16.2 Becoming the Project Adult

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Try as I did, I could not resist using the term "project adult" in this chapter's title, the subject of which is the more desirable attributes of project managers. To me, the term "project adult" is perfect because it implies both a condition and a responsibility that map perfectly to great project managing.

The condition is maturity. Self-discipline, self-control, tolerance, and the knowledge and willingness to be empathetic and gracious toward others are all the marks of a mature person. Those who seek and achieve maturity also gain the ability to negotiate when an impasse is reached with an eye toward compromise and suppress the impulse to win every argument, no matter the cost.
The responsibility is parenthood. Of its four goals, two of which are spiritual and cultural, the ones relevant to this conversation are learning how to:
- Nurture and support the child.
- Give the child the tools he or she needs to adapt to the world, to achieve his or her own maturity, and eventually assume the responsibility of parenthood.

After we look at how most engaged parents go wrong, we will be better prepared to understand how budding project managers err in a similar, albeit vocational manner. Suppose my wife is pregnant and I decide that our new child will be a professional hockey star. Even though my wife bears a brainy little girl who does not appear to be particularly athletic, I persist in my dream of having sired a "super jock." The only accommodation I make to reality is switching my child's burden from "winning the cup" to winning the Olympic gold medal in hockey. This minor concession is simply due to the fact that women cannot compete for the Stanley Cup. The child's life may turn into a living nightmare as long as I insist that she meet my expectations, no matter how unrealistic or inappropriate my dreams for her might be. An outsider might watch the ensuing struggle and be saddened by the irreparable harm I cause by insisting on my way, despite its misguided intentions.

As a loving and effective parent, it would be far more appropriate to discover and work with whatever unique sensibilities and talents emerge as our little girl takes on a life of her own. I may have to sit with her each night to do homework or force her outside to play with her pals when she would rather stay in her room reading and dreaming. Good parents carefully balance that which they insist on for their offspring, and which of each child's desires, sensibilities, and talent is allowed to develop. This does not mean we put the children in charge of their own upbringing. It does mean that expecting them to wind up exactly as we hoped is not only naïve, but, if acted out, can possibly be harmful to everyone involved.

Being a leader in the workplace is not unlike being a parent. You are looked to for protection, for setting expectations, for reassurance, for recognition, and occasionally for setting boundaries so people know how far they can go. You are anointed the "go-to" person, if not the lightning rod, when trouble erupts. A good parent tries to create this kind of environment but cannot live the children's lives for them. Likewise, a project manger may set the goals, the pace, and the rules of engagement for the team; but it is up to individual stakeholders to perform and react according to their mutually agreed upon roles and responsibilities. The project manager must not only allow but also encourage this, and adapt his or her own feelings to the project realities as they emerge. Similar to parenting, this is not easy to do and can be scary.

There is a direct relationship between your project's complexity and the accompanying levels of uncertainty and chaos. You face a mass of people advancing a profusion of agendas. You are also saddled with endless dithering while people circle around issues instead of bringing them to closure. Why is that? Well, it appears that in the absence of leadership, all groups wander aimlessly with a frustrating purposelessness. Have you ever stood on a street corner in a big city with a few friends or associates and wasted a half hour deciding which restaurant to pop into? Sure you have. Why should project teams be any different? If you do not assume the role of leader and become your project's adult, no one else is likely to. Sure, someone greedy for recognition or power may grab the reins, but that is not the same thing and cannot possibly be good. At least, it has never worked out that well the times I have seen it happen. It reminds me of the class cutup running the show, which simply guarantees the results will be skewed toward satisfying someone's emotional needs but probably nothing else.

So, your first personal act as a project manager is to adopt the persona of the project adult. To do this, you need to be self-assured but humble. You have to trust the process, but that is only after you understand what that process is. This is why this book has run down two parallel roads:

One road is the methodologies and processes that project managers are tasked with orchestrating or performing. You know the drill: gathering requirements, analyzing risk, and coming up with a plan that really works.
The other path I have tried marking out for you is the specific role the project manager must play, at least in my opinion, to ensure those results. This is the people side, the nontechnical but equally important role and responsibility that you as project manager must understand and execute. In this final chapter, I will pull this together with a review of the attributes, at the personal level, that if found in sufficient quantity will flag you, or who ever you are evaluating, as a likely candidate for the project manager's "Hall of Fame."

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