Jaeger Consultants Ltd

Let’s explore mentorship a bit more.

Why is mentorship important in Project Management?

Project Management is more and more about people management. You need to try and bring out the best in your team. So in many situations you may find it necessary to mentor – if you are a subject matter expert – guide someone else to mentor, who is a subject matter expert, or coach a team member. It is important to know what to do when and who to involve.

Yesterday we said a mentor is an experienced person who advises and helps some body with less experience over a period of time (Advanced Learners Oxford Dictionary). We also said A mentor is someone who shares their knowledge, skills and/or experience, to help another to develop and grow. (pushfar.com website)

What is Mentorship all about?

A mentorship engagement is a more formal engagement, in which clear goals are defined, a timeline is set. The mentor needs to be a subject matter expert and have relevant experience. This is all well and good. But what I am asking myself is what personality should a Mentor have and what should he bring to the table, so that a mentor does not become an instructor, but someone who nurtures the mentee.

To me a good mentor has these skills & attributes

Skills:

• Listening
• Leadership
• Good time keeping
• Organization skills
• Ability to structure content & explain in different ways if necessary
• Relationship building skills
• Empathy & Emotional Intelligence

Attributes:

• Humility
• Attentive listener
• Willing to give yourself and share your life & experience
• Willingness to serve
• Willingness to make a commitment to mentorship & be held accountable

Wow, You can see being a mentor is not a simple thing, it takes a whole lot out of you. But I have also found it very enriching. I always learn a lot from each mentee I engage with and find the human relationships you build amazing!

And it can be fun! So let’s develop the right attitude and start giving back by mentoring!

#Leadership #Projectmanagement #projectmanagers

We all talk about Mentoring and Coaching, yet these 2 terms are very misunderstood. That’s why I want to spend the next few days discovering these a bit more. Many, when they talk about mentoring or coaching, actually mean instructing. For example, the sports coach is traditionally often seen as more of an instructor. But when you look at the really successful sports coaches you will see instruction is a very small part of what they do. They work with the rest of the coaching team to help the individual sportsmen / women to progress in their performance on a totally different level. Real coaching!

So, let’s look at the 3 terms. For this I like looking at the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.

Instruct somebody (in something): (Formal) To teach somebody something, especially a practical skill / to give someone information about something

Mentor: an experienced person who advises and helps some body with less experience over a period of time

Coaching: Here Oxford Advanced Learners refers mainly to the Sports Coach

Life coach: a person who is employed by somebody to give them advice about how to achieve the things they want in their life & work

I think here you are already starting to see the difference:

• Instructing is when you tell someone what to do.
• Mentoring is done by a subject matter expert who guides, but does not instruct.
• A Coach does not even need to be a subject matter expert. S/he helps direct the thought process and sort the thoughts of the person being coached.

But let’s look at what the experts say:

https://www.pushfar.com/article/mentoring-vs-coaching-the-key-differences-and-benefits/#:~:text=A%20mentor%20is%20someone%20who,another%20to%20develop%20and%20grow.&text=A%20coach%20is%20someone%20who,them%20reach%20their%20full%20potential.

The Definitions of Coaching and Mentoring

Mentoring: The Definition
A mentor is someone who shares their knowledge, skills and/or experience, to help another to develop and grow.

Coaching: The Definition
A coach is someone who provides guidance to a client on their goals and helps them reach their full potential.

	Mentoring	Coaching
Time frame	Long Term (6 months +)	Often Short Term
Intent	Knowledge sharing, experience sharing	Poses the right questions, prepares space, trust & confidence for self-development
Skill Level	No certification required	Should have training in coaching
Directive	Directive	Non-directive / suggestive
Aim	Development Driven	Performance Driven
Skills required	– Willingness to help – Subject matter knowledge & experience – Relationship building – Interpersonal skill – Long-term commitment – Motivator – Inspirational	– Relationship building – relationship of equals – Ability to maximize resources – InspirationalAbility to recognize strengths & challenge individuals – Ability to make it real and find balance between interpersonal skills and practical skills – Ability to help sort & focus thoughts and ideas
Goal setting	Clear Goals Set	Clear Goals Set

We’ll be looking more into details over the next few days.

#givingback #payingforward #leadership #truegiving

This week the www.projectmanagement.com page is headlining articles on giving back. This made me remember a big lesson I learned in live. There was a time when I went through real hardships. I had lost my job due to my Ex-Husband trying to take revenge and having found a way to influence the HR Manager in the company I used to work for. He had also made my file in Immigration “disappear” and I was really at rock bottom. No hope nowhere to go and frustrated endlessly. But I kept on running with my running buddies. One day one of them asked me to come to his office the next day. Unbeknown to me he had been told by another friend about my situation. So when I got to his office he asked me first how I am surviving. I didn’t want him to know that I had no money at all, I had actually just walked about 7km to get to his office. He gave me a good amount of money and apologized for not having more, then he told me to come back a week later for the second amount. I was totally overwhelmed with such caring. Then we talked a while and he offered me help to sort out my issue in immigration. Meanwhile another running buddy linked me up with his wife and I got a job.

Both asked me only for one thing in return: Pay forward! When you are back on your feet make sure you help someone else in need!

Change your Attitude

I think this is an attitude we all need to take on.

When you see someone in need, give them an unexpected gift for which you expect nothing in return. Giving a helping hand to someone who is at rock bottom and needs real help is what can give them the boost they need to get back on their feet.

Giving back and paying forward can have many faces:

• Help someone with practical things, or money
• Give true advise
• Introduce someone to the right connection that can help them
• Mentorship or Coaching
• The gift of time: Take time to truly listen to someone who is down and under, can give them the encouragement they need to continue with life and not give up

True leadership is about giving people a helping hand and guiding them on the way. Not telling them what to do, but helping them sort their thoughts and come up with their own ideas.

How can you help someone today?

#leadership #servantleadership

A book that has really shaped how I perceive leadership and how I am working on improving my own leadership skills is “The Leadership Challenge” by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. The book builds on over 40 years of research. What really struck me when first reading the book was that, no matter where in the world you live, these 5 practices of exemplary leadership are among the top practices mentioned. This is regardless of culture, gender, age and other variables. It has not changed over the 40+ years they have been doing their research.

I have seen many times in my life that these practices are applicable and successful. Those who have heard me speak and / or read my articles know that I do refer to this book often. I simply think it is an amazing book that I often go back to.

The 5 Practices of Exemplary Leadership

The 5 Exemplary Practices are:

• Model the Way – it is so important to be a role model. Don’t expect your team for example to report at 8am, if you routinely come in later than that. If you expect them to deliver on timelines, make sure you deliver on your timelines regularly. If you want them to be kind and professional to others they encounter in line of duty, then you need to be kind and professional to them, and to those you encounter.

• Inspire a shared Vision – Leaders are visionaries. Yes, we need those leaders who have the great overall vision. However in your day-to-day work you also need to create a vision. I always remember the example of the Cleaner in the 1960s in the Nasa Base. When asked what he was doing, he said “I am helping put man on the moon”. This wasn’t arrogance, but this person had understood the importance of his work to the overall vision & goal of the company. He knew he was enabling the engineering geniuses to do their work and hence he was playing his part in putting man on the moon. This also shows that there must have been a very visionary leader who talked to all, and I mean all, employees and stakeholders to create that shared vision. As a leader it is important to create the bigger picture, the vision for your team. You are not just building a school, but you are enabling future students to learn and achieve their highest goals. You are not only building a Hospital, but you are creating future healing and joy. As you create this vision go beyond the obvious and get into the human factor.

• Challenge the Process – This is tough for some, especially when they created the process. Yet every time you use the process you need to ask yourself, if it is applicable this time, if it is working and if things can be done differently, more effective

• Enable Others to Act – You as the leader are the one who needs to identify and remove all stumbling blocks, all hindrances for your team to perform. Check if they have the right environment, the right equipment etc. If not, YOU need to sort it out. If someone is still not performing you need to take time for them and find out what is hindering them internally. Is there a problem? An unidentified Angst? A conflict? Anything else?

• Encourage the heart – Even if you have enabled the team you still need to encourage them. A leader who praises and encourages will nurture their team to perform much better.

Let’s use these practices

Let’s all train ourselves to use these 5 practices of exemplary leadership and we will all become better leaders.

https://www.leadershipchallenge.com/

You can buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Challenge-Extraordinary-Things-Organizations/dp/1119278961

Did you know that you can be a leader without title power? Even in our environment! Often project managers only have limited decision making power and function more like a project coordinator. Yet they are responsible like a project manager. Even here you can be a true leader.

Leadership is about

• How you treat your team members
• How much empathy you have
• Having emotional intelligence
• Having relationship intelligence & purposefully building meaningful relationships
• Building people up to see them shine – not shine yourself
• Enabling people
• Removing barricades, red tape & stumbling blocks for your team

Being a true leader requires you to have a big heart for growing people. Leadership also demands humbleness. Actually, Leadership is not about you and your shining results, but about bringing the best out in your team, nurturing them to grow beyond what they thought is possible.

Leave old believes behind

That old picture of the “powerful leader” who makes decisions and tells people what to do, actually describes a Manager and not a leader. This idea of leadership is also outdated. If you have the willingness to dedicate your work to helping others grow and nurturing them, then you are on the leadership journey.

Let’s all work on becoming better leaders this year. We do not need the title power, we just need the willingness to make a change!

Project Management is People Management

I totally agree with Cornelius Fichtner, that Project Management is primarily People Management. The fact that many of the “technical skills” like preparing WBS, Network Diagrams, Gantt Charts etc by hand are now being taken over by software or even AI, is a big opportunity. Now we have the time & possibility to become true people managers. If you dedicate the time to your team, you will see amazing results. You will find, that your team will execute projects with outcomes you never expected.