This week’s focus: I was talking to a manager at a client this week about her workload. Like most people, she isn’t short of things to do, but I was surprised to learn that she is actively involved in 10 separate projects – and leading three of them!
I suspect that this situation is more common than I’d fully realised. Juggling supposed ‘day job’ responsibilities with project work is nothing new, but the scale of the issue seems to have escalated over the past 10 years or so.
I’m sure that we all agree that it is vital that you have people with great project team-working capabilities across your business. Unfortunately, in the majority of the organisations I visit, I just don’t see the investment in developing these critical skills.
As a result, being asked to join a new project team doesn’t enerate excitement in your people that they will learn something new and be part of something special. More often than not, it simply brings a shrug of the shoulders and the resigned acceptance that there’s going to be even more stuff to for them to do.
When it comes to project work, it seems that there’s simply no high in team!
What steps are you taking to create excellence in your people’s ability to work within and across different project teams? And how are you setting up your projects so that people feel that they can fully contribute, that they can develop new skills and that they feel part of something meaningful?
Off The Record: Come Together by The Beatles
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is
You got to be free
Come together
Right now
Over me
© Stuart Cross 2019. All rights reserved.