This time of year many of us compile our year-to-date accomplishments for a mid-year performance review. Last year, as I looked over my assessment, it occurred to me that this had been no ordinary year. I didn't think much more about it until weeks later in a conversation with a colleague at the coffee machine. As I discussed the $30M cost savings program I led, he encouraged me to think about ways to share my lessons learned to benefit other project managers. I decided to read a few books on the subject of leading organizational change and strategy execution but they all targeted executive managers. So I took my kind colleague's advice and began writing and speaking to my peers about my experience converting our CIO's vision into action. I realized that in my experience there were valuable project leadership insights for other individual contributors that the authors of the books I read seemed to overlook. I decided to make others aware by writing about my recent and past experiences successfully leading project teams. Although it took several months, all managers in my department approved a draft article that went to the PM Network magazine editor for review.
When the article was published (click here see pg 24), I had decided to leave the experience behind until longtime project management consultant, Greg Githens, contacted me to say, "your article in the August [2011] issue of PM Network was one of the best I have seen in the last few years." He later would become a major force behind the article's nomination for PMI's David I. Cleland Project Management Literature Award.
It was an unlikely outcome. About two years prior, organizational restructuring put a new manager in place, who promptly informed me to start packing. I wasn't actually being sent out the door by this new manager only on the job for one month. I was being replaced. Despite letters of support from several key stakeholders, he couldn't be convinced to reconsider. I had no choice but to accept the fact that I needed to look elsewhere. Around this time the idea came to me. As described in the article, I pulled together a team to explore network cost savings - something several knew was needed but no one person could successfully execute. My hope was to impress senior management enough to reconsider replacing me. They never reconsidered, and I'm so grateful they didn't. We first raised eyebrows when my weekly meeting notes revealed multi-million dollar cost savings from a relatively small scope of work. The financial appeal was only exceeded by the caliber of the project team and credibility of the details in the plan, carefully crafted to address concerns anticipated by senior managers in different departments. Executive approval brought visibility and kicked activities into high gear. As we consistently exceeded commitments, credibility grew even more. We met each week to plan and analyze. We did so with progressively increasing vigor until a year and a half later when the results gave us all plenty to be proud of. From our experience there were many valuable lessons learned, and the time had come for the world to know.
Countless success stories of leaders at the bottom abound unbeknownst to us. Are you holding back a success story that others can learn from? Take time out to put your leadership from the bottom story in writing. Have friends review and comment. Allow me, colleagues or friends to support you in publication.
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