trust

It had all the earmarks of a disaster, a real career-sinker of a project. And here was my old friend and former colleague calling me up enthusiastically, on the phone: “Hey Lisa, we need a Technical Project Manager for this start-up I’m working for, in Redwood Shores… you’ll love the project and the team. It’s [...]

As Project Managers, I’m sure we’ve all seen the kind of scenario where there is a project team member who is generally uncooperative or can’t seem to get the tasks done on time – and the different approaches you can take in order to solve this problem. You can take the dictatorial “Do as I [...]

Teams.  It seems like such an obvious part of project life.
Or, is it?
Recently, I’ve been noticing some things about project teams that trouble me.
Here are some descriptions of a team:

A group of two or more people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose and approach for which the team holds its members [...]

Yesterday I covered 3 points for change leadership and project management:
1.      You implement change everyday in your role as a project manager
2.      You are in a leadership role
3.      Major change requires strong leadership, starting with SEEING the “new” END
SEEING the “new” END becomes the VISION of what you and your team will be working to [...]

One more complaint from my students (see Monday/Tuesday posts) is: “I’m given other jobs, in addition to my coding, and asked to do them without impacting the main project I’m working on.  Not just occasionally, in a crisis, but all the time.”
Some might say that this trait of trying to squeeze more out of Engineering [...]

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 [...]

Drive out Fear and Create Trust
Fear encourages short-term thinking. One of Deming’s classic stories was about a foreman who didn’t stop production to repair a worn-out piece of equipment, because he feared that stopping production would mean missing his daily quota. Instead, he let production continue. When the machine failed, it forced [...]

In January I did a series of blogs on “Getting Smart about Trust.”
Laying the Groundwork for Trust. I talked about the initial stages of exploring trust, and told a story of how doing so helped me through a tough situation.
The Critical Trust Question. I recounted one of my corporate adventures where I didn’t do enough [...]

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 [...]

Hi everyone, this is my first actual blog on this website.  I wanted to talk with you about the issue of trust in distant teams.  Let me start by telling you that as a former psycho-therapist, I often dealt with the issues besetting people in relationships both at home and at work.  Trust – that [...]

So this guy goes to an all day workshop on trust. And in the supportive environment of the workshop, he sees that it’s safe to trust. Through the activities of the day, he learns to open up to others, to be vulnerable. After a full and satisfying day, he leaves the workshop feeling great. A [...]