Do You Trust Me?

“Trust is to human relationships what faith is to gospel living. It is the beginning place, the foundation upon which more can be built. Where trust is, love can flourish.” (Barbara Smith)

Today's blog entry is about trust and how, just as it is crucial to the foundation of a good relationship, so to, is it crucial to good Project Management. In my experience as a Project Manager, I have come to realize how critical trust is, to delivering a successful project, not only with regard to your client relationships, but in respect to your internal relationships as well.

Looking first at the relationship between you and your client, we see that the component of trust is apparent from beginning to end. In fact, by your initial meeting, your client has already taken that first leap, in that they are trusting you to develop a successful solution that will not only answer their immediate needs, but that will benefit their company in the long run as well. That trust then continues to grow through the life cycle of the project, in that both parties trust each other to work in an open and honest manner, with respect to communication and deliverables. And finally, the project comes full circle with your client trusting you to deliver on what you initially promised, and in turn you trusting your client to be appreciative of your final deliverable.

And then there is the aspect of trust and the internal relationship. Now, it is in my opinion, that it is this trust that is ultimately the more important of the two relationships, since it is this internal trust which can affect how one perceives themselves and without self-trust, all other types of trust are unattainable. So how do we see trust in internal relationships? Easy...between you and your superiors, there is the trust that you will successfully sustain your relationships with your clients. Between you and your colleagues...there is the trust that you can depend on one another to be supportive and help guide and answer questions that you may face on your corporate journey. Between you and your team...that they trust you to successfully manage and lead the project from start to finish and that in turn you trust them to work together and deliver a final product that not only meets the original goal but if possible exceeds the client's expectations.

So how do we develop this trust? How do we get to a point where we trust others, that others trust us, and that most importantly we trust ourselves? The answer as I'm sure you've heard before, is that trust isn't just given, but rather it is earned. So in order to earn our trust, I've listed below a few helpful hints...

• Do Your Homework ~ True to any relationship, you need to do your homework before jumping in. In a personal relationship, it might be the type of music that she likes? In an internal relationship, it could be what type of personalities are going to clash when working together? In a client relationship the questions are deeper, what is the client's background, what are their needs, who are their competition... Doing this type of research shows that you are not in the relationship for a quick win, but rather that you truly care and are in it for the long run.
• Pay Your Dues ~ As mentioned previously, trust is not given, it is earned. Don't expect to gain someones trust right off the bat, but rather put in the work, make the effort, and over time you will see the trust begin to develop. Keep in mind, that earning someones trust is a long and often uphill battle, but one that is well worth it in the end.
• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate ~ If trust is the foundation to a relationship, then communication is the foundation to trust. When trying to gain someones trust, good communication is the best way to go. Be honest in your relationship, come clean if you are at fault and stand your ground if your not. Share your opinion, let the other people involved know that you bring value to this relationship, that you are here to listen as well as provide insight. (For more on communication please read my entry "What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate")
• Follow-up ~ I just attended a networking event a couple of weeks ago, which was being run by a group called "Follow-up Systems" and basically what they spoke up about was the importance of following-up and how a simple phone call or email can make a huge impact and that it is often all it takes to set you apart from your competition. This point goes back to what I previously mentioned about doing your homework, in that it reinstates the fact that you care. Taking time to follow-up shows the other party that not only do you value the relationship, but that you are invested in it as well.
• Walking The Walk ~ All of the other tips mentioned are great in building up a sense of trust, but the the true test isn't whether you can "talk the talk" but whether you can "walk the walk". Do you deliver on your promises? Do your end results equal or surpass your original goals? No matter how great your PR is, if you can't deliver, that sense of trust disappears quickly. As they say, "the proof is in the pudding"!

My hope is that wherever you are working, and whomever you are working with, that you have already established a sense of trust and that this entry was nothing more than a light read to help pass the time. But if you are still searching for that trust factor, than I hope that the above tips will help guide you in your quest. And remember...

"Self-trust is the first secret of success." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

With A Little Help From My Friends

Driving around this long weekend, taking in the beautiful weather, and enjoying a much needed rest from work, Joe Cocker's cover of The Beatles hit, "With A Little Help From My Friends" comes on the radio, and while my first thought was of the television show "The Wonder Years", my second thought was , I wonder if they were thinking about Project Management when they wrote this song. Let me explain...

Lately I've been finding work to be extremely stressful, with high client demands, short timelines, and simply not enough time in the day to accomplish all the tasks at hand. And while this all sounds like a typical day in the life of a Project Manager, lately, I've been finding it particularly difficult to get through while continuing to maintain some level of sanity. In fact, these past couple of weeks, the stress has gotten so great, that I've been questioned by friends, as to why I don't simply quit, to which I look at them with a smile and simply say "because of my coworkers".

I've worked in many different types of positions, industries, places... all of them with a great group of people, but never have I worked somewhere with such a strong support group as the one I feel in my current company, which has led me to discover a key component of Project Management, your support group. While knowledge and experience are certainly important factors in being a good Project Manager, I feel that a solid support team is that third piece, the one that makes you a great Project Manager. As mentioned earlier, Project Management, in it's very nature is an extremely stressful job, one filled with irritable clients, tight deadlines, and large deliverables (sounds great, I know!), which is why finding a group of people that support you and truly care for you, is so important. Having a team of people ready to stay a little later to fix up a graphic or tweak a database, to take a final look at a project before it goes to the client, or simply to act as a sounding board when you just need a break, is what changes the life expectancy of a Project Manager from 1 year to 5 or 10 years.

If I could give one piece of advice to any new Project Managers out there, it would be to choose your environment carefully, as it has the ability to make the next couple of years in your career either a curse or a blessing. And as I approach my 2-year anniversary at my current company (this Friday!), I've realized how important the people around you can be. So to all of you out there reading this blog....

THANK YOU!

Pay It Forward

Today's entry is based on a little experiment that I've been running now for just over 2 months, which I like to call the Sugar Challenge. Based on a concept from the book "Pay It Forward" written by Catherine Ryan Hyde, I started an experiment at my office to test the impact of attitude in the work environment.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Pay It Forward concept, here's a quick recap. In the book, Reuben St. Clair, a seventh grade teacher, creates an extra-credit assignment in which the kids in his class must think of an idea to change the world and then put that idea into action. One of his students, a boy by the name of Trevor, comes up with an idea to do something good for 3 people and then when they ask how to pay you back, you tell them that they have to pay the good deed forward to 3 more people. And so the good deeds begin to exponentially grow and incorporate more and more people.

So how does this relate to me?

Back in early March, I started to put out candy or treats in a little basket on my desk at the office. Instantaneously, people appeared for a tasty little snack, said thank you, and walked away with a big sugary grin on their faces. But what did this show, besides for the fact that a little bit of free sugar in the middle of the afternoon is enough to make anybody happy!? Dissatisfied with my findings, I continued to put out sugar and observe some more. My first observation, was that I started to notice less and less work conflicts. All of a sudden, there was less backlash from internal resources when I needed them to redo work, or that there was more patience from people when I delayed on providing a deliverable. I concluded from this that the candy was basically acting as a form of payment or a bribe, wherein I'll give you a little sugar and then, out of guilt you do me a little favour. This realization troubled me and so I put a hold on the candy distribution, but I didn't receive the outcome that I had expected...

With the lack of sugar, people didn't stop being easygoing, but their attitude did begin to change, reverting to an all work, all stress attitude. Once again intrigued, I put out the candy and really watched people's behaviour. What I discovered, is that the candy wasn't acting as a bribe, but rather it was acting as a conduit to the past, inducing a youthful lightheartedness among my coworkers. All of a sudden, I started to see a sense of fun being incorporated back into their daily work routine, a feeling which due to an unfortunate series of circumstances had disappeared. Work was still being done, stress was still being had, but all of a sudden there seemed to be this mass epiphany that we are all in this together, so let's get our work done, but let's make sure to have fun doing it.

Now for the Pay It Forward part, the sugar wasn't just altering their behaviour towards me, but their behaviour towards each other and even more intriguing it was altering their behaviour towards clients! It was amazing to watch my coworkers go from one end of the spectrum, where they are at their wit's end over a client, eat a jelly bean, and then all of a sudden jump to the other end of the spectrum, re-energized to take on the world.

So, in the end, maybe I'm just being naive and forcing my perception of reality into a concept created by a fictional novel. But, if for a second I'm right about this, how amazing is it that a little bit of sugar can make such a drastic change!