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Fictional Fix #1:

Building Airplanes in the Air

I once had someone tell me that his company’s prescription for dealing with slipping project schedules was to “build airplanes while they were in the air.” I understand the virtuous, even heroic, aspect of this metaphor. This company would go to any length to keep their commitments and deliver on customer expectations. But, in practice, it easily becomes what I call a “fictional fix.”

You know you’re dealing with a “fictional fix” when it starts showing up as an explanation for why something CAN’T be done. YES we should have a process for making sure the project goal is clearly defined, and that project team members are on board, BUT we just don’t have the time to do that because “we build airplanes while they’re in the air.” YES, having the core team collaborate in the creation of the work breakdown structure and dependency diagram is useful in catching important missing details, BUT… given the all-consuming nature of “building airplanes in the air” that’s not realistic.
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Breakthrough
In Action: A Case Study

COOKIES FOR THE UNCOOPERATIVE

 Frustrated by her inability to get the cooperation she needed to meet her project schedules a project manager complained, “I can’t get people in other departments to deliver as promised. My projects are just not a priority for them.”

“I understand your frustration,” a more seasoned project manager in the class responded. “When I go to ask people in other groups to help on my projects I often bring them a box of cookies. It’s amazing what a difference that can make.”

“Other people have also told me that trick works for them, but to be honest having to bring cookies to coax people to do what they’re already being paid for really pisses me off. I don’t feel like I should have to bribe people to do their jobs.”

”I used to feel that way myself,” the veteran pm said, “but now I think of it more as a way of expressing my appreciation for their help.”

Breakthrough is not just about what you do, but how you think about what you do. One person brings a box of cookies, and the recipients feel appreciated and want to help. Another person performs exactly the same action, but subtle nonverbal cues leave the receipts feeling like this person is trying to bribe them with a crappy box of cookies. The same behavior driven by different beliefs can produce dramatically different outcomes. Our training helps people discover not only the behaviors that produce breakthrough outcomes, but also the beliefs that sustain them.

The Secrets to
Behavioral Change

The scenario  

A coworker asks when you will get them a particular piece of work. You ask them, “When do you need it by?” What’s their most likely response? “Yesterday!” Everybody needs everything “yesterday,” and that’s one of many reasons why it is so hard to bring about behavioral change. We work in an environment of constant urgency. Anything that will slow you down must be avoided at all costs. Changing behavior slows you down. Your fastest gear is automatic; you can do most quickly what you already know how to do.

How do you help people change ineffective behavior in an I-need-it-yesterday world? First, start with the pain. “If something ain’t broke don’t fix it.” One way people know when something is broken is when it’s causing them a lot more effort and frustration then necessary. Help them see how their own actions or inactions are contributing to this breakdown, and they will be open to exploring replacement behaviors.

Next, the new behavior must be something that is easy to do, and must fit seamlessly into the pre-existing workflow. Any change that interferes with the ability to deliver on schedule is too costly, and will quickly be abandoned.

Finally, we must create easily run test conditions so that the old behavior and the new behavior can be tried and compared side by side. People leave my training committed to implementing new, more effective behavior not because it’s something they’ve been taught in class, or because a respected authority recommends it, but because they’ve have had the direct experience that this new behavior enabled them to produce faster, more effective results with less personal wear and tear.

The secret to behavioral change is to give people a profound experience that makes them more effective and gives them greater satisfaction. That’s change they will believe in.

 

Breakthrough Training:
Clearing the barriers to success

Do you need to train people to solve “impossible” problems?

Over 600 companies worldwide have used our training to reduce the time and costs of projects by 10% or more through improved processes, increased trust, improved communication, and resolved conflicts.

How can we produce results like this is just one or two days? A project manager at East Bay Municipal Utility District explained it this way:

“Until I went through the Breakthrough Project Management training I thought that project close out was a backward looking process for making sure we had dotted all the I’s and crossed the T’s. It seems obvious now, but the idea of using it for continuous process improvement never occurred to me. This one insight alone has saved us $3 million. That was 10% of our total budget.”

We help each participant discover the specific blind spots limiting his or her success, and the replacement behaviors that transform those barriers into breakthroughs. We‘ve worked with almost every major company in Silicon Valley to produce results like these. We’d love to explore how we could do this for your organization as well.