Interpersonal Skills in Project Management

Soft skills, leadership, and emotional intelligence are very important in project management.  The content in this section touches on project management interpersonal competencies.

 

Project Management Confidence

Every project manager occasionally falls down. Read our Blog Post for tips on how to build your confidence.

 

Validate Critical Data

Let me guess, you’ve inherited some facts that you have been told are very, very important. Let’s make sure they’re right.  Read our Blog Post on the importance of validating critical data.

 

Creativity in Project Management

Creative innovators and problems solvers often make good project managers. Certain techniques such as lateral thinking, and the approaches described in the Medici Effect, can reap huge benefits for project teams that are mentally stuck while trying to problem solve.

Interested in learning more?  Take a look at this workshop that we could bring to your team.

 

Intuition?

Lou Russel says this about intuition: 

“Rapid cognition based on years of experience enables many of us to make good decisions quickly without all the data.  Researchers at the University of Chicago have found that it takes about 10 years to get really good at something.  Once there, you develop an intuition for quick decisions.  Although these decisions seem to appear out of nowhere, they are actually based on the patterns you have learned.    How can we grow our intuition, especially if we dont have ten years to wait?  Find a great leader and pay attention to the decisions made.  Leverage and learn from his or her intuition (and experience).

 Types of Power

There are five types of powers the project manager yields:

  1. Reward
  2. Formal
  3. Coercive (penalty)
  4. Expert
  5. Referent

Among the above powers Reward, Formal and Coercive (penalty) come with the “Position”. Expert and Reward are considered the best types of powers and Coercive (penalty) is “Least” for obvious reasons.

Quotes

“Management works in the system; leadership works on the system.”     Stephen Covey

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”     John C. Maxwell

“You have to have your heart in the business and the business in your heart.”     Thomas J. Watson, Sr.

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