Steve Neiderhauser

Hold the Interview

Dan Heath and Chip Heath provide evidence in this Fast Company article that the interview process may not find the most qualified people for your company.

Instead, the past performance of a person is the best indicator of future performance. Asking a person to perform a job test and demonstrate his skills helps discover the true stars.

As a person interviewing for a job, you can't count on the company to always give you the opportunity to demonstrate your skills. So I suggest you do what many graphic artists do — Start to build a portfolio of your accomplishments. Lead the high-profile projects in your company and then create a visual of your success. This could be a graph of the costs you cut for the next 12 months or the revenue you generated over the next year. You could also draw a Venn diagram to show how the intersection of your skills creates a distinct advantage for your new employer.

And when you're in the interview, go into demo mode at your first opportunity. Treat the interview as a consulting opportunity and show the hiring company how new technologies or a new marketing plan will drive customers to its doorstep.

How to Think Like Leonardo....

Di Caprio? Nope. I'm talking about Da Vinci, of course.

In How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci, author Michael Gelb suggests that we follow Da Vinci's example and cultivate ambidexterity:

When Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel, he astounded observers by switching his paintbrush from one hand to the other as he worked. Leonardo, a natural left-hander, cultivated this same ambidexterity and regularly switched hands when working on The Last Supper and other masterpieces. When I interviewed Professor Raymond Dart and asked him for his recommendations on the development of human potential, he responded, "Balance the body, balance the brain. The future lies with the ambidextrous human!"

In business, it's important to hire ambidextrous employees — people who have business and technology skills. For they can imagine the future. If you don't employ multi-talented professionals, you lose out on business oportunities that cannot be imagined by the linear worker.

Back to Leonardo. The artist not the actor. While reading Gelb's book I chanced upon the enchanting story of Leonardo's unfinished horse.

Leonardo was commissioned to build a 24-foot bronze horse by the Duke of Sforza. Alas, the Horse was not to be. After much work, Leonardo completed a clay model, and the Horse was ready for casting. France invaded Milan, however, and French archers used the clay horse for target practice, reducing it to a clump of clay. It's said that Leonardo never got over the destruction of the Horse.

After reading an article in National Geographic entitled "The Horse That Never Was," Charles Dent was inspired to start a foundation to finish the horse.

Ironically, Dent died when the Horse was in the same stage of production (model completed and acclaimed, but not yet cast) as when it was destroyed by the French archers.

Before he died, the foundation promised Dent that The Horse would be completed.

On September 10, 1999, 500 years from the day the original model was destroyed, the dream became reality. Il Cavallo — The Statue of Liberty for Creativity — was reborn in Milan as a tribute to the da Vincian love of truth and beauty.

When a renaissance man's dream gallops through the mist of time and takes center stage in Milan, you know that ambidextrous men and women hold power in their hands.

An American Horse was also cast.

Note: I wrote this post four years ago. Now, in a world where change and uncertainty are accelerating, the ability to see patterns and make your vision come true are more relevant and powerful than ever.

Intangible skills that drive success

James Brown pens an article about three intangible skills that make you successful. Sometimes you can follow all the rules and processes and still find a project on the brink of failure. Without the intangible skills you may find yourself overwhelmed by a project and working long hours, long hours that do nothing but drain your energy.

Let's focus on the third skill he discusses: Adaptation — The ability to respond positively to unfavorable decisions and unfortunate circumstances.

One way to improve your ability to adapt to circumstances is to develop personal skills or product features that are flexible and respond to change. Like a screenwriter who knows how to plant and pay off story plot points, you should anticipate what career seeds to plant so they pay off later when you need to respond to changing plots.

Time to Retrain B-Schools?

The New York Times runs an article about the failure of our business schools: Is It Time to Retrain B-Schools?

Here's the best quote in the article:

"The challenge for a lot of business schools is how to develop leaders and not managers."

I have earned graduate degrees in business and computer science. What I learned from each degree itself is limited in power and the ability to bring about change. Both degrees combined, however, provide the synergy to drive projects to success.

In a Dallas Morning News article, visionary Dr. Hasan Pirkul, dean of the School of Management at UTD, describes a UTD business program that requires students to learn business and technology. How does Dr. Pirkul describe the benefits?

"So you have an engineer who also understands and is proficient in business topics,” Dr. Pirkul says happily. “it’s a dream come true."

How a book on the brain boosts leadership

Dr. James Brown writes a review of the book Brain Rules. Why does Dr. Brown think this book will help leaders?

I believe personal productivity and performance as a project manager are directly correlated. Just like we have to lead a project team, we have to lead ourselves to a higher level of a productivity and effectiveness. In all of the leadership classes I teach, emphasis is placed on knowing yourself. When you know yourself it provides you the ability to adapt to weaknesses and leverage your strengths (increase your personal productivity and effectiveness).

Churchill the Project Manager

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
— Sir Winston Churchill

How do you get assigned to the high-profile projects in your company? Be a leader who can make it happen. That's what Winston Churchill did, he established credibility. Then the people of England commanded that the man of many talents become Prime Minster, and project manager over the WWII project. Mark Kozak-Holland writes of Churchill the Project Manger, and how changes in technology shaped battlefield tactics.

Many organizations today toil to bring forward people for the "top" project jobs. Ask the PMs in the organization who they would support and natural leaders will be pushed forward, those with the credibility and weight to make a real difference with projects.

Top managers understand how to transform technology into a business advantage. Mark points out in his Churchill article that the same technology was available to England and Germany. Germany, however, made far better use of technology in the early years of the war. After Churchill seized the helm of England's war machine, England started to use agile management techniques.

Today, project managers have the same choice. They can join the fight or be gunned down by brighter, faster project managers who are using agile methods and technology — blogs, wikis, prototypes...

In some ways, a project manager can now act as a CIO who will make a difference for his project. Weave the right technologies into your project so that every time your project changes, the technology moves with it.

The change crocodile is snapping at our heels. And this animal is a constant and consistent algorithm. Yet, some senior managers cut off their corporate limbs, one by one, and feed the ravenous reptile, trying to appease it. Holding fast to the ways that were, these managers can only hope the crocodile of change will eat them last.

The New 90% Rule

The experts say that project management is 90% communication. This statement is too simplistic and needs to be revised — Management is 90% facilitation. And by facilitation I mean the manager makes it easier to accomplish tasks by getting rid of speed bumps and road blocks.

At copyblogger, Yuwanda Black has written a post titled: How to Make an Extra $61,880 This Year.

This article educates the customer about search engine optimization and makes it easier for the customer to make a decision. This is a form of consultative selling and does more than just toss information at a customer.

Inside a corporation, when a manager is delivering a project she may have to take several actions to remove obstacles and make it easy for her team to succeed. This includes teaching through the written word, selecting technology that makes the team agile or providing a demonstration. Unless your communication is making it easier for your team to move forward, you're really not communicating.

Tip: Notice how Yuwanda used an exact number in her title. If you want to increase your credibility and pull of your ad or analysis, skip round numbers like 500, instead use a number that shows you put a pencil to it — 563.49

Leading with Agility

Kevin Cashman has written the Leading with Agility Manifesto.

I believe a company receives out-of-this-world benefits when a leader is able to create adaptive products, products that provide options and the ability to respond to the speed-of-light change that we now are so often tossed and turned by. And this leader will typically have adaptive patterns wired in his brain before manifesting agile products.

Kevin points out in his ChangeThis article that as leaders advance in their career, they need to be able to deal with more and more ambiguity. Fact is, the world is going to become evermore vague and unclear. So it's a paradox that the most important competency in shortest supply today is "Dealing with Ambiguity."

As Terry Neil so eloquently wrote, "Change is a door that can only be opened from the inside." Therefore, to change our external world, we must first alter our internal world — "We must master our adaptability mentally, emotionally, and strategically."

Kevin also writes, "The most effective people sustain a sharp, localized focus in the present moment, while at the same time maintaining a broad, visionary context."

How does one develop these seemingly contradictory skills? In my experience, this talent can be acquired by not focusing on a highly specialized skill set. Instead, seek a broad education that includes the arts.

Talent Scout

There's a quote in a Project Management Leadership magazine from Theo Tombeur that caught my eye:

"It's better to hire people with broader knowledge and expertise rather than specialists. It's always possible to find specialists and hire them on a temporary basis."

The context of Theo's quote relates to projects in China and the dearth of project management talent. Although, the quote also applies to US companies because they've become so lean there's little room to eliminate talent without reducing profits. So here's the real question for HR managers who have ignored all the benefits of the ambidextrous employee: How do you cultivate a broader knowledge and talent in your employees?

There are ways to accomplish this goal. First step — Make it your company goal to recruit and develop multi-talented professionals.

Sharing your business with others

Kare Anderson writes about how to share your business to drive growth. In addition to the tips about growing community, I was drawn to the following wisdom:

Use your business as a lab for trying new ideas.

Open with a story that pulls in your reader.