Managing Leadership^®

Nearly 80 years ago, Mary Parker Follett, perhaps (as often mentioned in these pages) the greatest management thinker of all, elaborated what she called the “law of the situation.” She did this to help managers develop more effective ways to organize their businesses, to distribute power in them, and even to give orders. (Be sure to visit tomorrow for a review of a book containing an excellent collection of her teachings.)

As with much of her thinking, the concept is becoming more germane today as project management methods and the guidance/motivation of project managers become more common operational concerns for more organizations. Project managers are constantly confronted with issues that seem tangential to the main object of the project, and that even seem to have unrelated or conflicting aims. Many times, such issues arise from or are complicated by corporate or professional cultural differences among the participants. Imagine how much more complex the situation can be when the project is being conducted in a foreign environment, adding into the mix not only language differences, but cultural issues that can adversely affect the project at the same time that you may not even realize that they exist.

The key is to do two things constantly: 1) focus on the project and its advancement, and 2) communicate: communicate about the project, it’s object, how it’s doing, and why. Encourage your project managers to understand that they are not just engineers tracking events on a Gantt chart - they are managers unifying and integrating the actions of a diverse group of people whose agendas and perceptions of the project and its progress may diverge widely. To avoid becoming ambushed and swamped by a rising tide of dissension and misunderstanding arising from those differences, the manager needs to understand that advancing the project means keeping all of these people focused on it and understanding it in the same, or at least complementary, ways. Thus, communicating with them about goals and progress will help all of them achieve those goals.

It may seem like an imposition on the manager’s time, but it should be looked at as an investment. When glitches occur - a late delivery, out-of-spec components - team members that have been continuously and meaningfully kept clued in to the importance, meaning, and advancement of the project will more likely be able to help avoid such problems, or identify them as early as possible, and also to take the initiative to develop solutions to them. Managers will find that the investment of time in constant, focused communication with the team will pay dividends both for the project and for project managers’ productivity and effectiveness.

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