Emotions

As I write this, the US is in a presidential transition.  President-Elect Obama won, at least in part, on a platform of hope and the rallying cry, “Yes We Can.”
Hope?  In the face of all the obvious difficulties?  Yes we can?  Really?  Aren’t they just fuzzy words?
As a project manager, part of me is [...]

When we think about prejudice, we think about age, sex, race, religion, etc.  But what about yoru reaction and pre-judgments of people whose style is different from your own?  (This is from my February newsletter – ArLyne)

Technorati Tags: cruss-cultural, cultural-differences, Emotions, pre-judging, prejudice

After years and years of Project Management it finally became obvious to me there was someone or something I wasn’t addressing. No, I’m not talking about all the usual people project management challenges all those references mention, or even some they don’t mention.

Technorati Tags: Accountability, appreciation, best-practices, communication, Emotions, Environment, Leadership, [...]

Emotional pressure often comes right out of the blue. And when it does, it can be very hard to deal with.       
On the day that I was meeting with “Don,” a new team member to talk about his initial project, I was blindsided by the pressure that he came at me with. And I’ve noticed that [...]

Quick: what’s the biggest challenge in cross-functional collaboration?  Bing!  Yes, “building trusting, open relationships” is correct!  Does that sound too Oprah-esque?  Let’s think about it for a minute.  How do you build trusting, open relationships in your cross-functional team, and why does it matter?
Let’s start with why it matters.  How successful will your collaboration be if each [...]

I had dinner tonight at the Cheesecake Factory.  I sat at the bar ’cause it was so crowded and next to me sat a very lovely lady who was obviously in distress.  We chatted.  Her Project Manager had yelled at her so rudely (in her opinion) that she was seriously considering quitting a job she [...]

Mordred – the ultimate betrayer – like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Mordred turned people against each other.  We were talking about Mordred, betrayal, and Camelot at a meeting tonight of the Silicon Valley Innovative Institute’s Society.  During the discussion, I realized that the two people I’ve caused to be fired in all [...]

The most challenging aspect of being a project manager is dealing with (mostly) humans. They’re emotional, unpredictable and down right irrational at times! (Not me, of course . . . the OTHERS!) Out of what appears to be intense frustration with the whack-a-mole fashion in which humans approach creative thinking and problem-solving, [...]