I haven’t blogged on this topic before, but I have several friends struggling with their marriage and have this on my mind and heart. Let me start off by saying that I am no different than you. I have good days in my marriage, and bad. I’ve messed up and lost my wife’s respect before. But, I’ve somehow managed to stay married for 25 years and think that my wife respects me… at least most of the time… or some of the time. You know, with women it’s always hard to tell what they’re thinking (just kidding!). Here is some advice on how to gain your wife’s respect.
Agile Project Management seems to be all the buzz in project management circles these days. If you subscribe to any PM website, blog or newsletter you’re sure to run into articles promoting Agile PM or comparing it to a more traditional model, or lambasting it as nonsense. After reading a number of these… I just don’t get it. Or perhaps I do. Are we just repackaging good common sense, or looking for ways to make PM sexy?
Over the weekend I read an entry in my journal that I wrote in 2006 and was mildly surprised when I realized that not much has changed in my life. I did accomplish a few things, but hadn’t even come close to achieving all that I had hoped to. This was a great wake up call for me as I realized that I have grown complacent. It is easy to do.
I had a hard day today. I had to get up at 5am to get to Starbucks early enough to get my favorite seat. I struggled with my day trading this morning as I sipped on coffee, before heading into my client who keeps extending me in this tough economy. It was slow today because we just successfully completed a very long project. I went shopping later in the afternoon but couldn’t find anything at the outlet mall. Then my wife had the audacity to call and ask if I wanted to go to see Date Night with her. A chick flick… c’mon. I had to put off my work out until after the movie and then had a frozen DiGiorno for dinner. Yeah… I had a tough day.
I hope you can hear the sarcasm in my voice, but the funny thing is… I really was in a bad mood today. Despite all my blessings, I chose to be in a bad mood. Don’t ask me why. Then I had a chat with Victor, the janitor at Gold’s Gym. I’ve known Victor for about two years, and although I don’t know him well, he seems like a nice guy. We always stop to chat for a few minutes while I’m at the gym. Victor told me a story that made me realize how lucky I really am….
As a leader, it is important that you understand this one thing. Everyone searches for significance. A leader, helps others in this quest. We can talk all we want about profits, excellence and efficiencies, but when you get right down to it, these are just side notes that distract us from what we all want. To matter. To know that what we do matters. If you help others in this quest, you cannot help but succeed in whatever you are doing.
There is no greater challenge than trying to manage your boss. We all have one. Vice Presidents have Presidents and CEOs have the Board. Husbands have wives, wives have their husbands, even the most powerful man in the world, the US President, has to work with Congress, the Supreme Court and arguably, the people. So how do you go about managing your boss?
I had a deep chat with a friend today about dreams and careers. My friend, I’ll call him Bob, is at a crossroads in his life. He has worked for the same employer for 15 years. He works hard and is creative. He is a visionary with lofty ideals and big aspirations when it comes to quality. The organization he is at? Not so much. So he’s asking himself this question, “Am I selling myself short?” Before I answer, let me ask you a question. What about you? Are you in a similar situation? If you are, there are a few things you should be considering.
I’ve trained quite a few project managers over the years, but not many project sponsors. That’s a problem. Too many organizations ensure they have processes in place and trained project managers to use them, but ignore the project sponsor. While you may be tempted to think project sponsors don’t need training, informal polls among my students indicate that sponsors rarely understand their role, resulting in dysfunction. I continually emphasize that even the best project managers cannot succeed if the project environment is dysfunctional.
I’m currently reading a book called The Little Book of Behavioral Investing: How not to be your own worst enemy (Little Book, Big Profits) by James Montier. While the book centers around investing, the premises in the book are very applicable to leadership and life in general.
I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflecting lately, a hazard of being 52 I suppose. There are lots of ups and of course some downs. I was chatting with a friend at work yesterday, and while we’re both happy and certainly blessed, we just aren’t where we thought we would be at this point in our lives.
I started to ponder how to go about making changes going forward and realized that my life today was a result of choices and decisions I made along life’s journey. While that is pretty obvious, sometimes we for forget that we are where we are… for a reason. If you want to make a change in your life, you need to change the things that got you to where you are.
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