The project management paradox

You can learn to master a Gantt chart in a day, but you will spend your whole career – sometimes imperfectly – learning how to lead projects.

Although everyone, everywhere, needs to learn to work in teams, in projects you must also work with multiple independent experts, often from multiple independent companies, where each is reliant on all the others voluntarily giving their best.

Tom Peters suggests that, in that case, there are seven paradoxes you must learn to master.

Be an Autocrat and Delegator

The perfect project manager needs to be an autocrat and a delegator. 

When the chips are down, the project manager must issue the orders, fast – for example, when the lights go out in the conference centre with 5,000 people streaming in! 

On the other hand, she or he needs to be a masterful delegator: in that crisis (when the lights go out), lighting experts should own the problem and take the initiative to deal with the situation before the chief ever becomes aware of it.

Be a Leader and Manager

The perfect project manager needs to be a leader and a manager. 

Today’s project managers, more so than in traditional settings, are only as good as their teammates’ commitment, energy, and diverse skills. 

So, project managers must be leaders – visionaries and invigorators. 

On the other hand, ‘management’ means being an expert at the mechanics. 

Stellar project bosses match a passion for inspiring others with a love for the nuts and bolts of the job.

Tolerate Ambiguity and Pursue Perfection

The perfect project manager needs to tolerate ambiguity and pursue perfection. 

After all, the essence of complex projects is ambiguity – the only constant is change. 

Effective project managers handle uncertainty with coolness and a sense of humor. 

But they must have equal zeal for the tidy. 

The downfall of botched projects is often caused by something trivial.

Communicate Orally and in Writing

The perfect project manager needs well-developed oral and written communication skills. 

Most people have either a verbal or a ‘put it in writing’ bias – top project managers must have both. 

In as much as you can insist on an audit trail of memos to document every this or that, dealing orally, on the fly, must come just easily. 

However, project managers must also be compulsive about the written master plan and the daily to-do list.

Acknowledge Complexity and Champion Simplicity

The perfect project manager needs to acknowledge complexity and champion simplicity.

Nothing is more complex than a sophisticated, multi-organisation project.

Effective project managers must juggle a thousand balls of differing (and ever-changing!) shapes and sizes.

On the other hand, they must be ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid‘ champions, ensuring that a few essential values dominate the delivery (for example, nobody misses the 7am Monday meeting).

Think Big and Think Small

The perfect project manager needs to think big and think small. Project managers must appreciate both the forests and the trees.

Those fixated with the ‘big picture’ will trip up over the particulars.

Yet project managers obsessed with excessive attention to detail may miss the main point.

Success means seeing the relationship of the tiny to the large, and the large to the tiny at every moment.

Be Patient and Impatient

Finally, the perfect project manager needs to be impatient and patient.

Project managers must be action fanatics: get on with it; don’t dwell on yesterday’s hiccups.

At the same time, they run a network with fragile egos, multiple cultures, and complex relationships.

But of course, project managers don’t ‘run’ networks at all – they are, at most, first among equals.

Forget the word ‘sub-contractor’ and think co-contractor.

When one deals with equals, devoting lots of time to relationship building becomes as important as impatiently pushing for action.

To this I would add one other:

Be proactive and reactive

The early stages of a project (initiation and planning) are all about proactively anticipating and putting in place management responses to the risks inherent in taking on your unique endeavor.

Despite this, risk can never be reduced to zero – you must be equally skilled at reacting to the ever-changing stakeholder and operating environment, taking advantage of opportunity, and leveraging change.

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The perfect project manager

All a project manager needs is…

…the intelligence of Einstein 

…the integrity of a High Court Judge

…the savvy of James Bond 

…the charm of Marilyn Monroe

…the charisma of George Clooney 

…the emotional intelligence of Jacinda Arden

…the imagination of Stephen King

…the negotiating skills of a horse trader

…the planning skills of the Politburo

…the personal drive of Richard Branson

…the financial acumen of George Soros

…the ethics of Gandhi

…the skin of a crocodile 

…the patience of a saint

…clean shoes and minty fresh breath!

Source: G. Michael Campbell

The honest project manager will be able to tell you about how they have failed in projects past. 

The great ones will describe how they learned from these failures and continue to hone their art.

We do know that successful project managers are never perfectly rounded, but they can access and synthesize the right mix of team attributes and skills to meet the needs of their given project. 

And, because no two projects are perfectly the same, that mix will always vary.

But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?