Welcome to messy, better Central. I'm Rod Stillwell. And this is the podcast about the people side of project leadership. It's where we help you improve your soft skills to reduce hard costs. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the importance of following up and keeping track of things to make sure that stuff happens. Joining me in studio today is my brother Dale was both my business partner and comes with extensive project
experience around the world. And Delos, our engineer and producer today. Before we jump into this topic, though, let's talk a little bit about safety. And today, we often think of safety, especially in the project world, in a physical safety perspective. And one of the things that over the last couple of years, as we've dealt through a pandemic, and had a lot more virtual meetings, and so on, you know, we dealt with people who had two cameras on didn't have the cameras on that type of
thing. And it, it brings to mind for me that feeling of emotional safety, feeling safe to speak up, to express your views to disagree, if you're not in favor of something. So just a reminder to all of us out there leading projects and leading people that we need to leave space for people to speak up, and also, at the same time, not influence the
decisions around us. So, you know, in the sense that if we want to truly get input from five people on our team, and we're the project leader, let's not lead by expressing our opinion first, let's let others express their opinion, reduce the amount of extra noise around that if you wish, and weigh in at the end. But we're truly
benefiting. So that's part of the, you know, it's a safety thing from a perspective of giving people a safe environment in which to express with no reprisals No, because you truly want to have everybody's opinion. Now, to be fair, there are times where you don't want everybody's opinion, you just want to get on with it. And that can be part of leadership too.
So over the last couple of months, especially as we have gradually started to return to a different model, a new model of business interaction, in some cases, hybrid, in some cases, still virtual, in some cases getting together physically. One of the things that I I'm starting to recognize your notice is that we're all super busy. And things fall between the cracks more easily than they
seem to have in the past. The concept of follow up, the concept of keeping people on track, without bugging them without being nagging them without those kinds of things, you know, has become more and more prevalent. And as I worked through, like most of us, as I worked through teams meetings, and Google meats and zoom meetings, etc, over the last couple of years, where people were putting things into chat, where people were trying to take notes or not taking notes, all
of those types of things. I realized we have so much information at our fingertips. But do we go back and revisit it? So one of the things that kind of comes to mind as an analogy, if you wish is I love photography. And I have, I would guess probably 10s of 1000s of pictures. I used to have them all in slides, and I can show you binders of slides away. But what do I is that? You know, do I go back and look at them do I
do I work with them? Of course once we moved into digital photography, you could take all the pictures you wanted and it didn't matter. You could delete them. The question is, do you so again it to me, it brings me back to the whole follow up what? You know when I've been to a meeting, and we agree to certain things. We've already had a podcast on taking notes and that type of thing. What's the follow up process? What are we doing to make sure that we
set people up for success. And then in that busyness of today's project world, we have a mechanism to help make sure that they do deliver where they need to or conversely that if they're running into challenges. We've created an environment that allows them to forewarn us of challenges or problems or delays or whatever. Yeah, before we can find Good wisdom. So that's what I wanted to talk about today is the
importance of the follow up. And then you know, some of our experiences with, you know, how follow up is, has gone, where it's become a problem or where it's become, you know, something that we mastered. And I will not profess to be in any way a master of follow up. But as a consultant, you know, I can have multiple projects on the go at the same time, with different deliverables at different times.
And having a tracking system and finding a way to ensure that I'm getting back to people, I confess that for a long time, it was just all up here in my head. And that was great for developing mental skill, I'm sure at some point, you know, maybe avoiding Alzheimer's down the road. But it wasn't very efficient things did fall between the cracks. So that's what I want to talk about today.
How do we avoid things falling, falling between the cracks and still follow up without it appearing to be nagging or pestering?
Yeah, well, so I think one of the follow up is, because you're a project manager, one of your main responsibilities is to manage the plan. And that's all the milestones in the plan deliverables in the plan. And all the rest of that follow up is a big part of the project
management art. Right. And I think, you know, you've got a lot of the project management tool set is is built around tracking and making sure that you have the ability to follow up, etc. So I think you've, you've got a massive advantage versus, let's say, follow up and, you know, just with employees and corporate culture or whatever, where we've kind of got this the the discipline has, has models and tools built right into it to help you do that,
for sure.
But I think that where the art comes in, is less about the discipline. I mean, if you're not disciplined enough to do the job of project manager, then you probably need to realize that about yourself and maybe look for something adjacent or something else. Right. Yeah,
we still love you if you happen to be
there. But everybody's got that headspace. But but if you were, I think follow up is the art to follow up is knowing the people on your team, and knowing what appropriate follow up looks like. Right? So there can be people on your team who you assign work to, and you don't hear from them for two weeks. And you're not the slightest bit worried or panicked, because you know that, that means things are
moving according to schedule. If they weren't, you'd know, they would have come back and told you, there's other people who, you know, you know, that if you're not checking in with them on a regular basis, their heads down on doing whatever, and they're not necessarily going to notify you of anything. That's not their Mac, that's not how
they work. Right. So, you know, there's, there's, that's the art to what I think is understanding your people understanding what they need, understanding how they work, understanding how they think, how they behave, and and then adjusting to that.
Right? Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I think, given the level of intensity keeping track of individuals, you know, finding a tool, and I liked the way you referred to the art, because the messy part of people, there's an
art to working with that. We have the science we have the tech we have the databases, we have the legend, say you know, a wide variety of applications and software that can help us manage the milestones into deliverables and those good things, but they do want the people, managers there the process is that Task
Managers. And so I think when when it you know, your your comment around the importance of knowing our people, you know, back in the 60s and 70s 1960s 1970s, Paul Hoshi and Ken Blanchard came up with situational leadership. We've talked a little bit about that in previous podcasts. But again, the basic premise was, we can't paint everybody with the same brush. At the same time. You can be, you know, perhaps I've given you a task to do that you can do in your sleep, I don't need to
worry about it. Or perhaps I've assigned you a task that you've never done before, but you're very qualified, very capable, but this is a whole new task. And so the follow up that I need, given that it's a brand new task For you may be different than the follow up that I used to have with you it for something that you could do in your sleep. Yes. So again, I think that as leaders remembering that there are a number of variables that are
constantly changing. So while my process for following up with you, for the past five years has been X conditions have changed. And now I mean, may need to do it differently. Sure. And I think that, you know, part of what I've discovered, especially since COVID, and so on, and I think part of the reason for that is that we kind of got a little disoriented in some cases with time. I don't know about yourself, but I, you know, we'll we'll talk about, Hey, we should get together. It's been a while.
Yeah, it was before COVID. So it's been over two and a half years,
right. Yeah. times I've said, Oh, that was only three. No, wait, that must have been five years ago. Exactly. This is his two non existent years in there.
Pretty much. Right. So there is that? That will follow up? All right. We've talked a lot in this podcast about relationships. And my premise, is that appropriate, well done, follow up, enhances the relationship. It's not nagging. It's not pestering, it's not, but it's following up. If the purpose of the follow up is to set you up for success, if the purpose of the follow up is to just help me sleep better at night, well, that's legit at some level. But what are you
getting out of that? Whereas if I'm truly saying, Alright, how do I, what do I need to follow up? So this comes back to the kind of servant leadership? How can I serve you better as one of my team, through following up to ensure that you have the resources that you have the time to whatever it is, and I think that that's, for me, it's so easy to get super busy. And, you know, as I've been working through projects for the last 30, plus 40 years, oh, my gosh, there we go times disappearing.
I've seen the level of intensity, gradually increase, in some cases, it is gradual, and you don't realize until you know, your year all of a sudden, take two weeks off, and you go Oh, wow. You know, my days are super intense, sir. So, you know, I'm looking to the whole follow up side as being one of the mechanisms to help people succeed.
Yeah, for sure. And I think you you talked to you mentioned situational leadership. And I think that that situation is a key component of that, right. So as a project managers, you know, if you're talking about a tiny little project, that's one thing, if you're talking about anything with any complexity, you can't afford to manage every piece of that project with the same level of scrutiny all the time. Agreed, right, it's going
to move around. And so is the situation of a given part of the project is going to change some of your follow up. So even if you've got the best resources on phase x, but phase X has a significant level of risk that we've identified, you probably want to be putting a lot more of your time and energy into following up with the people on phase x, then phase y, which right now is in a very low risk
phase. Right. So, you know, the context of the work is part of that situation, the people involved are also part of that situation. Right? So you need to know, as we said, the people but you also need to know what's currently going on with those people. And you can adjust accordingly.
Absolutely. And that's what makes leadership such a challenge at times. I was working with a client a couple of months ago who large, ultimately six $7 billion project. And one of the comments that came back was, you know, we, we have way too many meetings, and we're always in meetings. And this was the
senior project team. And, you know, I challenged them and I pushed back and I said, so would you, you know, you don't like meetings, no eight meetings, and I said, Okay, so what do you do other than meet, you have all of these people below you who deliver things, but as the management team as the leadership team of this huge project. Your deliverable is meeting And part of those meetings are decisions that are
made that require follow up. So if you're telling me that you don't like meetings, and it's one of your main deliverables, what are you going to do differently? And I think in many cases, we go through meeting after meeting, because we didn't have the follow up process to make sure. So instead, let's get everybody back together and see where we're at. All right, as opposed to, in some cases, that one on one of those individual engagements. And I think that's part of the message that I
wanted to get across today. was rather than calling another all hands meeting,
yeah, yeah. And I think when people say they don't like meetings, I think what people most people really mean, is they don't like unproductive meetings,
of course, right? Absolutely.
They thought that they, and they're obviously people just don't like other people. But for the most part, people don't mind meeting with people having conversations with people. They just don't like being called into a blocked thing of time that they feel they're going to leave
frustrated from. Right, exactly. So I think it's and follow up is a massive part of those right, we ended up part, why do we end up reading, discussing the same things over and over and over in meetings is largely because we never followed up on the first discussion. So
yeah. And I think that's a great place to wrap it up in the sense of recognizing that, as leaders, project leaders, part of our job is follow up. Part of our, the what makes us effective, is appropriate, well timed, follow up. And I'm going to bring it cycle back to in a way that sets people up for success. So it's not follow up 10 minutes before the meeting to make sure you're coming in with everything you need, and then
discovering that you don't. But you know, following up days before to say, Friday, we have everything you need for Friday, are we good to go? Either challenges, whatever, my. And that takes a huge amount of discipline. Yes. And it takes a focus. Yeah, and it's not easy. No. So and of course, because everybody we you know, we talk about being messy, because everybody has a different level
of messiness. Your job as a leader, our jobs as project leaders, are to manage all of those little strings and components to bring them together. So my challenge to you listeners today, my listeners today is to be able to say, am I following up in a way that sets my team up for success? Just asking ourselves that question. And if we're not taking responsibility to do something about it. Dale, I really appreciated your insights today.
As always, and I my challenge to every one of our listeners is not just to listen and nod your head or whatever, to these podcasts. And if you happen to be driving or wherever and you're not taking notes, that's perfectly fine. But what are you going to do with the information that we've shared today? Thanks for listening. We'll look forward to having you listen to our next podcast.