Sponsor a Child

As part of a Christian community, I would like to share this international project for people who are less fortunate.

Sharing blessings makes us feel contented. Sponsoring a child or adopting a child gives them a better look at their future. After all, they are the cream of the crop. Sponsoring a child gives them a [...]

What to Know, Do, and Think About, Part III

Here are some additional suggestions on what to know, do and think about to keep you focused and successful when launching a PMO. Roles & Responsibilities: Understand the different roles and responsibilities of all involved in project management Who is the Executive Leader for the PMO and the project management approach?
Who are the Executive Champions for each [...]

Qualities Of An Effective Project Manager

To be an effective project manager, what must be the qualities an individual must have?
According to the research of ESI International, world leaders in Project Management Training, have managed to collect a tally what are the best qualities a successful project manager must have.
First : He must have an inspiring shared vision. An effective leader [...]

Economics Caused Executives to Shift Gears in 2009

Here is a link to a good article by the ever-prolific and thoughtful Linda Tucci, for SearchCIO: Tactical decisions outweighed IT strategic planning for CIOs in 2009. In addition to being a well-written piece, it contains some numbers you can…

Defining Project Goals and Objectives

The very first step in all projects: business, home, or education, is to define goals and objectives. This step defines the projects outcome and the steps required to achieve that outcome. People, including project managers, do not spend sufficient time on this step or complete it incorrectly thereby ensuring an unsuccessful project completion.
Poorly defined goals [...]

What to Know, Do, and Think About, Part II

All too often PMO Leaders immediately launch into design and set-up before understanding the FULL picture. Here are some additional suggestions on what to know, do and think about to keep you focused and successful. Power: Understand the power/organization/decision-making ways and means Understand the business decision-making structure(s), i.e., committees, departments, individuals
Understand the organizational power centers
Understand the key [...]

The Importance of Resourcefulness

With the recession forcing us to make do with what we have, being resourceful is now a necessary skill for today’s generation of leaders. It is not simply a matter of doing more with less — companies have preached this for at least a generation. Rather, what’s important is the realization that you can do more with less because you and your colleagues are more capable than you first believed.

Resourcefulness is not a means of coping with deprivation; it can be a virtue that opens the door to greater accomplishment. Based on my observations of what resourceful leaders do, here are some suggestions for being resourceful.

You must first start with an open mind. “Redefine the possible.” This is line is attributed to Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of InfoSys, India’s $2 billion IT services company. According to The Economist, Nilekani used this statement to encourage fellow Indians to realize how they could leverage their talents and resources to empower themselves to fulfill their goals. Being open minded about new possibilities is critical to putting resourcefulness into action. The leader who steps up and says “yes we can do this” is one who can push colleagues to do things that some might consider impractical.

Turn innovation inward. Resourcefulness is about optimizing what you have to work with. Innovation is not just about creating something new; it also applies to making old things work better. An experienced mechanic can do wonders in car repair with a combination of after-market parts and his own resourcefulness. We see this same spirit in maintenance of large facilities — factories, buildings, even ships. Those who service them may not always follow a manual; they diagnose problems and figure out what tools and materials there are at hand to fix them. Call it resourceful innovation.

Choose specifics. If you’re thinking of the bigger picture of the downturn, it may be tempting to consider ways to re-invent how your company does business. Adopting a realistic attitude about what you can do in the short term might be more productive. That is, think revising specific tasks as well as specific roles and responsibilities. Processes and procedures can be revamped with an eye toward simplicity and cost savings.

Lean on your staff. Conventional thinking in frugal times says stop spending, but sometimes managers conflate that mantra with “stop doing.” A resourceful leader doesn’t stand still and encourages staff to follow her example. Have discussions about what the team and individuals can do to turn doing more with less into a pragmatic process for improvement.

Celebrate the lessons. As evidenced by the popularity of frugality in consumerism lately, people feel good about exercising their resourcefulness. But to encourage the spread of resourcefulness, leaders must make certain that this pride in accomplishments is publicized and praised. Those who are resourceful need to be recognized and rewarded, and in turn, teach their lessons to others.

Resourcefulness, while critical now, should not be reserved just for hard times. When prosperity returns, relying on one’s ability to do more with existing resources and lead people to do the same will be a virtuous behavior.

What to Know, Do and Think About

I rarely make resolutions for the New Year. I broke the practice of listing too many lofty goals with unrealistic deadlines and little moral support years ago. Now, I maintain a continuous checklist of What to Know, Do, and Think About in support of my success. You can do the same when launching a Project [...]

How to Leverage Value From Your PMO

A Project Management Institute (PMI) and CIO study found that of 750 organisations researched worldwide, over 75% of organisations that had set up a PMO shut it down because it did not demonstrate any added value. PMOs should be a way to increase efficiency, cut costs, and improve programme and project delivery in terms of [...]

Thriving In the New Economy

We have been going through the worst economy in three generations. It has been a defining moment for many leaders. While many of us have been focused on surviving, there have been those leaders that have thrived in this economy; leaders who have taken advantage of this changing economy and have found opportunities amid the uncertainty.

Lori Ann LaRocco, Senior Talent Producer at CNBC and a producer of the show Squawk Box, was in a position to ask some of the best minds in business today how they are responding this economic environment, how they are defying failure and what opportunities do they see?

As a result, LaRocco has assembled 23 insightful essays in Thriving In the New Economy. In their own words, they shed light on how they view the crisis, what they did as a result, and what they plan to do. It makes for a compelling read to gain a window on these leaders’ different but similar viewpoints and approaches.

The essays are divided into five sections: the economy, banking, real estate, autos, and retail. You will read personal accounts from people like economists Larry Lindsey and David Malpass; Wall Street legends Jack Bogle, Bob Doll, Abby Joseph Cohen, Ron Baron and Peter Cohen; bankers Kelly King, and Donald Powell; real estate executives Don Peebles Richard LeFrak, and Ron Peltier; and from the auto and retail industries Jim Lentz and Steve Sadove.

Larry Lindsey, CEO of The Lindsey Group shares this on the function of leadership: “Most institutions prefer managers who will serve the needs of an existing institution—that is, who will follow the wishes of the various constituencies within the institution—rather than managers who will lead the institution to a new place.”

“Our political process is dominated by leaders who tell us what they think we want to hear, thereby effectively following the polls and the media and not necessarily leading the country…. But that type of leadership by itself can actually be a handicap for a society dealing with a financial or economic catastrophe. To be precise, financial crises throughout history have developed when excesses went unchecked. Like the over-leveraging of risk in our capital system. All these manias, panics, and bubbles have the same characteristic: the absence of real leadership that takes a contrarian perspective.”

At Forbes, Steve Forbes says, “Essentially, we learned that in a down economy you have to both tighten your belt and plant seeds for the future, which is tough to do.”

Peter Cohen founder of the $7.5 billion alternative asset management company Ramius, says you have to remain open and pay attention. “What I do know,” Cohen writes, “is you have to show up every day at work; you have to be there every day to find opportunity. You have to be constantly alert to what the possibilities are. Good ideas are all around all the time, if you’re paying attention.” He continues:

I’ll take information wherever I get it and run it down. Winning is all about showing up. I know a lot of people who say they don’t want to go to work and claim to have nothing to do there. That’s not true. There is always something to do at work—always. That is a philosophy that I follow, and that we follow. And while I think we’re in for a really difficult time ahead, I’m really excited that there’ll be some great opportunities that will come out of it.

Luck must play a part in all of this too. Thriving in the New Economy has no chapter 11. LaRocco says that when she began to assign chapters in the book, a lot of the authors asked her not to put them in “Chapter 11.”

You can read (PDF) the contribution by Wilbur Ross on how he analyzes a crisis and how he chooses to invest.

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