Carl's Corner
by Carl Pritchard, PMP (December 1, 2009)
Perception is everything. And fortunately, it's something we definitely control. If we can think about our attitude, our presence and our access, we can use the holiday attitude as the start of something better for ourselves and our organizations.
Putting on Your Game Face
By Carl Pritchard
Despite the fact that the holiday season is, for many, a time of family, friends, reunions and rejoicing, it is also a season of bizarre costuming, football games and excessive time off. It's a compelling dichotomy that society works to resolve. It's also a dichotomy that points to some of the most telling aspects of the human personality and condition.
For my wife and me, we celebrated the season a little early with a trip to DisneyWorld right before Thanksgiving. If you're ever looking for a place to go just BEFORE the holidays, let me suggest that courtesy of the timing and the economic downturn, Disney was virtually ours for the taking. No lines, no waiting in the parks. Just the pleasure of walking from attraction to attraction. What's notable about the Disney experience, however, for those who have never done it (and those who have), is the "cast." Every employee is a "cast member," and every employee is regularly reminded that they have a role to play and a face to put out to the customer. Some of them take it to heart. I saw one cast member who was renting surrey bicycles at the Boardwalk, who seemed genuinely excited to see us walk by. I'm sure we were the 600th couple he had greeted that day, but he took it on with fervor. "It's a great day to be at Disney, don't you think?" he queried. And it seemed like he believed it. His buoyant attitude carried us through much of the day. The contrast came after some Power Rangers blasted into Hollywood Studios. They swept onto the street like a force of nature. The kids around us were eating it up. But about 20 minutes later, I spotted one of them, helmet off, sitting in a tram going back to the dark side of Disney. He was clearly someone who had had a rough day, shaking his head as he talked to one of his peers. He looked the worse for wear. In that brief flash, the Disney illusion was shattered.
I doubt very much that most of us want our project team members to put on a Disney-esque face every time they're in the customer environment. But I do believe that we can take some lessons home from the Disney experience and apply them in our dealings with team members and customers alike. The critical things to remember are attitude, stage time, and access.
Attitude
Through the years, I have strained to ensure I maintain a positive attitude, particularly on the job. Attitude goes deeper than just how you handle other individuals. It's about how you think of yourself and your environment during the work day. Disney essentially forces employees to think positively about their environment, and what's compelling is that Disney positions are highly coveted. Why? Because who doesn't want to work where the folks around you are enjoying themselves and feeling like their work has merit? As project managers, however, we are sometimes plagued by environments that don't create a rewarding atmosphere or create an environment where those around you are held to high standards of professionalism. But THAT is the component that we can actually control. We have the ability to affirm with our team members and management alike that those who work on our projects are special. They are an elite group that has the honor of working on what we're working on. In my brief stint as a proposal manager, I came into the office every day with a zeal for my job that was infectious. I believe it kept those around me interested in their work. But I also watched as one of our vice-presidents denigrated the proposal department during a meeting, sapping the high energy I had worked so hard to craft. First lesson? Attitude is infectious, be it positive or negative. Our job is to ensure that the positives are visible and those who might infuse negativism are kept at bay (or at least only share their dark clouds offline).
Stage Time
Every phone call with a customer is a potential moment of truth. It's an opportunity to build, maintain, or expend political capital. And that moment begins with the most distant acknowledgement that we're around, and continues to the intimate moments of one-on-one conversation. This applies in the most bizarre places. Ever gotten a bad voicemail message? The person on the other end sounds like they're too tired to even care? That's not very "stage-present" of us! We need to consider our personal and professional brand with experiences like that. It matters. The tone, the interest in the message, the interest in the person on the other end must all be captured in our simple "Leave-a-message-at-the-tone" greeting. And it carries all the way through the moment we step completely off stage. It's beyond the Power Rangers experience I mentioned earlier. One of my favorite corporate stories happened with one of the major telecoms, where they were trying to resolve some customer conflict via a video conference. As the conference drew to a close, the representative of the telecom company tried very hard to paint a positive future outlook on what had been a series of serious missteps along the way. The customer seemed encouraged. The call ended. The video screens went dark. One of the telecom team members looked at his peers and uttered the fateful words, "Well, I don't know about you, but I think THAT was an unmitigated disaster." Immediately, his peers jumped on the depressive bandwagon, citing every hiccup in the encounter. A few seconds later, a voice echoed through the conference room speakers. "Hey. The video's off, but the line is still live here." It was the customer. Stage time doesn't end until we know we are securely out of eyeshot, earshot and any other "shot." Check phone lines for a dial tone. Check video feeds to ensure they've faded to black. Look around. It matters. Body language, casual remarks and aura can be read at a distance in many cases. Triple-check the environment, or better still, save any negativism until you're alone in your car.
Access
Perhaps the easiest Disney-like philosophy to adopt is one of access. There's virtually always someone available to you, and if they don't have answers, they know enough to say "I'll find that out for you!" You always feel like you have access to what you need...eventually. It's not a hard philosophy to adopt, but it is a little challenging in the longer-term implementation. In one large company I worked with, they had a corporate librarian. Claude was an amazing human being. You could call him with a request, and no matter how obscure, he could find the government site, the academic publication or the obscure manual with the reference. He was an amazing human being. His role in the organization taught me two things. For one, never leave people without somewhere to turn for the information they seek. And secondly, never try to get by with scant information when you know there's more that your team member, customer or client may need. When we had Claude, we never felt compelled to try to schmooze our way around data. It was just as easy to send him on a quest for the real heart of the information. With the evolution of the Internet, most of us now serve as our own "Claudes". But we sometimes, in haste, skip past the opportunity to take on that role. We shouldn't. Every request for insight we don't have at our fingertips means that in the future, we'll have that piece of data at our disposal. Our personal databases will improve and our knowledge base will evolve. It's a beautiful thing.
I began this article by (seemingly) tangentially discussing the holidays and the bizarre nature of the season which from moment to moment goes from the sacred to the profane. It is a microcosmic view of the project worlds we live in. One minute we are deified for our roles in pulling off the impossible. The next, we are chastised because a team member was too gruff or has annoyed the customer. What can we do to reconcile this dichotomy? We can lead by example. We can be the "cast members" who recognize when they're on stage and have the attitude to match. And we can treat the customer to a promise of consistency and access in their quests for insight and information. In this season of giving, we can give the gifts of knowledge and insight and then carry the tradition on through the New Year.
Happy Holidays!
Carl Pritchard can be found on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Plaxo and LinkedIn. He can also be found with a simple e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Copyright 2009, Pritchard Management Associates - Right to reproduce in full with attribution is granted freely to Silver Spring Chapter members for personal and professional use. All other rights (including resale or republication) are reserved.