Belief....

One of the most powerful weapons in the battle for growth is belief.  Belief that you can make a difference.  Belief in the success of what you are doing.  Belief in you and the process that you are following.  Belief in the team that you have.  Belief compounds and builds momentum.  The greatest way to derail an effort is to show that you do not believe it will succeed.  John Maxwell states:

Belief encourages positive anticipation....

Anticipation creates intention....

Intention crystallizes focus....

Focus finds opportunity....

Opportunity calls for action....

Action stirs up passion....

Passion encourages belief....

Believing in your vision and your dream will create the necessary focus, opportunity, action, and passion required to carry it out.  At every step of the way, our brains are wired to introduce risk and doubt.  Belief is the greatest champion to outwit these naysayers and push through.  If you followed my previous post about Sisyphus and my constant challenge to push the rock up the mountain, then you know that belief is the power behind WANT and WILL.  Doubt leaves people wanting and yearning for their dreams while belief pushes people into willing their dreams into existence.

Do you believe in you?  Do you believe in where you are going?  Do you believe in the goals of the organization that you follow?  Do you believe that what you are doing today is plotting the path for where you want to be in the future?  It all starts with belief.

No Day But Today,

Rick

Radio Show - May 11, 2018 - Why Project Management Has to Change - Colin Ellis

The Work/Life Balance Friday at 2 PM Pacific May 11th 2018:Project Management Has to Change - Colin Ellis Rick will interview Colin Ellis to talk about why project management has to change. It has to embrace all that is new and that works and discard all that is old and broken. It needs to challenge the current doctrines, structures, processes and people that are holding it back. What’s required is something that builds on what works well whilst establishing a different mindset and skill set that’s fit for the future of work. Delivery people that role model emotional maturity, build organisational agility and continually improve the way things are delivered to ensure that the organisation consist Read more SHARE DOWNLOAD PDF GET CODE Tune in Friday at 2 PM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Business Channel LISTEN LIVE EPISODE ON DEMAND VIEW HOST PAGE Questions? Comments? Call In Live! Toll Free: 1-866-472-5790 Intl: 001-480-398-3352

Featured Guest

Colin Ellis Colin D Ellis is an award-winning international speaker, renowned project leadership expert and best-selling author who works with organisations around the world to help them build capability that's fit for the future of work. Able to draw on more than 20 years of public and private sector project leadership in the UK, New Zealand and Australia, Colin peppers his presentations with anecdotes, statistics, practical insights and plenty of humour to ensure that audiences are engaged and laughing! He get people talking through his emphasis on people being the best version of themselves and creating teams they can be proud of. Colin is originally from Liverpool in the UK and now lives in Me Read more

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The Two Wolves....

I get several questions around the logo for my company.  There are two main stories.  One is personal, the other stems from an old story that is dear to my heart.  First the story:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, 'My son, the battle is between two 'wolves' inside us all.

One is Evil.

It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, ego and superiority.

The other is Good.

It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, truth, benevolence, empathy, generosity, compassion and faith.

The grandson thought about this for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

'Which wolf wins?'

 The old Cherokee simply replied, 'The one you feed.'

I love that story.  It reminds me to focus on the positive and reward the good work done.  The second reason for my logo is a personal shout out of pride to my family.  I am Irish and Italian.  I lean more to my Italian side.  The wolf in my logo is modeled after La Lupa, the mythical she wolf that nursed Romulus and Remus back to health.  In many of the pictures of her, you will see the twins.  In the logo, we removed the twins and put R2 underneath it to signify my children. Ramsey and Remo.  Finally, the wolf has green eyes to signify my wife.  So I am the wolf protecting my children and my wife is looking after us.  That is the story!

No Day But Today,

Rick

Culture vs. Vision

In the project management world, we can see the clash between culture and vision vividly.  Sponsors, companies, or clients will state what they want (vision), and then rarely change what they do (culture).  The culture continuously will outpace the vision.   

I had a chance to spend some time with Seth Godin recently.  He says, "You can't change a culture if you don't follow the vision."  He shares a story about an organization talk about wanting to have a culture of inclusiveness.  Their number one sales person was known for behaving poorly.  Several complaints were brought against him.  The company never took true action against the sales person.  The real reason is that he was their top producer.  Therefore, the actions outweigh the words.  The culture of the company trumped the vision.

I see this quite a bit in project management.  We are often hired because companies want to understand portfolio management and to be able to make better project decisions.  They think that software will solve culture issues.  While software is a great enabler, it will not solve organizational or cultural issues.  I recently heard an organization was reaching out who is an existing user of a PPM system.  They were wanting to use resource requisitions.  When I inquired as to why, the answer is because they were not getting the engagement from the resource managers and they wanted to have a better tracking mechanism to prove it.  They even removed many of the rights from the resource managers because they were not utilizing the system properly.  The subsequent result is to add a process that requires more clicks and more tracking from the people who do use the system to prove what they already know.  Why not address the actual issue?

One of the biggest cultural issues that we run into frequently when it comes to portfolio management is the resource manager.  Organizations ask to know the utilization of their staff and want the data to make better project selection decisions.  The logical source of the data is the person who is paid to supervise the staff or the resource manager.  The organization will then say, "we don't want to ask them to do it," or, "they will throw a fit because they are already to busy."  Stating that we do not have time to do resource management is the same is saying that we are too fat to diet!  It is simply not true.  It pushes many people outside of their comfort zone to have to hold people accountable.  That is a key difference between leaders and managers.  Many managers that I know want the title and the money, just not the accountability.  The crazy thing is that from company to company, what is expected is based on what the culture allows.

It is great to have a vision, the culture is what will win the day.

No Day But Today,

Rick