I don't do this very often but I have to showcase one man's work and his calling: Better Workplace Now™. Tom Terez has set out to create better workplaces. This doesn't appear to be altruistic. Tom's writing indicates a pragmatism rather than idealism. Tom is a story-teller. He's well-equipped with an MBA and a degree in journalism. But he's not just a story-teller. I get the impression he lives the lessons of his stories.

I came to find Tom by way of Alan Mossman, a friend and colleague from the UK who is working with Greg Howell this week delivering a workshop in Atlanta on implementing a lean approach on your projects. Alan picked up the story from one of his friends, Geof Cox who reprinted the article in New Directions, also in the UK. (I love how small a world it is!) Alan is a regular reader and frequent commentor of this weblog.

What got both of our attention is the story of an elementary school principal in Ohio. I'll let you read the story. It's well-worth your time. Go to Lessons from a Principled Leader. In a sidebar, Tom describes 7 action steps for being present to your situation. I've excerpted them here.

1. Reserve some quiet time for yourself each day. Listen to the inner dialogue.
2. Walk around, observe, ask questions. Be among the people who do the work.
3. Expect to see fascinating things. Then tell stories about what you've seen.
4. Don't dismiss the "small" stuff. What you think isn't important may be very important to someone else.
5. Remember that all organizations, no matter how bad they appear in the moment, have things that are working. A well-framed question or prompt can lead people to acknowledge and honor what currently works.
6. Recognize that even negative people are trying to say something positive. If someone complains about dull meetings, what they're saying is that they want better meetings where they can communicate and engage with colleagues.
7. Strive to live by the 95% Rule: Spend 95% of your time trying to understand and just 5% of your time making judgments.

Tom could have told a story about project managers and used the same 7 action steps. Try them on for a week or two. I bet it makes a big difference in your effectiveness and enjoyment.

There's plenty more at Better Workplace Now™. Have a look and get a bronze key while you are there.

posted by Hal at 11:46 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

You gotta be asking what is he doing now? Well, I'm participating in an experiment in concurrent blogging. Bloggers all over are writing today on the subject of the "brand". The idea is to see what new is created when we all blog intentionally rather than just top-of-mind. To find other postings search on the prepend to the title [grid::brand]. It will take a day or so for Google to catch up with all the postings, but it should be interesting. Or visit: the grid brand channel.

I've been curious about the traditional airlines' entry into the discount market. For years Southwest, Frontier, ATA, Air Tran, and now Jet Blue have been cherry-picking profitable routes and flying without the expense of large hubs. They've also been able to attract personnel at below the rates at the major airlines. So why does the public like these upstarts? Price is at the top of the list, but that can't account for all of the market. These carriers have staked out a brand. The combination of great pricing and a strong brand make them unbeatable. Or is that the case?

In the last year we've seen the launch of three new services all in competition with the upstarts. It started with Tango. Air Canada is a monopoly for point-to-point travel within Canada. They had been challenged by some entrepreneurial endeavors mimicking what Southwest was doing in the US. Their response was to create a discount brand using the same systems as Air Canada but branding it differently. It's hard to say what their success is. I have tried flying on Tango but the flights are limited. Even with 14 day advance purchase I couldn't get a flight. I went online just yesterday looking for a flight from Toronto to Vancouver and they were all sold out. Is that success? Maybe. But I was disappointed.

Air Canada is not doing much to identify Tango as its own entity. Once I started my flight reservations I was directed to an Air Canada page. Then I couldn't get back to Tango without typing the URL again. People don't know about Tango, and I predict it will stay that way.

Delta has responded to Jet Blue, et al, with Song. Fast Company profiled the Song start-up over the summer. It's a great story of project leadership. Throughout the start-up they put a premium on new ideas. Of course you can't predict when a new idea will obsolete your plan. So the start-up team was quick to adjust their plans on-the-fly. The new airline will be everything that Delta is not. Fun, full-featured cabins, and competitive with Jet Blue. The web experience is consistent. Unlike Tango, when you book a flight with Song you stay on a Song site. Nice. These folks just might have a chance.

Now I get to Ted, as in Uni-Ted. A banner on the United site shows the Ted website as flyted.com. No go. When I clicked on the banner it took me to the United travel planning site. Looks like this new brand of theirs is just another line extension. They don't take to the air 'til February.

Ted appears to be a reincarnation of Shuttle by United, the money-losing service that operated in California. They will operate a budget oriented service for vacationers. This offshoot airline will operate from DIA serving the southwest market. Looks like a Southwest attack to me. Anyone want to bet who'll be the winner: the profitable Phoenix carrier or the offshoot rising from DIA? Even if United does a great job with the project to launch the new airline, it's going head-to-head with a deep-pocket operator who owns the low-priced market. Further, Southwest is THE brand that others emulate. It may not matter how good Ted is. Southwest has the market.

So does this have anything to do with projects and leadership? You bet! Each one of these airline launches is a complicated project. Usual project practices would have people planning these out to the nth degree at the very start. Only Song seems to get the nature of their project. They have set up a process to improvise as they go. That can only help as they get this new brand off the ground. It seems to me that good brands are all about doing one successful project after the other. Let's see if these airlines have it in them.

posted by Hal at 10:16 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

On Monday I'll be grid blogging on the subject of the "brand". Grid blogging is an experiment in tapping the knowledge across the web. Bloggers will post on the same subject on the same day. We'll also link to each other. And we'll offer a means for finding the postings via search engines. Just search on "[grid::brand]". Include the square brackets in your search. You might not find much early in the day. It might take a while for search engines to index new postings. I'll be posting here and at www.coachblog.com.

Late last week I received two autographed copies of David J Anderson's book, Agile Management for Software Engineering. (I actually received three copies. One was personalized. Thank you David.) I'll be offering these as premiums for publishing your Project e-Tip proposals. I haven't commented on David's book for quite some time. Don't be thrown off by the title. He could have titled it Agile Management for Knowledge Work and it would have been as good a fit. Anyone doing engineering, architecture, or design of any type will enjoy the book. We will be interviewing David in our Project Leadership teleconference series in the spring.

I updated the articles page of this weblog. (Click on the link in the horizontal navigation above, or click Hal's Articles.) The page now includes my latest article for the Zweig Letter, Project Management: Claptrap or Messy Work. There's been numerous new definitions of project management in the last year or so. I find it to be just more of the same. So, not being one to hold my views to myself, I offered up a 20 year-old perspective along with a set of 6 issues that continue to challenge PMs and a set of 5 actions to set the stage for messy work. Hope you enjoy. Please leave me your comments.

Continue to watch these pages for the announcement of the teleconference series with authors. I will be posting to give my email (Bloglet) subscribers a first chance at signing up. This first conference will hold just 100 callers. So sign-up for email delivery today to get your early announcement. Look in the left-hand column. And then tell your friends! We will be offering a sign-up page for each of the featured authors. Just to whet you appetite, we've got the godfather of the lean movement scheduled for March. Should be fantastic!

posted by Hal at 9:49 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

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