Chapter 12: Handling Your Team

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Throughout the book, there has been a commingling of task-oriented project management work with advice regarding the human commerce associated with these professional duties. The remainder of the book focuses on this latter aspect of the project management experience. The topic of this chapter is working with your team. Subsequent chapters will examine your relationship with the customer and beneficiary set, your management, and finally, with yourself.

12.1 Working with People as a Manager

I have believed for a long time that effective project management requires many of the same skills and attitudes that good parents possess. As in the home, workplace supervisors are focused on success and thus attempt to control everything to ensure those results. The problem is that no human being is truly controllable. If you try to micromanage a child or a team member, you are more likely to create rebellion than compliance. Some children or project team members will fight you openly, whereas others will take the passive-aggressive approach, in which case you just might find yourself doing their work for them. ^[1]

Although the labyrinth of human behavior is beyond the scope of this book, I do strongly urge you to leverage your understanding of it. Always keep in mind any insights you may have into the personalities of team members, including your own. We all have weaknesses that can dilute our ability to remain rational, alert, and motivated each day. It is as important that you know your own hot buttons as you know those of the people surrounding you. A lot of business problems stem from people not getting along. You do not want to exacerbate any preexisting chaos with your own arrogance, impatience, or procrastination. ^[2]

People can overreact, particularly when under the influence of stress. Sometimes, we meddle in the affairs of others trying to fix things that, in truth, would go away if we kept our hands in our pockets, or that do not matter as much as we think. If, as some parents do, you manage every second of every day, you end up exhausting yourself and alienating the targets of your relentless scrutiny.

Please do not infer from these words that I am advocating a hands-off approach. The success of your project, or lack thereof, can and probably will reflect on your career in powerful ways. So, you had better develop a style with which you feel comfortable for dealing with the people problems you will find over and over again in this business. To that end, let us take a peek at the biggest of these challenges.

^[1]And do not think they do not know that!

^[2]Just to name a few common "dysfunctions."

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