Do You Manage Like a Coach or a Referee?

I was watching my daughter’s soccer game a few days ago and made an observation. I saw her coach standing on the sidelines doing his job. And I saw the referee out in the middle of the field doing his. I’ve never confused the two roles. They each have a...

How Not Trusting Your Team Kills Productivity

Have you ever played volleyball when one person tries to play every position? He runs all over your team’s half of the court hitting volleys that should rightfully be hit by other teammates. Because he is running to other positions, his hits are bad. He plays...

How Making Noise Hurts Your Team’s Productivity

It can be a difficult transition when someone makes the move from worker bee to management. You find yourself going from someone who had lots of tasks and was always busy, to being in an oversight position. Certainly a manager keeps busy. There are plenty of things to...

How Focusing on the Wrong Things Causes You to Fail

Office coffee politics Once early in my career I worked on a project in which I attended weekly client meetings where we reported our status to one of the executives. This particular executive had an agenda for the meeting each week. He would list the projects from...

How To Deal With the Renegade Team Member

Every once in a while – maybe even more often than that – you experience a renegade team member who wants to do things his way rather than what you’ve tried to set as the norm. When this happens, the project manager has to decide whether to act and what to do if...