technology and being able to get the tasks done in a responsible and ethical manner. Recently, I attended the UT Dallas PM Symposium. There were several presentations on the various generations and how to encourage collaboration between the generations and how to integrate the millennials into the work environment. Conrado Morlan was quite informative. He had many good ideas about integrating millennials.

One of the suggestions he had was to give the millennial the big picture. Millennials want to understand how their work fits into the organization. So, if you have a millennial in your portfolio or in your project explain that their task must be done on time because it affects tasks down the road. If the millennials task is late then potentially the entire project/program/portfolio is now behind schedule. A client will be upset which may delay or minimize payments and eventually could give the company a bad name which also affects the bottom line. Explain how a portfolio works to provide value to the company's strategies.

Millennials love technology. Work with the millennials to increase the technology savvy within the portfolio. Give the millennials tasks and then step out of the way. If they do not know how to solve believe me they will develop a work around by researching and blogging with other millennials. Develop a relationship and trust with the millennials on your team. You will be surprised at their competencies and willingness to push the company in the correct direction!