06: The Great Mother

Much has been written about what a project manager needs to do but very little on the way he should do it.  We have all probably met 'hard' project managers, who drive their team and themselves, but it is maybe more difficult to recall the 'soft' project managers, the ones who achieve quietly and seemingly with little effort.
  
The Way  
The wise project manager brings out his feminine side (unless of course she already happens to be one of the 20% of project managers who is a woman, in which case be thankful and be yourself), for this is the way of the project manager.

The spirit of the valley does not die,  
It might be called the Great Mother.  
The origin of heaven and earth.  
Ever present and everlasting.  
Use it, it will never fail.  

Based on “The Way of the Project Manager” by John Carroll (ISBN 978-1481076111), published by CreateSpace and available from Amazon in hard copy and on Amazon Kindle.

05: Grass Dogs

I have just got back from three weeks in Australia and am slowly catching up with things. One nice piece of news is that I have been asked to join the blog team for the PMI Netherlands Summit in June, which should be fun.

‘Grass dogs’ is the term used in The Tao to indicate that things might be good or bad and it is quite normal that some project team members will be better at certain things than others.  I smile when people raise things like Belbin roles as a pre-requisite when selecting project teams as in my experience you are lucky to get people with the technical skills you need, let alone team skills.  At the end of the day the wise project manager works with the people he gets given.  

The Way
The light of awareness shines equally on what is good and what is bad.  One person is as worthy as the next.  

Heaven and Earth are not humane,  
Considering all things as grass dogs.  
The sage is not humane,  
Considering all as grass dogs.  

Based on “The Way of the Project Manager” by John Carroll (ISBN 978-1481076111), published by CreateSpace and available from Amazon in hard copy and on Amazon Kindle.