Chapter 5

Workplace Environment Enablers

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Objectives

What organizational culture is supportive of leadership development? What organizational structure help building unity of effort for reaching the goal and provides clarity of roles with their responsibilities?

How a strong ethical base helps the development of leadership?

What challenges are present at different levels of the project management framework for leadership to cope with?

How to capture the collective wisdom for leadership to make advancement in a strategic direction?

The following are discussed:

• Organizational Culture and Clarity of Structure, Roles and Responsibilities
• Managing Ethics in Workplace
• Leadership Challenges at the Enterprise Wide Program Management Office/Portfolio/Program/Project Levels
• Capture Collective Wisdom—Influence for Results

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What helps leadership to grow in an organization? This question requires extensive research to establish the findings that may help business and industry. In this chapter, the broad line irritants and breeding grounds are discussed to help understand and create a supportive environment.

Organizational design and behavior impacts the development of leadership at different levels both positively and negatively. The structure of an organization supports the advancement of business purpose and the clarity of roles and responsibilities for each team member, thus helping to reach the desired outcomes.

5.1 Organizational Culture, Structure, and Clarity of Roles and Responsibilities

Organizational Culture

Project management leads to the development of a supportive organizational culture. The project management–AURA model discussed earlier [Chapter 4, page 103–109 of Vol-1 Applying Project Management Principles for Organizational Transformation] provides the foundation for practicing leadership that grows out of a strengths-based culture and effectively supports strategic advancement and sustains growth.

The project management culture essentially comprises the following practices (see Figure 5.1):

1. Project management practices
2. Leadership practices
3. Change management practices
4. Organizational learning practices

When project management is adapted in its entirety, all the noted cultural forces come into play; the emerging need is to conscientiously develop and nurture these forces.

The power of project management in the implementation of projects/programs yields a high-performance culture with team-member engagement. The challenges of human aspects remain the same no matter what level a team member may belong to. The clarity in responsibilities and structures of control are pivotal factors, discussed below, for building team-member confidence:

• Framework for management of business strategy
• Management and line of control
• Governance and accountability
• Hierarchy of responsibility
• Visibility and transparency
• Effective monitoring and control
• Communication channels
• Respect for diversity
• Managing human factors
• Leadership for change management and learning
• Agility and collaboration

These factors when put into action build an effective management force.

Here, the team-member engagement—typically defined as a member being involved in and being enthusiastic for work and the workplace—is focused on strength rather than being fixated on weaknesses. In a strength-based culture, one learns the roles more quickly, produces more, significantly performs better, and stays with the organization for longer.

James Harter and Amy Adkins’s book What Managers Do to Engage Employees highlights one study where a vast majority (67 percent) of employees strongly agreed that their manager focused on their strengths or positive characteristics, compared with just (31 percent) who indicated that their managers focused on their weaknesses.

The most powerful action of a project manager is to use the best natural talent, mindset, people skills, and knowledge to develop and apply strengths to an assigned role.

Leadership practices lead to the formation of a culture that is managed through the following(everyone demonstrates leadership behavior):

• Culture of mentoring
• Culture of empowerment
• Critical application of leadership skills
• Leadership foundations
  • Understanding of self
  • Understanding of others
  • Ability to communicate to motivate
  • Defined personal vision
• Development of managerial skills
  • Technical or process skills
  • Management skills
  • Desire to learn leadership role
  • Ability to overcome operational fear

Organizational Structure: Clarity of Roles and Responsibilities

When organizational transformation is carried out in line with project management structures, the business purpose satisfies all stakeholders. A sense of transparency emerges from the structure, roles, and responsibilities that induce enthusiasm for leadership development. The structure is the skeleton that defines the communication channels and line of governance and control, and strengthens the togetherness to achieve a goal. Each level of endeavor has a defined purpose in order to function properly. The significant impacts are noted as follows:

Clarity

The project management structure establishes clarity to know who does what defined responsibilities with what accountability. The structure helps everyone know that there are teams to handle each and every task and each one is responsible for a particular outcome. You can organize teams that are working with one another in any way at any given time to effectively contribute to the desired goal. Structure enables defined roles, functions, scope of work, authority, and systems to work together, to depend on one another, and to trust one another with the promotion of leadership.

Function

An efficient project management structure is based on defined functions for identified tasks to accomplish, with efficient decision making. Organizational controls are exercised through flatter structures with few management levels that help the advancement of leadership culture.

Efficiency

Project management structures enhance efficiency in the team building clarity and trust. Controls on duplicating raw actions or jobs are proactively manageable.

Harnessing Experience

Project management structures help harness experience in systems. You may arrange teams by projects/programs under the portfolio where all necessary functions for execution are grouped together and common functions like marketing, accounting, finance, and corporate legal matters are kept under operations to provide support to projects. The purpose of grouping project functions is to use the experience of professionals to accomplish tasks and desired results. A certain synergism emerges when skilled professionals work together, promoting leadership as a whole for results.

Strong Culture

A strong organizational culture transforms knowledge-based advancements, which may change effectively with the changing requirements when the need arises. A strong culture adjusts to new ways when an organization changes their position in the market to be successful.

Team-Member Morale

Working on a project with clarity of responsibility, authority, and transparency in driving results leads to morale building of a team member. With high morale, productivity increases and team members feel comfortable, offering new ideas to help enhance efficiency.

Communication

The organizational structure defines interdependence for a common goal and provides channels for communication. The -team members involved in a portfolio speak with one another to progress to a common goal and ensure that day-to-day functions go smoothly.

Growth

Project management structures impact organizational growth and make an organization stronger to expand to other geographic regions. In an EPMO, an executive team is required to run the strategic aspects of the business, and there may be a team to support the structure.

5.2 Managing Ethics in Workplace

Organizational ethical management sets the tone for how all the teams run on a day-to-day basis. When the prevailing management philosophy is based on ethical practices and behavior, leaders within an organization direct team members by example and guide them in making decisions that are beneficial not only to them as individuals, but also to the organization as a whole. The foundation of ethical behavior helps create a long-lasting positive effect, attract and retain highly talented individuals, and build and maintain a positive reputation. Running a business in an ethical manner from the top down builds a stronger bond between individuals and the management, further creating stability within the organization for an effective leadership role. The parameters of ethical management are shown in Figure 5.2.

• Implementation and Regular Review of Code of Ethics and Conduct: The code of ethics and conduct needs to be reviewed periodically after implementation, to capture a sign of deviation and necessary corrective action. It’s a regular management action and needs a defined system with responsibility assigned.
• Activating the Whistleblower System and Ethics Hotline: The system developed for monitoring purpose must be able to proactively function for corrective actions before damage.
• Strengthening Ethics Training: The team members need regular training to understand the policy and how to react to an alarming situation.

10 Benefits of Managing Ethics in the Workplace

According to the Complete Guide to Ethics Management, many people are used to reading or hearing the moral benefits of attention to business ethics. However, there are other types of benefits as well. The following list describes various types of benefits of managing ethics in the workplace.

1. Attention to business ethics has substantially improved society.

   A matter of decades ago, children in our country worked 16-hour days. Workers’ limbs were torn off and disabled workers were condemned to poverty and often to starvation. Trusts controlled some markets to the extent that prices were fixed and small businesses choked out. Price fixing crippled normal market forces. Employees were terminated based on personalities. Influence was applied through intimidation and harassment. Then society reacted and demanded that businesses place high value on fairness and equal rights. Antitrust laws were instituted. Government agencies were established. Unions were organized. Laws and regulations were established.

2. Ethics programs help maintain a moral course in turbulent times.

   Wallace and Pekel explain that attention to business ethics is critical during times of fundamental change—times much like those faced now by businesses, both nonprofit and for-profit. During times of change, there is often no clear moral compass to guide leaders through complex conflicts about what is right or wrong. Continuing attention to ethics in the workplace sensitizes leaders and staff to how they want to act—consistently.

3. Ethics programs cultivate strong teamwork and productivity.

   Ethics programs align employee behaviors with those top priority ethical values preferred by leaders of the organization. Usually, an organization finds surprising disparity between its preferred values and the values actually reflected by behaviors in the workplace. Ongoing attention and dialogue regarding values in the workplace build openness, integrity, and community—critical ingredients of strong teams in the workplace. Employees feel a strong alignment between their values and those of the organization. They react with strong motivation and performance.

4. Ethics programs support employee growth and meaning.

   Attention to ethics in the workplace helps employees face reality, both good and bad—in the organization and in themselves. Employees feel full confidence they can admit and deal with whatever comes their way. Bennett, in his article “Unethical Behavior, Stress Appear Linked” (Wall Street Journal 1991), explained that a consulting company tested a range of executives and managers. Their most striking finding: More the number of emotionally healthy executives, as measured on a battery of tests, the more likely they were to score high on ethics tests.

5. Ethics programs are an insurance policy—they help ensure that policies are legal.

   There is an increasing number of lawsuits in regard to personnel matters and effects of an organization’s services or products on stakeholders. Ethical principles are often state-of-the-art legal matters. These principles are often applied to current, major ethical issues to become legislation. Attention to ethics ensures highly ethical policies and procedures in the workplace. It’s far better to incur the cost of mechanisms to ensure ethical practices now than to incur costs of litigation later. A major intent of well-designed personnel policies is to ensure ethical treatment of employees, for example, in matters of hiring, evaluating, disciplining, firing, etc. Drake and Drake (California Management Review, V16, pp. 107–123) note that “an employer can be subject to suit for breach of contract for failure to comply with any promise it made, so the gap between stated corporate culture and actual practice has significant legal, as well as ethical implications.”

6. Ethics programs help avoid criminal acts “of omission” and can lower fines.

   Ethics programs tend to detect ethical issues and violations early on so they can be reported or addressed. In some cases, when an organization is aware of an actual or potential violation and does not report it to the appropriate authorities, this can be considered a criminal act, for example, in business dealings with certain government agencies, such as the Defense Department. The recent Federal Sentencing Guidelines specify major penalties for various types of major ethics violations. However, the guidelines potentially lower fines if an organization has clearly made an effort to operate ethically.

7. Ethics programs help manage values associated with quality management, strategic planning, and diversity management—this benefit needs far more attention.

   Ethics programs identify preferred values and ensure that organizational behaviors are aligned with those values. This effort includes recording the values, developing policies and procedures to align behaviors with preferred values, and then training all personnel about the policies and procedures. This overall effort is very useful for several other programs in the workplace that require behaviors to be aligned with values, including quality management, strategic planning, and diversity management. Total Quality Management includes high priority on certain operating values, for example, trust among stakeholders, performance, reliability, measurement, and feedback. Eastman and Polaroid use ethics tools in their quality programs to ensure integrity in their relationships with stakeholders. Ethics management techniques are highly useful for managing strategic values, for example, expand market share, reduce costs, etc. McDonnell Douglas integrates their ethics programs into their strategic planning process. Ethics management programs are also useful in managing diversity. Diversity is much more than the color of people’s skin—it’s acknowledging different values and perspectives. Diversity programs require recognizing and applying diverse values and perspectives—these activities are the basis of a sound ethics management program.

8. Ethics programs promote a strong public image.

   Attention to ethics also means strong public relations—admittedly, managing ethics should not be done primarily for reasons of public relations. But, frankly, the fact that an organization regularly pays attention to its ethics can portray a strong positive to the public. People see those organizations as valuing people more than profit, as striving to operate with the utmost aim of integrity and honor. Aligning behavior with values is critical to effective marketing and public relations programs. Consider how Johnson and Johnson handled the Tylenol crisis versus how Exxon handled the oil spill in Alaska. Bob Dunn, president and CEO of San Francisco–based Business for Social Responsibility, puts it best: “Ethical values, consistently applied, are the cornerstones in building a commercially successful and socially responsible business.”

9. Overall benefits of ethics programs:

   Donaldson and Davis (1990), explain that managing ethical values in the workplace legitimizes managerial actions, strengthens the coherence and balance of the organization’s culture, improves trust in relationships between individuals and groups, supports greater consistency in standards and qualities of products, and cultivates greater sensitivity to the impact of the enterprise’s values and messages.

10. Lastly, and most importantly, formal attention to ethics in the workplace is the right thing to do.

Eight Guidelines for Managing Ethics in the Workplace

The following guidelines ensure the ethics management program is operated in a meaningful fashion:

1. Recognize that managing ethics is a process.

   Ethics is a matter of values and associated behaviors. Values are discerned through the process of ongoing reflection. Therefore, ethics programs may seem more process-oriented than most management practices. Managers tend to be skeptical of process-oriented activities, and instead prefer processes focused on deliverables with measurements. However, experienced managers realize that the deliverables of standard management practices (planning, organizing, motivating, controlling) are only tangible representations of very process-oriented practices. For example, the process of strategic planning is much more important than the plan produced by the process. The same is true for ethics management. Ethics programs do produce deliverables, for example, codes, policies, and procedures; budget items; meeting minutes; authorization forms; newsletters; etc. However, the most important aspect from an ethics management program is the process of reflection and dialogue that produces these deliverables.

2. The bottom line of an ethics program is accomplishing preferred behaviors in the workplace.

   As with any management practice, the most important outcome is behaviors preferred by the organization. The best of ethical values and intentions are relatively meaningless unless they generate fair and just behaviors in the workplace. That’s why practices that generate lists of ethical values, or codes of ethics, must also generate policies, procedures, and training that translate those values to appropriate behaviors.

3. The best way to handle ethical dilemmas is to avoid their occurrence in the first place.

   That’s why practices such as developing codes of ethics and codes of conduct are so important. Their development sensitizes employees to ethical considerations and minimizes the chances of unethical behavior occurring in the first place.

4. Make ethics decisions in groups, and make decisions public, as appropriate.

   This usually produces better quality decisions by including diverse interests and perspectives, and increases the credibility of the decision process and outcome by reducing suspicion of unfair bias.

5. Integrate ethics management with other management practices.

   When developing the values statement during strategic planning, include ethical values preferred in the workplace. When developing personnel policies, reflect on what ethical values you’d like to be most prominent in the organization’s culture and then design policies to produce these behaviors.

6. Use cross-functional teams when developing and implementing the ethics management program.

   It’s vital that the organization’s employees feel a sense of participation and ownership in the program if they are to adhere to its ethical values. Therefore, include employees in developing and operating the program.

7. Value forgiveness.

   This may sound rather religious or preachy to some, but it’s probably the most important component of any management practice. An ethics management program may at first actually increase the number of ethical issues to be dealt with because people are more sensitive to their occurrence. Consequently, there may be more occasions to address people’s unethical behavior. The most important ingredient for remaining ethical is trying to be ethical. Therefore, help people recognize and address their mistakes and then support them to continue to try and operate ethically.

8. Note that trying to operate ethically and making a few mistakes is better than not trying at all.

   Some organizations have become widely known as operating in a highly ethical manner, for example, Ben and Jerrys, Johnson and Johnson, Aveda, Hewlett Packard, etc. Unfortunately, it seems that when an organization achieves this strong public image, it’s placed on a pedestal by some business ethics writers. All organizations are comprised of people and people are not perfect. However, when a mistake is made by any of these organizations, the organization has a long way to fall. In our increasingly critical society, these organizations are accused of being hypocritical and they are soon pilloried by social critics. Consequently, some leaders may fear sticking their necks out publicly to announce an ethics management program. This is extremely unfortunate. It’s the trying that counts and brings peace of mind—not achieving a heroic status in society.

Project management profession has well-defined ethical standards for professionals to follow and stay disciplined. A general approach is that ethics plus leadership equals to organizational success.

What do pressure, pleasure, power, pride, and priorities have in common? These values comprise the ethics and leadership positions of the project team. Leaders in today’s world are confronted with a great deal of pressure and temptation for shortcuts or fabricating the truth for a short-term gain.

Leaders who have forfeited their innermost being to pleasure and possessions make themselves untrustworthy to their team and set upon on a path of misfortune, taking others with them.

Leaders in a position of power have the potential of abusing that power. When power is viewed as temporary, and not as personal property, it has the tendency to be valuable. When taken any other way, power can be destructive.

Exhibiting pride through confidence and hard work is a positive notion, but exaggerating abilities may be detrimental. When not checked, pride may hinder you from observing your own faults and the needs of others, and leads to ethical pitfalls that lie ahead of you.

A leader has the responsibility to engage the team and utilize their aptitudes in efforts to accomplish a common objective. Furthermore, leaders have an ethical responsibility to take care of team members with dignity and respect by exhibiting sensitivity to the followers’ own interests, needs, and concerns.

Leadership has more of an obligation to treat team members as unique human beings. Ethics is parallel to leadership because of the nature of the development of influence, the engagement of followers to attain milestones, and the impacts leaders have in representing the organization’s values.

Organizations having a strong ethical base help relationship of ethics and leadership combine to create ethical leadership. It is initiated by the way a leader exercises perception and conceptualizes their surroundings. How leaders come to this understanding is through involvement, analysis of judgment, and efforts. This understanding is developed over time through skills, knowledge, and attitude.

Ethical leaders acknowledge the importance of a positive relationship for all organizational accomplishments. These accomplishments are based on the building of respect and trust, and are also the foundation of organizational success. An ethical leader knows that the basis of these relationships originates and evolves in fundamental principles in the area of trust, respect, integrity, honesty, fairness, equity, and compassion. Stephen R. Covey calls these principles the “laws of the universe.”

An organization helps ethical leaders to establish trust, channels for communication and vision, and a code of conduct, to act and monitor and sustain ethical behavior. A leader may accomplish these attributes by mastering the equation of ethical leadership.

Ethics defines the basis or the underlying framework of our workplaces and constitutes the core of our relationships. It consists of several conceptions or notions that affect our personal and business lives. These concepts include trust, judgment, responsibility, duty, obligation, right, damage, values, conduct, and morals.

Ethical Decision Making

Ethics in project management serves as a guide to the choices that are made and actions taken. It deals with character and the way you treat others. It considers the reasons or principles behind choices and the impact or consequences of your actions on others. It is a set of rules and principles. Sometimes it would be more ethical to break codes in a given situation if you are able to justify your decision and actions and accept when others behave in the same way.

Concepts of Ethics

Ethics relies on important concepts that everybody should be aware of. These concepts form crucial parts of ethics and affect how you deal with others:

 

Values are the reasons, motives, or beliefs for your actions or for putting yourself in a given situation.

Code of ethics is a set of guidelines that you rely on when making ethical decisions.

Code of conduct details what you would do in specific situations.

Rights are justifications or excuses for your actions that place obligations on others to consider and respect.

Obligations are commitments imposed by the profession.

Duties are your responsibility requirements to others based on trust.

Responsibility is a moral duty that you are to fulfill to others.

Liability is more or less a legal responsibility on you for all consequences or actions.

Harm is some sort of damage that is inflicted on you without your awareness.

Hurt is the feeling you get when you become aware of the damage.

Trust is created when you promise and fulfill your obligation with others; otherwise it is broken.

Judgment is the decision you make after analyzing a situation and its effects. Judgments can be objective and based on clear principles or rules to be followed (e.g., winning/losing in a contest) or relative to principles that you choose. How ethical your subjective judgment is depends on how you use the concepts above to weigh your decisions ethically with others.

Why Being Ethical Matters

Ethicsphere, an independent center of research promoting best practices in corporate ethics and compliance, released its 2014 list of the world’s most ethical companies. The list contains many globally recognizable mega-corporations such as T-Mobile USA, Delphi, GAP, Microsoft, Schneider Electric, and more.

Ethics also plays an integral part in the way organizations operate. Online communities and social media tend to insist that organizations operate transparently. Thus, behaving ethically in business is of utmost importance for the bottom line. If you take a look at the most profitable and well-known small businesses in your community, you will notice that they generally all have good reviews on sites like Yelp.com, and have a positive image on social media.

The study by Ethicsphere observed that only ethical organizations have continued to survive and grow, whereas unethical ones have shown results only as being a “flash in the pan,” quickly growing and even more quickly dying and being forgotten.

Sometimes the ethical violations committed by the project manager, team members, or organizations look profitable. Cheating customers, avoiding taxes, circumventing costly regulations, and undermining competitors can increase profits and shareholder value. But let’s take a pause here and bring in the perspective of time, purely for the business reason of short term versus long term.

Unethical behavior can be extremely profitable in the short run. But a business is supposed to create long-term value for its customers and shareholders and these tricks will not last for that long.

Being ethical in projects and organizations also pays future dividends. When a project manager or business leader is ethical, often the team members feel very safe and secure enough to air their thoughts, hence making innovation a possibility. Today’s young workforce is very dynamic and full of new-age ideas, and therefore, they feel comfortable joining teams and companies that feed their imagination and ideas. Leaders who are ethical in their practices are the most sought after by the millennial generation.

According to Deloitte’s fourth annual Millennial Survey, which includes 7,800 of tomorrow’s leaders from 29 countries, the value of strong business ethics is increasing. This emphasizes the fact that today’s young workforce also prefers to join ethical organizations that they can trust for their future growth.

5.3 Leadership Challenges at the EPMO/Portfolio/Program/Project Levels

Leadership development is a systematic approach to expand the performance capability of individuals in leadership roles within an organization. It’s not achieved through a single stage or step but rather through a journey that is the process of leadership development.

Leaders possess various characteristics, skills, and abilities that make them stand out as a leader. In different situations, an effective leader will use different approaches to get the desired result. There are three characteristics of leadership, regardless of the situation, position, or role that are universal.

1. A leader gets the job done and achieves results. At the end of the day, the bottom line is whether the job got done or not. The leader is the one who gets the job done. The unfavorable circumstances or other things beyond their control do not stop a leader, when the requirement is to make it happen. In going about getting the results, the leader is confident that the result will be achieved. The leader never doubts, even when things are not going well.
2. A leader engages the team to get results. A leader recognizes that a major goal cannot be achieved single handedly by one person. The leader is a hard worker and able to inspire others to work hard too. The leader has the ability to establish a direction and engage others in pursuing that direction.

   Dwight Eisenhower said, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” This quality of a leader is one of the most important for seeking to be a team leader.

3. A leader makes all the difference. In other words, what got done would not have been accomplished without the leader. Achieving goals and results is not an accident. Results show up only when the leader shows up. You may have a tremendous amount of talent on the team, but without leadership, it cannot be orchestrated to hit a target.

Many skills and attributes make a leader. All of the attributes and skills are captured within the three characteristics outlined above. The real point is that leaders are born to be developed. When your organization or team is not achieving the desired result, look at the leadership and determine what is missing from the leader’s toolbox and help them develop the skills they need to succeed.

The challenges at different levels of structure are as follows:

EPMO Challenges

EPMO/Excellence Center Domain of Responsibilities

• Standards, methodologies, and processes
• Project/program delivery management
• Portfolio management
• Talent management
• Governance and performance management
• Organizational change management
• Administration and support
• Knowledge management
• Strategic plan and implementation planning

The EPMO/Excellence Center essentially is a central office to take ownership of implementing project management frameworks, systems, and processes and serves as a link between top management and teams engaged in strategic initiatives, for the application of OPM and OPM3 for continuous organizational improvement. The project management office is required to manage the dynamics of organizational competence and professionalism to help enhance organizational maturity. The infrastructure for organizational strategic advancement is managed with the defined framework.

The challenges for implementing the project management approach are as follows:

• Diagnosing, designing, developing, and executing a strategy
• Creating a leadership culture that gets results
•  Diagnosing strategic opportunities and readiness
•  Image building and branding
• Building the senior management team
• Creating executable strategy
•  Leveraging resources and capabilities
• Drawing a picture of the future
• Building trust and confidence for project management approaches
• Advancing with collective leadership
• Applying knowledge in a structured manner for projects, programs, portfolios, and OPM3

Leadership Challenges for Portfolio Management

• Right expertise for finding the workable projects to move in a strategic direction
• Work environment for creativity and innovation—an out-of-the-box approach
• Exploring and finalizing the right options
• Providing leadership for portfolio management

Leadership Challenges for Program Management

• Building trust in organizations for reaching the desired outcomes
• Developing a mindset for change management culture
• Fostering enthusiasm and developing a conducive environment
• Facilitating high-performing teams for projects
• Facilitating systems for collaborative leadership
• Developing systems for organizational learning culture
• Promoting the project management—AURA model

Leadership Challenges for Managing Projects

1. Articulating vision
2. Facilitating creativity and innovation
3. Satisfying the leader’s role
4. Meeting the tenets of leadership
5. Building a team mindset
6. Developing high-performing teams
   • a. Motivating
   • b. Knowing the emotional strength of each member
   • c. Team productivity
   • i. Internal factors
   • ii. External factors
   • iii. Management of burnout
   • iv. Notice signs of burnout and rejuvenate team
7. Managing results-driven advancement
8. Interpersonal communication
9. Watch leadership styles for demanding situations
10. Problem solving and decision making
11. Establishing accountability for results
12. Leadership growth for career advancement
13. Implementing project management—AURA model

5.4 Capture Collective Wisdom: Influence for Results

Management of systems is a basic need to help the advancement of a business and implementation of a project.

According to Wikipedia,

A management system is the framework of policies, processes and procedures used by an organization to ensure that it can fulfill all the tasks required to achieve its objectives. These objectives will be a mix covering many aspects of the organization’s operations (including financial success, safe operation, product quality, client relationships, legislative and regulatory conformance, worker management, etc.). For instance, an environmental management system enables organizations to improve their environmental performance and an occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) enables an organization to control its occupational health and safety risks, etc.

Many parts of the management system will be common to a range of objectives, but others may be specific to an individual objective. However, many organizations will require their management system to support a range of many different (and potentially conflicting) objectives.

A simplification of the main aspects of a management system is the four-element approach: “Plan, Do, Check, Act.” A complete management system can include up to 20 elements, covering every aspect of the management system and focused on supporting the performance of the management system to achieve the objectives. The management system should be able to improve its own performance by means of continuous improvement.

The management system elements may include:

1. Leadership involvement and responsibility
2. Identification and compliance with legislation and industry standards
3. Employee selection, Placement & Competency Assurance
4. Workforce involvement
5. Communication with stakeholders (others peripherally impacted by operations)
6. Identification and assessment of potential failures and other hazards
7. Documentation, records, and knowledge management
8. Documented procedures
9. Project monitoring, status, and handover
10. Management of interfaces
11. Standards and practices
12. Management of change and project management
13. Operational readiness and startup
14. Emergency preparedness
15. Inspection and maintenance of facilities
16. Management of critical systems
17. Work control, permit to work, and task risk management
18. Contractor/vendor selection and Management
19. Incident reporting and investigation
20. Audit, assurance and management system review, and Intervention

Delegate to Overcome Suffocation

Management is delegation. Either learns to delegate, or you will be buried in work that others could and should be doing. Managing is the alternative to doing something yourself. Management responsibility is the delegation of tasks to others, and controlling the outcomes. If you could get everything done yourself, there would be no need for the team and staff. You cannot do everything yourself; there needs to be delegation to accomplish goals collectively.

Six Cs of Delegation

Research conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in October 2014 revealed that organizations that practice delegation are more likely to adapt effectively to changing business requirements and generate higher revenues.

Empower your team member by factoring the following Cs of delegation:

1. Context

   When you provide your team members the relevant information, they are more likely to make effective and timely decisions. Help them with context—the “big picture” regarding every task they undertake—and explain why certain assignments should be prioritized.

2. Complete

   Effective delegation, particularly for projects or tasks spanning more than a month, entails dividing deliverables into manageable deadlines. It allows team members to plan work and complete in given timelines.

3. Contribution

   Maximize efficiency and productivity by assigning specific roles and responsibilities and explain what contributions are expected. This will help team members to know the lines of accountability.

4. Contact

   Clearly identify the point of contact for guidance, clarification, and further information during the advancement phases of projects and implementation.

5. Checkpoint

   Schedule checkpoint meetings and compare performance with planned performance; identify reasons that caused slippage and recommend solutions. Such checkpoint meetings ensure that team members are on track with regard to accomplishing targets.

6. Credit

   Be generous and give credit to concerned team members for inputs; recognizing and appreciating them will motivate them to continue performing well. Team members make mistakes; it is the job of the leader to identify the causes and help rectify errors. Never put an end to delegation based on few setbacks.

Professional success is directly proportional to one’s ability to work through others.

The more team members that a leader put to effective use, the greater the success of the leader. If you learn to delegate effectively, your productivity and value rises in an organization.

Brilliant leaders make sure that assignments, particularly complex tasks, are perceived as a compliment when you tell your team members that you know they can handle the tasks you are assigning them, and tell them often. Then raise the bar of performance even higher.

Delegating is essential, it makes everyone happier. Professional team members are motivated through responsibility, authority, and autonomy. Properly presented, delegation will provide teams with the experience they need to develop their careers and at the same time provide both job satisfaction and a challenge.

Delegation Is Essentially a Balancing Act

Delegating is all about entrusting another person with a task, but remaining responsible for it. It is a balancing act between autonomy and control. What authority does the delegate receive with the assignment? How closely should they be watched?

Reluctance to delegate complex tasks demonstrates a reluctance to pass on authority.

Leaders who insist on doing tasks themselves do so because they do not trust anyone else with authority for that task. The less trust a leader has in the skills, capabilities, and judgment of others, the more they will insist on doing the task themselves. When a task is delegated, it comes with some degree of autonomy.

Experience comes from practice.

The Five Steps of Delegation

1. Define task—define objectives and sort workload into manageable chunks
2. Select team member—name delegates based on skills and experience
3. Inform delegate—prepare a brief, explain the plan, and record the process
4. Monitor progress—control and manage
5. Final review—appraise, review, and record outcomes

There are a few rules of thumb to keep in mind with regard to delegating, and that is to do it with trust that someone will do the job well. You must work to develop trust and help the person to develop trustworthiness, or do not retain the person. When you do not delegate effectively, that person becomes a drain on your resources, not an addition. Expect excellence from others. Anything less is an insult.

Delegation is all about communication. Effective delegating requires open, clear communications. Make yourself available to your team and catch problems early. Never criticize—focus on fixes.

Tasks to Retain

• Leadership—taking responsibility of outcomes
• Reward—management of salaries and bonuses
• Control—ensuring that monitoring is logical and effective
• Personnel issues—management of conduct and discipline
• Strategic planning—thinking ahead
• Information flow—effective communications and flow of info
• Performance—assessing outcomes

Not everything is delegated; retain strategic tasks. Anything involving strategic planning, crises, or sensitive issues must be retained by the leader. The key to brilliant management is making sure that these are the only types of tasks that you are performing yourself.

Delegation starts with systems; develop a structure to stick to them. For complex projects, draw up plans; work with the team involved to identify the tasks for which everyone is responsible. Post the plan and refer to it often. Part of delegating is answering questions. Make yourself available. Do not let uncertainties stay for long.

Be Positive in Your Feedback

Everyone wants and needs feedback. Help mediocre team members develop into great performers. Make feedback constructive and focus on what went right and how the bad parts are done better the next time.

Arrange performance reviews at roadblocks and at completion. Analyze and report honestly what has gone well and what has gone bad. Gaining from experience requires that all know the experience was good or bad—discuss and digest the lessons learned.

Summary

Organizations are required to become the breeding grounds for leadership development for their own good. The project management culture flourishes in the project management framework to reach a goal in portfolio where roles and responsibilities are well defined.

Ethical leadership outgrows from project management ethical foundations ingrained in an organization and helps achieve high performance.

Leadership challenges are highlighted for different levels of the project management framework to help leaders stand up to them.

Collective wisdom is an endeavor to help teams in a portfolio unite in their efforts to reach the desired results.

References

Thanissaro Bhikku. “Buddha Test for Measuring Wisdom.”

The first Psalm. “Human Factors.”

Buddhism. “Eightfold path to Nirvana.”

King, Jr., M.L., and M. Gandhi. “Wisdom of Peace and Freedom for All.”

Mandela, M. ”Wisdom of Forgiveness.”

Ethical Management Parameters. http://www.kic.kr/en/01/06/01.jsp

Complete Guide to Ethics Management. https://managementhelp.org/businessethics/ethics-guide.htm

Wallace, G., and J. Pekel. “Business Ethics is Critical During Times of Fundamental Change.”

Bennett A. 1991. “Unethical Behavior, Stress Appear Linked.” Wall Street Journal 11.

Drake and Drake. California Management Review 16, pp. 107–123.

Donaldson, J., and P. Davis. 1990. “Business Ethics? Yes, But What Can It Do for the Bottom Line?.” Management Decision 28, no. 6.