People And Projects Podcast: Project Management Podcast

Sara Adam: Making a Difference With Her Life I am recording this episode from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where I have the privilege of speaking at a conference this week. Since this is a very special destination, my wife and family have joined me on the trip, which included prior stops in London, Nairobi, and Doha. If all goes as planned, we hope to go all the way around the world as a family over the course of three weeks. While in Nairobi we had the opportunity to spend time with some very close family. And one of the real treats was spending time with my niece Sara Adam. Sara will soon be starting up her senior year at Duke, but she's not waiting until graduation to make a difference. Despite her age, Sara is building an amazingly cool clothing and accessory business that is based in Kenya. Along with her business partner Anna, they are growing a business they name Judith and James. They are developing marketable sewing skills for vulnerable women, most of whom live in the Nairobi area slums. As these skills a

I trust you were able to take away an idea or two from the discussion with Keith Murnighan. Between his book Do Nothing!: How to Stop Overmanaging and Become a Great Leader and the forthcoming interview with the author of How Will You Measure Your Life? these are two of my favorite books in some time. In this premium episode, I call out some specific ideas from Keith's book that I got to benefit from, with the intention to help you grow in your ability to lead and deliver. There is so much from Do Nothing! that you’ll find helpful to your calling of leading people and projects. I strongly encourage you to add this book to your personal or team library. And if you'd like to help develop the leaders in your organization, I invite you to contact me! Between our keynotes, workshops, and executive coaching, we can help you and your organization learn how to more effectively lead and deliver.   Thank you for being a premium subscriber to the People and Projects Podcast! It is a privilege to be part of your personal

Beware: Management Heresy Ahead! In this episode, I continue my discussion with Keith Murnighan about his new book entitled Do Nothing!: How to Stop Overmanaging and Become a Great Leader. Keith talks about why some long-accepted management practices might just get in the way of our team successfully delivering. And you’ll find that he offers some intriguing alternatives to help you become a more effective leader. You can find the first part of the interview with Keith here.   Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!

Is it possible that we make difficult situations worse by overmanaging them? Keith Murnighan responds with a resounding "Absolutely!" In the next two episodes, I talk with Keith about his new book Do Nothing!: How to Stop Overmanaging and Become a Great Leader, which hits the shelves this week. Keith will tell us how we can, perhaps surprisingly so, be more successful when we Do Nothing!   Make Sure to Listen to The Rest of the Interview Join us in the next episode when Keith will talk about such heresy as ignoring performance goals and de-emphasizing profits. I trust you'll find it helpful in your quest to more effectively lead and deliver.   Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!

So have you spent some time trying to better understand agile project management? I know some of our premium subscribers are avid agile practitioners, so good for you. But for many people, it's a topic that you know you should be looking into more but have been standing on the sidelines for too long. In this premium episode I follow-up on some points from my discussion with Andy Crowe about agile project management. Thank you for being a premium subscriber to The People and Projects Podcast! Total Duration 7:48 Download the premium episode "PMI", "PMBOK, "PMP®" and "PMI-ACP" are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Agile is getting plenty of attention these days and for good reasons. When done well on aligned projects, great customer value can be delivered. Many people who listen to this podcast are certified PMP’s or are at least considering certification in the future. You may be aware that Project Management Institute has a relatively new agile certification: the PMI-ACP℠. One of the best new books available to help people pass the ACP exam is from Andy Crowe. You likely know Andy as the author of the popular book entitled The PMP®Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try. Andy recently released The PMI-ACP Exam: How To Pass On Your First Try. In this episode, I talk with Andy about agile, about the certification, and about project management overall. Links to Resources To learn more from Andy, check out his blog at http://www.velociteach.com/blog/. I invite you to check out his books on Amazon, including The PMP®Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try The PMI-ACP Exam: How To Pass On Your First Try Alpha Project Managers:

In this premium episode, I'm going to share some additional thoughts to help us personally apply this learning. I talk about why you need a social media strategy, why you need to be using social media if you're not, and why a solid understanding of personality styles is critical for those who seek to deliver projects and lead teams. Here's the freebie for you as a Premium Subscriber! Send me a link to up to 3 of your social media profiles (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter). I would be glad to review them and give you a free analysis from an executive coaching perspective. Just send an e-mail with the links and I'll get back to you with feedback.   Thank you for being a premium subscriber to The People and Projects Podcast!  

So let me ask you... What does your Facebook profile really say about you? Or maybe you're not a Facebook person. How about LinkedIn? If a prospective employer was to scan your online presence, what conclusions would they draw? Earlier this year a study was published that indicates your life online could be saying more than you realize about your personality, your likelihood of getting hired, and even your future job performance. Since using social media sites can be part of our strategy as leaders to build and maintain relationships, it's critical that we understand whether or not our online presence is helping or hurting us. To help us better understand the study, I got a hold of Don Kluemper, the lead researcher on the study. In this interview, you'll hear from Don about what he found and his advice to help us avoid the landmines in social media.   Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!  

Free Premium Episode Thank you for joining me for this premium episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Did you know that many of your colleagues invest their development by becoming a premium subscriber to this podcast? To give you a sense of the extra coaching they get each month, I'm including this premium episode into our standard free podcast feed. You can learn more about Premium Subscrptions at bit.ly/PremiumSubscribe.  Meetings! Oh, how we love to hate meetings! In this premium video episode I share 10 keys to lead more effective project meetings. At the end you're invited to join the conversation! What are the most important lessons you've learned? Leave your response in a comment here or on our Facebook page. Thank you for subscribing to The People and Projects Podcast! Total Duration: 23:45 {youtube}MFNVKemW48E{/youtube} Download the episode

There's some newly published, compelling research that has now found that--are you ready--many meetings are a waste of time! Oh, I know you might find that shocking! More likely, you might be shocked that research time had to be invested to figure that out. But in today's episode, you're going to hear from Dr. Steven G. Rogelberg who not only researches things like meetings, he's a great voice to help us make them better. Links to Resources For Steven's contact information, check out his website at http://belkcollege.uncc.edu/directory/steven-g-rogelberg. Here are some links to additional resources mentioned in the interview: Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business The Science and Fiction of Meetings (MIT Sloan Management Review) The Meeting (NOTE: watch out for the price!) Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Total Duration 29:31 Download episode 72

Another Day in the Salt Mine! One of the many things I love about my job is that I get to intersect with hundreds of organizations. As I walked into the office of one of my large financial services customers recently, I took a moment to watch the body language of the people as they walked through the doors to start their day. I've learned you can tell a lot about a company by watching the employees. Do you want to know what I saw? In words it might sound like this: "Well, it's another day. I'm going to be working on another project. Hopefully, it will be successful so I can get another promotion (which sounds a lot better than looking for another job!)."   Engaging Our Teams For those who lead teams or departments or even companies, you know there are people who walk into your organization each day that just aren't as engaged as they could be. What can we do as leaders of people and projects to more effectively engage our teams? In this episode, I interview author and Harvard business professor Robert Steven

There's a big appetite these days for advice for introverts. Lisa Petrilli's e-book shares some helpful insights. I trust you found the interview with Lisa was helpful, whether you consider yourself an introvert or if you lead a team that has one or more members. In this premium episode, I'm going to share some additional thoughts to help us personally apply this learning. Check your Premium Feed for the People Styles material that I mention in this cast. Let me know what questions you have. Thank you for being a premium subscriber to The People and Projects Podcast!  

People Don't Listen To Me Some years back I was sitting across the table from a coaching client. We were talking about what she thought was her inability to influence as effectively as she wished. In her soft-spoken manner, she said, "I just feel like people don't listen to me." I have to admit that the mischievous side of me wanted to say, "Um, what was that you said?" Now, of course, I didn't say that, but let me ask you this... Since she is quiet it's rather obvious she's an introvert, right? And it's probably fair to say that introversion is likely to hold her back from climbing the ladder, wouldn't you say? Well, how about this? The coaching client was a C-level executive in a highly successful organization. Though she very well may be an introvert, making that assessment so quickly without learning more is an easy mistake to make.   Can Introverts Be Effective Project Managers? Can introverts be effective project managers and leaders? In this episode, we talk about that with Lisa Petrilli, author of The

Total Duration 24:39 Download episode 69 In this episode I continue my interview with Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson, author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals and Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. If you happened to miss the first part of the interview, I definitely invite you to check that out as well. In this episode Heidi shares insights on the difference between Be Good and Get Better Goals. Also, she addresses some myths regarding willpower, visualization, and positive thinking: topics that are often miserably mishandled in popular self-help books. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the evidence-based insights that Heidi brings to these topics. I highly recommend your next steps include getting a copy of her Harvard Business Review e-book single entitled Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. It's a very quick read and enormously practical. It's under $4 on Amazon in a Kindle format (and if you don't have a Kindle, you can download one on your computer or other device to read

Total Duration 25:04 Download episode 68   Additional Episode My interview with Heidi is split between two episodes. Make sure to listen to the second portion where we cover additional practical insights to help us reach our goals this year. For my premium subscribers, you're extra coaching episode will be published along with the second half of the interview. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!

Total Duration 37:45 Download episode 67 The Gift That Keeps on Giving This is a season when giving gifts takes center stage for most of us. Many of us have the gift of some time off before a new year begins. And when that new year gets into full swing, what is one of the biggest gifts you can give those you lead? I'll give you a hint: it doesn't require shiny wrapping or a pretty bow. One of the best gifts to those we lead is the gift of Respect. Encouragement. Clear goals. Autonomy. The resources they need. Creating environments where people love to work is a gift that keeps on giving. And my gift to you this Christmas is an interview with the co-author of one of the most respected business books of 2011. The book is entitled The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, and the author is Steven Kramer. I actually gave a copy of The Progress Principle as a Christmas gift to a close friend, and I recommend you get yourself a copy as well. Learn more about the

Total Duration 27:26 Download episode 66 In this episode I'm going to share a conversation I had recently with Wayne Breitbarth, author of The Power Formula for Linkedin Success: Kick-start Your Business, Brand, and Job Search. Wayne is my favorite expert on LinkedIn and I know you'll enjoy his insights. You can learn more about Wayne and his book at http://www.powerformula.net/. I strongly recommend you sign-up for Wayne's free newsletter with tips and tricks. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!

In this episode, I talk with Justin Menkes, author of Better Under Pressure: How Great Leaders Bring Out the Best in Themselves and Others. Let's learn together from Justin as we talk about leading under pressure. You can learn more about Justin and his book at http://www.BetterUnderPressure.com. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Total Duration 33:08 Download episode 65 P.S. Here's an entertaining and informative video on how stress impacts how the brain works, from Dr. John Medina. Enjoy! {youtube}S6Xq7CMOH1k{/youtube}

Total Duration 27:37 Download episode 64 One of my favorite writers and voices on the topic of productivity is Peter Bregman. Peter recently released his newest book entitled 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Peter recently and look forward to sharing that discussion with you in this episode. You can learn more about Peter at his website http://www.PeterBregman.com. Quick note: I'm always encouraged to hear from listeners and received this recently from Cheryl, who said, "I've been listening to your informative and inspiring podcasts and have found value in each one. I like your passion and sincerity. I benefit from the coaching delivered through your discussions with your engaging guests regarding leadership attitudes, skills and practices. I love that you call it the People and Projects podcast. My personal #1 rule is to take care of the people, and your podcasts cover the many dimensions of pursuing that objecti

Total Duration 20:58 Download episode 63 In our last episode I started a conversation with Jim Kouzes about their newly revised book Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It. We continue that conversation in this episode, where I ask Jim for insights such as "How do you keep your credibility when being asked to support a decision you don't agree with?" You can learn more about Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner online at http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!