Developing a project learning organization is something that everyone agrees is important but that few attempt. Learning through projects could be the re- sponsibility of a project office, but that requires project reviews, most of which are sporadic at best. Some organizations require reviews of all projects, but the information is shared only within the team. Few organizations have a mechanism to share the learning of one team with another. Information is ba- sically free at the end of a project, and everyone seems to agree that sharing it is an important way to increase project management skills in the organization.
But few organizations actually avail themselves of this free yet priceless infor- mation. Why not?
One reason is organizational perversity. Some upper managers say they want people to learn from other projects but do not reward or support the necessary reviews of those projects. Ideally, they would ask for reviews of all projects and support the idea and process of sharing learning with other project managers.
However, a more important reason may be that though people learn from their mistakes, sharing project learning also reveals project mistakes. Only the rare organization rewards people for mistakes; thus most people hide them and try only to show the “right stuff.” Most people have a public self that they show
to others and a real self that they hide from public view. As organizations com- prise people, they too exhibit a public persona and a private persona. The pub- lic persona usually requires that everything be done right—that there be no mistakes. Thus, any mistakes tend to be hidden from customers and others, who are fed a steady stream of the right stuff. Employees learn this from senior managers, and if the senior managers are seen hiding the truth, they tend to do the same. This reinforces the notion that hiding behavior is natural, which is an- other example of organizational perversity: what is desired is a learning organi- zation, but what is rewarded is covering up mistakes.
Too few organizations reward learning, because true learning requires leadership of the kind that goes against well-established norms and that re- wards what is really best for the organization. O’Toole describes this as value- based leadership, which is based on what is morally right even if it goes against the norm.13For example, Jesus Christ is often considered a value-based leader because his message of forgiveness went against the norms of his times. Like- wise Mahatma Gandhi’s message of nonviolence went against the behavioral norms of his time and place. Yet both were able to effect massive social change, mainly because their message was morally right and they stuck to it despite as- saults from all sides. Says O’Toole (p. 11): “In complex, democratic settings, ef- fective leadership will entail the factors and dimensions of vision, trust, listening, authenticity, integrity, hope and, especially, addressing the true needs of followers. . . . Such a philosophy must be rooted in the most funda- mental of moral principles: respect for people.”
For the value-based project management leader, the vision should be one of an open organization where mistakes are openly discussed and the learning value of the error is appreciated. This is particularly necessary in a project or- ganization where people are constantly doing something new, which is where mistakes are most likely. Mistakes, it must be understood, are merely after-the- fact judgments of decisions made with incomplete knowledge. The line be- tween hero and goat is often very thin; a decision may be a big success or a huge failure depending on how subsequent events unfold. So the first step in developing true learning from experience is to avoid labeling erroneous deci- sions as mistakes, but rather to consider them as decisions that did not work out as planned. Beyond that, discussion should center on why things went other than as planned: from this, learning occurs.
Developing trust in this vision is difficult. If the company has a long his- tory of berating people for mistakes, it may be almost impossible. Trust builds only after a long period during which upper managers repeatedly and consis- tently discuss mistakes with an open mind and with the goal of maximizing learning from them and not maximizing the guilt of some scapegoat. Honestly perusing the reasons why a decision did not work out is the best way to ensure better decisions in the future. Hanging a scapegoat merely ensures that the reasons for failure will never be discovered; thus the same mistake might be made again and again. Upper management will not be trusted until it sees that people who discuss mistakes are no longer made the scapegoats.
The change to open discussion must be made with authenticity and in- tegrity or it will never take hold. Organization members are very well tuned to the f lavor of the week approach to management: If upper managers do not re- ally mean what they say about understanding the reasons for mistakes, people will assume that the new management style is just a fad and that things will soon return to normal. In other words, no change will happen.
Integrity in this context means that upper managers actually do some- thing with the project learning information they receive to help make things better in the future, rather than fire or otherwise berate the messenger. They adopt new learnings into their values and belief systems, adapt them to the current situation, and apply them consistently—not just until a new idea or cri- sis comes along. Simply put, authenticity and integrity mean that upper man- agers really want what they ask for and will do what they said they would do. It seems so simple, but most organization members seem to think that their upper managers lack authenticity and integrity. When that feeling is prevalent, trust cannot possibly develop and the learning organization remains a fiction.
The final part of value-based leadership is meeting the true needs of or- ganizational members. Most project managers and most people in general truly need little more than the authenticity and integrity just described.
THE COMPLETE UPPER MANAGER
Hewlett-Packard Executive Vice President Rick Belluzzo expressed his com- mitment to project management at HP by his presence, his words, and his willingness to answer the tough questions presented to him at the company’s Project Management Conference.14This event provided him the opportunity to share his values, beliefs, hopes, and concerns with those closest to manag- ing the action throughout the company. He emphasized the “concept, belief, strong principle I have about focus.It can be applied to everything we do.
There is so much more value that if there are ten things you can do, pick one or two to do extremely well, and then go on to the third one. This is so much more valuable and so much more rewarding than trying to cover everything and doing a mediocre job.” In his statements, he demonstrated values-based leadership, shared his thought processes, provided one answer to the issue of doing too many projects, and empathized with the desire of all to accomplish great results through projects. It is heartwarming when we can point to man- agers who act with authenticity and integrity.
The Successful Complete Upper Manager
• Conducts an inventory of all projects under way and optimizes the project portfolio.
• Examines how important project management is to the organization.
• Develops a project management program or office.
• Uses an assessment and prioritization process to select projects.
• Gets training or outside assistance to improve the ability to manage proj- ect managers.
• Recognizes the profession of project management and invests in training project managers.
• Learns from mistakes, avoids organizational perversities, and builds a trusting, open organization.
NOTES
1. D. Cohen and J. Kuehn, “Navigating between a Rock and a Hard Place: Recon- ciling the Initiating and Planning Phases to Promote Project Success.” Paper presented at the Project Management Institute 27th annual seminar/symposium (Boston, 1996).
2. J. Kennel, “Creating a Project Management Culture in a Global Corporation,”
Proceedings of the Project World Conference(Santa Clara, CA: December 1996).
3. J. Martin, “Revolution, Risk, Runaways: The Three R’s of IS Projects,” Pro- ceedings of the Project Management Institute 25th Annual Seminar/Symposium (Upper Darby, PA: Project Management Institute, 1994).
4. R. Storeygard, “Growing Professional Project Leaders,” Proceedings of the Project Management Institute 26th Annual Seminar/Symposium (Upper Darby, PA:
Project Management Institute, 1995).
5. R. J. Graham, “A Process of Organizational Change: From Bureaucracy to Project Management Culture,” The AMA Handbook of Project Management, ed.
P. Dinsmore (New York: AMACOM, 1993).
6. T. Abraham, “Leveraging the R&D Marketing Interface: Finding and Exploit- ing the ‘C’ in R&D,” Proceedings of the Product Development and Management Asso- ciation International Conference 1995(Bloomington, MN: October 14, 1995).
7. See note 2.
8. R. J. Graham, “The Complete Project Manager,” Software (Philadelphia:
Strategic Management Group, 1991).
9. D. R. Blackburn, “And Then a Miracle Happened: Cost /Schedule Performance Management on the Iridium Program,” Proceedings of the Project World Conference, Session D-4 (Santa Clara, CA: December 14, 1996).
10. See note 2.
11. D. Ono, “Implementing Project Management in AT&T Business Communica- tions System,”PM Network(October 1990): 9–19.
12. ComputerWorld(February 26, 1996): SI 14–19.
13. J. O’Toole, Leading Change: Overcoming the Ideology of Comfort and the Tyranny of Custom(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995).
14. R. Belluzzo. Paper presented at the Hewlett-Packard Project Management Conference 1996 (San Diego, CA: April 1996).
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