Podcast, the podcast where we discuss project management principles for your everyday life. My name is Anne Campia, I'm a certified project manager. I've also been working in the space for a number of years and I'm excited that you have found the Everyday PM podcast and are listening today. I have a very special guest on who's going to talk about the ripple effect and I'm super excited to hear what that means. So Lisa even is here to speak
about that. We're going to talk about building positive team culture and great leaders. So Lisa, for those who have not met you yet, I, I'm number one excited to introduce you to the everyday audience, but please take a brief moment to introduce yourself. Yeah, thanks for having me. I think this podcast is a really, I wanna use the word fun, if that's the word, but a fun mix of actually my background. So I started my career in project management and the
healthcare space. And if any of you work in healthcare, you know, like typically you're dealing with people on the worst days of their lives. It's highly regulated, lots of protocol, it's 24/7. You just kind of are always being hit with like the next thing. And so it was the probably one of the best experiences to learn about how do you help people in operations who are trying to get things done, get things done. And I moved over after project management over into the
operational leadership space. So I went from being a project manager over to a manager of people on an operational team with a budget. And then all of a sudden I had a project manager that I was working with. So it was a really fun mix to almost see the opposite side of the coin. I did that for a number of years. And then most recently I started a training development and keynote speaking company.
So for the last few years, I go all around the country, hopefully the world, talking about the power of the ripple effect and how what you do and what you say, how that can really shape A-Team, but also when I think about a project, how it can shape a project. So thanks for having me. Absolutely. And your background plays so well too. A lot of the questions we get from the audience around, you know, where can I actually take
my career as a project manager? It's, it always felt like at least when the project management track was being laid out, that you thought you just had to manage people. And that was kind of the pinnacle of what we could do as project managers. But you and your professional background have already made that connection for our audience in terms of what else can I do? And so I'm excited to dig in
there. And I think we're going to start with, I'd like to ask you about project managers and their influence on culture. Now you transition into this role where now you're influencing at an operational level. And we're going to get into the good ripple effect and how that plays out.
But I don't know that a lot of project managers who are starting out understand that the connection between what they do with their project teams and how that could impact their project teams, but as well as organizational culture. So can you dig in a little bit further into into how you made that connection point and how we could lay that out for the audience? Yeah, when I think about the definition of culture, it's all the ways of being.
And when we think about that, that's habits, that's traditions, that's behaviors, that's all these like little tiny parts and pieces. And I think that even throughout our day, we bump up against many different cultures. A project team is a culture. They have a way of functioning. And there are different roles. If you go to, if you're religious and you go to church, like that's a culture. If you have a family, that's a culture. And I think about as someone going from space to space to
space. And I mean that by like project team and roles and life. What you do and what you say is part of that culture. And so I always put on the lens that or the hat that when I enter a room virtual or in person, I am essentially affecting that culture. And really the definition of a ripple effect is a disturbance. So in essence, you're kind of disturbing whatever you're
coming into. And I think about when you set up a project team and you have that first meeting where everyone's getting together, it's like the perfect time to start to build that culture and really sharing with folks like what you expect, like our behaviors and our traditions. And you know, like after every milestone, we're going to do this. And after, you know, every deadline, we're going to do this.
And I think if you can start to think about your impact to the team and how what you do and say really does create a disturbance, it becomes a lot easier to start to like pick apart what that could look like. And I think one of the things that I always hoped for in my project teams is that they would say, we worked hard, we played hard and we hit our deadlines. And if I heard them say that, I was like, I've won, we have won. Yeah, that is really the best feeling, isn't it?
I, I'm curious in terms of was there a particular aha moment for you as a project manager and then moving into to operation and organizational culture and that sort of thing and your leaders of leadership position. Was there a particular aha moment for you when that's all started to click in? And what exactly inspired you to focus on leadership and culture in your work? Yeah, I think there was.
You know, when you think about how you run your project teams, if you move over in operations, projects are really nice and tidy. There's a start and there's an end. And for people in operations, they don't have the luxury to think like that because they're just keeping their ship moving, right? Like in especially if you think about a healthcare department, like we take care of patients every day. So I'm not sure what the start and what the end is to that.
And if you're in another industry where you know, like seem like thinking or fine, like there's always money to be thinking about. And so I think there was a little bit of a shift. And I think if you're a project manager, this is some advice that like I had to learn the hard way is I wanted to be really neat and tidy everywhere I went and in operations, because those folks, their culture is, is not neat and tidy and they're kind of like running
this ship constantly. It was a really hard for six months to be like, well, but I but I want it to be. And I was like, but it, but it's not. And so I started it to use some of the principles within operations. And I think if you're a project manager and you're working with operations and they drive you bonkers, sometimes it's like a matter of really just starting to understand like, well, your ships running 24/7, where would this fit? Like how could we get this task
done? And sometimes it's not neat and tidy, but you can start to get work moving. It's just a different way of looking at it. And as you know, for me, I like things that are like really well organized operations isn't. So it's kind of a rub all the way around, yeah. It really is and and, and, and a good juxtaposition between the two and where they kind of intersect from, from your experience.
So before we dive into the specifics of the good ripple fact, I'm curious in terms of how we can establish a positive culture, the concept of a positive culture for the audience. What are some of the key attributes, or maybe a good example of what that could look like for somebody who is still questioning whether they are existing within a positive culture? Yeah, and I'll come at it from the way that I do my keynote. So in a lot of the presentations, I will talk about
what's the attitude? Meaning if I took your picture right now, what's your attitude? Are you burnt out? Are you complacent? Are you excited? Like you know, insert the feeling of the day and it's really temporary, right. Today I feel like this, ask me in 2 hours, I might feel very different. And then it's kind of a combination of well, what's my attitude and what's the team's attitude? Because sometimes those are different, right?
Project manager walks in and we're like, well, let's get it done. You've got people on your project team who are coming out of operations like you don't even know the day I've had. And so it's like taking a quick scan of like what are the attitudes and then really understanding what are the behaviors that you're seeing? And some of it is being able to watch for it, and some of it is being able to set the tone for what you want to see.
So one of the most common behaviors, I think, in project management and in operations is complaining, right? Like we start the meeting with a complaint and then the next person says, me too, and I've got a complaint over here. And then we breathe. And before you know it, it's like this like complaining train. And when I think about like pinpointing a behavior and being able to say, like, I see it, I see the complaining and then
kind of saying, OK, zoom out. Well, I need to talk about that. Dear project team, I've noticed a little complaining. I'm guilty too. Like, do we want that to be part of our culture? Do we want that to be part of the project? And those are really hard things to stand up and say. And sometimes I'll capture like one-on-one, I'll talk to a person individually like, hey, what's going on? Like I noticed like when we're in, you know, project meeting X, you're not loving it.
And then I pause, right? And I'm like, can you share a little bit about that? And it's almost like going one layer deeper again, as much as you can do like off to the side because maybe they're mad about we already tried this 20 years ago. Or my boss says I have to be on this project and I don't want to be here. Like whatever their behavior is, you know, is I'm always looking for that and to kind of like snap down any bad behaviors.
And then I'm also sprinkling that in my meetings of like, hey, I have a parking lot. I expect us to put things up there that aren't on topic. We're going to move those over as soon as I call it. I'm going to call a time out. Like I'm actually telling them the behavior I want them to have in addition to being able to like shifting behaviors as I see them. Like what's going on over here?
And then the final thing is really, you know, the beliefs of that group and often times those are when we sit down with our sponsors and right at the beginning of the project kick off and we're like, we make it up healthcare, right? We believe that the patient comes first and everything related this project is going to drive right to them. So there are going to be moments during this project where we're going to ask ourselves, does this help our patient?
And if the answer is no, it doesn't belong in this project, you know, scope of work. And so it's kind of those things. I make it sound really easy, but if you can kind of like be an inspector of like, what's our attitudes? Do we have any weird behaviors
going on? And are we clear with like what the belief of the team is like where we're driving to, It becomes a lot easier whether you're project management or operations to like start picking it apart because otherwise you're just like, Oh my gosh, this, it's a blur. I don't even, I don't even know. And I always think like, break it down. What's the attitude, What's the behavior? What's the belief?
And work from there and tell us, tell us a little bit more about why doing that work is important. You know, for those that haven't kind of seen the connection point there. And if there's a specific example of a culture shift that you've seen in your journey that has impacted A-Team and that could either be positive or negative, I think you can take your your pick in terms of what
you're willing to share. Yeah, I, I inherited both projects when I was a project manager that weren't complete, but the previous project manager make it up had been promoted or had moved on. And I the same held true when I became an operational leader, right? Like you inherit this group of people who are working on this
body of work. And I had one of the biggest instances I had was I inherited a project team that was really toxic, like, to the point where, you know, one of the first meetings we had, I was like, just, you know, I just want to learn a little bit about what's going on. And it was just like, whoa, whoa. And I started to realize there were people with hurt feelings. There were territorial issues. There were budget issues. There were like, issues on issues on issues.
And you know, what I really said to that team is that at the end of the meeting, I said #1 thanks for being brave, for sharing, because I could stand up here and pretend like none of this has happened and we're going to start fresh. And like, you know, rah rah Shishkumba. But it was like, no, I like, I need to know a little bit of like current state. And then I said, you know, next meeting I would love to start to put into place what we want to
see going forward. Current state, future state, right? It's a lot of what we normally do. And I think it's a matter of being able to know that all those attitudes, those behaviors and those beliefs, if you don't start like working on them right out of the gate, they're going to come back later. And someone's going to derail the whole entire thing because someone tells, someone tells someone and all of a sudden leadership's calling saying, you know, actually, I think we're
going to shut that down. And you're like, wait, what? And so it really does take if you, especially if you inherit something like you have to do a little bit of learning. And they always say like try on their glasses and be like, OK, like I see. And I don't judge it. I'm just like, I need to know it. So hopefully that answers your question. But that would be like the example that I would I would hold near and dear of like yeah, inheriting team. Yeah, absolutely. Now what?
You know. Yeah, like we got to build this culture. Yeah, absolutely. And and and reminding project managers who are listening that you have every way of influencing that as well. So thank you for that example. Now we dive into the core concept of what what I was wanting to ask you about, which is this concept of good ripple effect. I feel like you kind of touched on it a little bit earlier in the conversation, but I didn't want to quite go there quite
yet. I wanted to set, you know, establish the tone of what a culture is and project management and operations and that sort of thing. So now tell us about this concept and how do you see this concept playing in a role where you know you are, whether project manager or not, in a role that is shaping a team's culture? Yeah, really for me, it boils
down to three things. A good ripple effect is a disturbance and there are three areas where you can focus when it comes to like your disturbance, right? Like how am I going to affect the first one is how you show up. And that has a lot to do with, I would say like we bring the weather into the room and people prepare for us. Like we prepare for the weather. I actually live in the Midwest and so we last night had 40 mile an hour winds and my husband and I were like, we have some yard
decorations out. We were like moving them, right? We're preparing for the weather. And I, when I think about showing up, the the example I'll give is have you ever been in a meeting where someone walks into the room and you just think to yourself, not today. Like I just can't do with them today. Like you're like silently preparing yourself for this human. Lisa I've never experienced that in my entire career. Never, and I mean never, not you.
And so we silently prepare for the people around us, like just like we would the weather. And the reverse is true, like people prepare for us. And you really do bring the weather into the room. And so when you think about the weather, am I bringing stormy weather or calm weather or maybe a little bit of excited weather or just weather that's a little bit of a fresh air? That's the first thing.
Is that showing up peace? The second piece is how you engage because as project managers, we just want to jump in and get work done. And then like time out, time out. You got to know these humans and they got to like you before they're going to do anything for you. And so when it comes to being able to engage with people, one of the places and I'm, I'll give you like a nugget here and then come to my keynote so you can
hear more. But it's really around this idea that we all have things that we care about and we carry them like our values, the things that we care about most are literally plastered on our forehead. There are things like, oh, tonight I'm going to a basketball game. Oh, you like sports? Yeah, I'm going with my family. Oh, you like family? And then, you know, we talked about our commitments like, oh, I got to do this. Oh, I got to do that. Those are our values.
But people also talk about their values when they're upset. Well, she doesn't trust me. They're not loyal. I wish they would respect me, right? Like our values are literally like on our forehead. And as a project manager and operational leader, I would say like, look to those because if you can get people engaged with their values, right, if they say something like, well, they never asked for my opinion. No one asked me. Oh, you want to be asked? OK, great.
As a project manager, if you hear that, I'm going to ask them really like I'm starting to activate on the thing that they care about most, whether it's asking them about their kids or asking them the question that nobody asked them. It's really this idea that you have to find a way to engage so that you can really move the work forward. And then the third one is really this idea that you have to adapt, you have to shift just like your culture would shift.
You might have to shift as your project team shifts or your operational team shifts. Like to think that you could go after, you know, project A the same way that you could go after project B. Like I'm going to call BS on that. Like that's you got different people, you got different people with different values and different attitudes and experiences. And so it's really show up, engage and adapt and you're the disturbance and how that goes, whether it's good or it's not.
Absolutely, such a practical framework that I think project managers can grasp right away in terms of if I want to do this tomorrow, you know, those steps 1-2 and three are it seem, they seem quite easy in terms of remembering and trying to
follow. But is there any parting advice for for project managers in terms of, like I said, if they wanted to start making this impact tomorrow, what could they look to do that a little bit differently than what you know they would normally be doing in this situation? Yeah, so if let's assume your weather is good, right? You're walking into the room with like just a good, I would say like a good, like nice weather sort of day.
Like we're not looking for like the best day ever, but assuming that your weather is good. One of the my favorite. There's like an old YouTube video of Jerry Seinfeld and he's a comedian. If you've never heard of him, he gets on stage, he does his shtick and then he gets, you know, he's like, thank you, goodnight. And he gets off stage. Well, then a lot of people line up to talk to him and he's like, what in the heck do you talk to
all these people about? Like people you don't know, people you like, you don't necessarily care about because you've never met him before. And I think of our project teams of like, we're meeting a new batch of people and it's like, how do I integrate quickly? And he gives them really great advice. And the advice is this, when you're asking people questions, and this is more on the like getting to know them front, ask them specific things with an answer. So Anne, would you be my
volunteer? Could I ask you a couple of things? Yeah, let's do it. OK, where did you grow up? I grew up in Southern California. How long did you live there? Oh gosh, my whole life, practically. Yeah, and have you ever lived anywhere else? I lived in Hong Kong for a few months, but yeah, primarily in Socal. And what like, what are one of the like best things to do in Socal? What like what would you recommend to someone?
Well, gosh, you mentioned, you know, maybe we're not thinking about the best day ever, but I'd like to be biased in saying that so-called presents really good best day ever weather which affords me the opportunity to go outside, take walks with my dog, enjoy the different landscapes and environments that so-called has to offer, from the beaches to the mountains to you name it. So there's something really beautiful about living here and being able to do those activities in this beautiful
weather. I love that. And you know, I'm, I'm thinking of how jealous I am #1 and #2 I'm thinking about how the snow banks in my neighborhood are like taller than cars. So have you, have you enjoyed snow? Have you been around snow at all? You know, I, I no, not, not too much more recently in my adult life. So most of the time I am in in sunshine. Yeah. So, OK, time out. I just asked you a lot of very specific questions and you gave
me a lot of specific answers. I now can talk about your dog and sunny weather and Hong Kong and all of these things, right? Like you have given me a list of the things you care about. And additionally, I ended with a preference question where I'm like, have you been around snow? Like, do you like it? And Jerry Seinfeld's YouTube video really says, if you can ask people something where they have to like pull a memory, something specific where it has an answer, where do you live?
How long did you live there? You know, like, was it like this or was it like that? You can really pivot into a pretty quick like fruitful conversation and follow that up with some preference questions. Like, do you like it? Do you hate it? Because that will really give you a way of them realizing like you're a human. I'm a human. And we have like, I would say like, find something that you have similar.
That's one thing that you can do really easily as a project manager on a Zoom meeting when everyone joins and you know, as people are trickling in, you're like, Anne, how is the sunny weather over there? You can really easily start to tinker with the culture of the group by just getting to know people and starting to set that like those connections up. That's what I would recommend to do. That's really easy specific followed by preference.
Oh, such a beautiful exercise. And that was perfect and very applicable for folks that are just tuning in and listening and thinking, oh, I'm going to do that tomorrow. So I can't wait to hear from the audience around how many of you just try that in a meeting or a one-on-one or a group setting for work. So let us know if that is workable for you. That was very easy, Lisa, in terms of just very conversational.
And you mentioned that if folks want to continue the conversation with you or they want to learn more about the good ripple effect and, and the impact on, on teams and culture, where can they find you online? Where can they tune into your keynotes and and and all of that good stuff?
Yeah, you can find me on my website, lisaeven.com and then I'm also on social media, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. And I will drop any associated links that you're willing to share with our audience in the podcast description for folks that want to continue the conversation with both of us or you found this quite interesting, feel free to leave us a comment, some feedback,
subscribe to the podcast. We're on all the podcasting platforms and if you'd like to continue the conversation with me, you can find me on LinkedIn as well. And I will drop that that link in the description too. So, Lisa, thank you so much for your time and and honoring us with with your presence on the podcast. This has been a fun and engaging conversation. And until next time, everybody, take care.