First, I would like to get two things straight:
- Iâm a grown-ass man
- I donât know shit about project management
Okay, let me get one more thing across here: one of these two statements is a lie.
You see, Iâm a person that has always just done things when and how I wanted. Time to go to a theme park? Letâs just go! Ready to hit the club? Get dressed and letâs do this.
My friends, however, like to plan things out, which always confused me. Why couldnât everyone just be like me and go with the flow? Sure, the results werenât always phenomenal, but at least we did something.
I never knew what organization was until I met my wife. She knows what organization is all about. Iâve never seen somebody take a closet with zero space and turn it into a sound studio for her organizationally-challenged husband.
I know what youâre thinking. Youâre thinking this is where I talk about how project management is all about organization. But while organization does play a role, that isnât what I am going to talk about. So, stop what youâre thinking and focus.
Actually, letâs stop talking about my wife for a second and go back to take a look at all the people I dated in the past. I would say my success ratio with regard to dating and relationships is hovering around 3%. That means of the people Iâve been involved with, I had a good relationship with 3% of them. The other 97% were complete failures.
If you asked me why that was the case, five years ago Iâd have given you a completely different answer. Today, I am going to tell you: most of those relationships failed because I lacked empathy. I didnât even try to compromise because I wholeheartedly believed that if a woman didnât understand my needs or why I did things the way I did, then she didnât understand me. If she didnât understand me, then this thing wasnât going to work.
The funny thing about this line of thinking is that every single woman Iâve dated has tried to reach out and understand me. âWhy should I try to explain myself,â Iâd think. âThe right woman will just get me.â Iâd think worse if I had taken the time to explain myself: âWhy do I need to explain things all over again?â
To me, relationships were meant to be fun. I didnât have time to get bogged down with talks about trying to understand the woman I was seeing. Iâd just figure: âTime to move onto the next one...â
Even Peter Pan had to grow up
Thankfully, I grew up a little bit. This was by no means a fast process. At one point, I was grappling with lonelinessâa feeling Iâd never felt before. I figured this weird feeling meant I wanted some type of companionship. And embracing new companionship meant exploring why past companionships hadnât worked out. After a ton of thinking, I began to realize these patterns were happening because I wasnât open to doing things any other way but mine, and for me to stop being lonely, I needed to change. I knew my wife for the better part of eight years before my brain finally kicked in with some common sense.
A relationship with your wife can be great when you take the time to talk to each other about how you view the world. Sure, at first you seem to have everything in common, but as you get to know each other you start to see the differences. The differences arenât bad; you just need to understand them.
I always figured my job was to convince my partner to think like me, which is ridiculous when I look back at it. My real job was to understand why she saw things the way she did and to see how things shifted when I put myself in her shoes.
Once I did that, everything changed. I mean everything.
This is where I talk about project management.
[M]ost of my relaÂtionÂships failed because I lacked empaÂthy. I didÂnât even try to comÂproÂmise because I wholeÂheartÂedÂly believed that if a woman didÂnât underÂstand my needs, or why I did things the way I did, then she didÂnât underÂstand me. If she didÂnât underÂstand me, then this thing wasÂnât going to work.
Project management is about building relationships
Like old ideas about past relationships, I used to have the wrong idea about project management, too. I figured if you were great at organizing, then you were great at project management. But then I started to manage teams and it didnât matter how many systems I put in place, things would eventually fall apart.
I would get frustrated and demand that my designers and developers stick to the deadlines I gave them. If they couldnât stick to them, then I assumed maybe they werenât fit for their jobs. Not once did I take the time to understandâor even simply ask themâwhy they werenât meeting their deadlines.
- Were the deadlines unrealistic?
- Did a bug appear that set the team back?
- Were they going through a bad breakup?
It could have been any number of things. We view a project as an inanimate object and, I think, at some point, we view the people that work on these projects as inanimate objects as well. But, they arenât. They are people. They go through the same shit we go through. We can easily get frustrated running a project, but what about the other people involved?
- The designer is frustrated because they donât have all the right assets.
- The developer is frustrated because the designs arenât complete yet.
- The account manager is frustrated because the client wants to continue to make changes after the price has been set.
Each of these people knows that, one way or another, things getting out of control will reflect badly on them. If a project misses a deadline, it falls on youâand how does that make you feel? Stressed? Agitated? Scared? How do you think that makes your team feel?
Practicing empathy leads to a clean home
I used to leave cups everywhere in my house. It drove my wife crazy and she would get upset. Me being the laid-back guy, I would always laugh and wonder why she was getting so worked up. They were just cups! But then I sat down and took the time to view the world through her eyes. When everything was clean, it meant she didnât have to think about it. She could focus on the things she wanted, like baking dog treats or building new furniture. An act like me leaving a cup on the table meant she couldnât focus on the things she loved. Instead, she had to worry about cleaning up after me.
Thatâs a shitty way to feel. I would get pretty pissed off if someone continued to interrupt what I wanted to do.
Figure out your people
Sure, you have your spreadsheets, Gantt charts, and whatever other fancy tools, but unless you understand the actual people on your team, you are facing an uphill battle. You are all in this struggle together and itâs just like marriage. Your job isnât to get everyone on board with the same methodology or thought process. Your job is to figure out how to make everyoneâs lives easier.
Once you do that, everything else just seems to fall into place. So pick up your cups and get out of your own damn shoes and into someone elseâs.
Iâm a grown-ass man
I donât know shit about project management
Like I said, one of these two statements is a lie.
