Am I Ready to Manage? Lessons from Risk Management

One of the people I was mentoring mentioned to me that there is a possible promotion with the expectation of managing people. Having been a project manager for some time, the person asked me if the person is ready to manage people. I have always felt that "P" in "Project" is all about managing "People" (Rajagopalan, 2015). So, naturally I felt that this person had the capabilities, skills, and competencies. The larger question is not being ready but being good enough to manage people. There are things about managing people's performance and having responsibility for their career, some of which can be known. Then, there are areas about equal employment opportunity, diversity and harassment considerations, and many other human resources related concepts. The lack of knowledge about unknowns morphs the question of being ready. 

I reasoned with the concepts of risk management discipline that this person was confident about. In my mind, Risk Management is about using change management principles to balance chaos and control. The risk management discipline promotes the notion of risks that we know about and the risks that we know about their impact on objectives. Consequently, extending the risks that we don't know, or we don't know the impact of, we come up with four categories of known-known, known Unknown, Unknown-Known, and Unknown-Unknown. 

I view the unknown-unknown as a category of risks that belong to chaos. Due to the unpredictable nature and the unknown impact on our objectives, we need to be diligent. Regardless of how diligent we are, we can never be prepared enough. So, this is where we connect with probing for what happened, analyze what we could have done, and we can sense them better in the future. As you can see, the more we do this type of probe-analyze-sense, the more we are becoming of the impact and so moving them towards the right to establish chaotic control.  So, when such similar risks hover on the horizon, we can now probe but our prior knowledge helps to categorize (risk breakdown structure) and sense the preemptive treatments. So, although it is somewhat chaotic, we are establishing some level of chaotic control. 

On the other hand, if we can study the chaos and understand its root cause, we know more about its existence but require more understanding of these risks manifest. These types of risks are then becoming controlled chaos requiring us to sense-analyze and then categorize. The more we analyze both these chaotic control and controlled chaos, the more we are controlling the influence (both their likelihood and impact) of risks on the project objectives. I am sure some of you can relate to the similarities of categorizing projects like the Fog (Unknown-Unknown), Quest (Known-Unknown), Movie (Unknown-Known) and Paint by Numbers (Known-Known) (Rajagopalan, 2018) based on risk management discipline. These concepts are illustrated below.

Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan's synthesis of Emotional Intelligence Concepts with Risk Management

So, how does this risk management discipline help with our questions of assessing if we are ready to manage or lead? The important thing in managing people is to illustrate to ourselves that we are good leaders. This means that we use ourselves as the instrument of emulating the behaviors we want in the people we manage. That thought borrows from emotional intelligence by first becoming consciously aware of us (self-awareness is rooted in known-known) and then engaging in self-management (known-unknown). Consequently, we move on to Unknown-Unknows (social skills) and work with people instilling trust to get them to known-known (relationship). 

I recall an excellent article by Hill & Lineback (2011) guiding us in this space. They recommend that we ask ourselves questions relating to how we manage ourselves, how we manage the network, and how we manage our team (Hill & Lineback, 2011). The list of questions they promote in this area are as follows:

Manage Oneself [Known-Known]

1. Do you use your formal authority effectively?
2. Do you create thoughtful but not overly personal relationships?
3. Do others trust you as a manager?
4. Do you exercise your influence ethically?

Manage Network [Unknown-Known]

1. Do you systematically identify those who should be in your network?
2. Do you proactively build and maintain your network?
3. Do you use your network to provide the protection and resources your team needs?
4. Do you use your network to accomplish your team's goals?

Manage Team [Known-Unknown]

1. Do you define and constantly refine your team's visions for the future?
2. Do you clarify roles, work rules, team culture, and feedback about performance for your team?
3. Do you know and manage your people as individuals as well as team members?
4. Do you use your daily activities and problems to pursue the three imperatives?

All these questions are exactly from Hill & Lineback (2011). As you engage in this experiment, you are consciously using your network and team to elevate unknown-unknown (blind spots). So, instead of being complacent that you know everything or sometimes even overdoing the strengths, you use humility and trust to let your team. I recall Barbara Trautlein's change intelligence concepts here as she asked people to ask themselves the following four questions:

1. What is your primary change leadership style - Using Hearts (People), Head (Purpose), or Hands (Process)?
2. What are the strengths of your style as a change leader?
3. How do you sometimes overdo your strengths making you less effective as a change leader?
4. What are the blind spots of your styles making you miss or neglect elements as a change leader? 

The more we become complacent or comfortable as a manager without continuous improvement on ourselves, the more we turn our strengths into weaknesses. As the recommended strategy is to always lead with your strengths, the less you sharpen your skills as Stephen Covey (1987) says, the more you are not ready. As my Chief Operating Officer once told, a good manager lets the team manage the manager. When we rate each of these questions on a scale of 1-5 and get 3 or more in each question, we are just ready. If any section is <=12, then, we must evaluate improvement opportunities. Check with a better mentor or coach and a good manager will sometimes find them in their own people they manage! 

References

Covey, S. (1987). The 7 habits of highly effective people. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Kent, L.A. & Lineback, K. (2011). Are you a good boss - or a great one? Harvard Business Review, January-February, 3-8.

Rajagopalan, S. (2015). Project is a verb in Project Management. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2015/10/project-is-verb-in-project-management.html

Rajagopalan, S. (2018). Organized Common Sense. Outskirts Press.

Trautlein, B. (2016). Communicating Change: Tell your story (Handout). Distributed in the PMI MassBay Professional Development Day 2016.