Archive for the ‘People Management’ Category
The Dunning-Kruger effect and its relevance to project management
I’ll start with a story that may sound familiar to some of you.
A project team member – let’s call him Ernest – appears to be a major asset to the team. He is enthusiastic, volunteers to do stuff others don’t want to do and is always (seemingly) on the ball. The problem is most of his work is shoddy, riddled with errors and has to be redone. Worse, this is starting to have a negative knock-on effect on other deliverables. Other team members are having to clean up the mess and are beginning to resent it. Yet Ernest is blissfully unaware of the repercussions of his earnest efforts. By his estimation, he’s doing a fine job and, quite naturally, expects to be rewarded for it.
It is clear the project manager has to do something about Ernest. Trouble is she can’t. She has no say in the composition of his team, and the functional manager to whom Ernest reports reckons that Ernie is the best thing that happened to the company in a long time. Our PM’s in a pickle; one which I reckon isn’t an uncommon one.
There are two factors at work here:
- Ernest thinks he’s (way) more competent than he actually is.
- He isn’t aware of his shortcomings.
This story is an illustration of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, so named after the authors of this paper, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1999. In the paper the authors demonstrated, through a series of experiments, that less skilled individuals tend to:
- Overestimate their competence.
- Fail to recognise the extent of their lack of skills.
The paper suggests that improving the skills of such individuals not only increases their competence, but also helps them recognise and acknowledge their prior lack of skills – i.e. it improves their ability for self-assessment.
I should mention that not all authors agree with Dunning and Kruger. However, in a recent paper, Dunning and others appear to address many criticisms that were levelled at the original work. So the current academic consensus seems to be that the Dunning-Kruger effect is real.
So, going back to my original story, what can the project manager do about Ernest? Remember, Ernie can’t be relieved of his project duties because he has his manager’s backing.
The PM has a few options which I outline below:
- Provide Ernest with honest feedback. This has to be done with care as Ernest reckons he’s doing a great job. The PM should also be sure to provide Ernest with positive feedback where possible – compliment him on his enthusiasm, readiness to take on tasks etc.
- Channel Ernest’s positive qualities to good use. One way our PM could do this is to position less critical tasks as important, and suggest (or gently insist!) that Ernest take responsibility for them. This needs to be done carefully, as the PM needs to ensure that Ernest remains motivated.
- Suggest concrete actions that might help Ernest improve the quality of his work. This option is usually considered to be a non-starter given that there’s no time (or budget) for training in the middle of a project. However, there are a few other ways to achieve this: informal coaching, mentoring for example. These, however, are difficult to put into action because it is difficult to find time to coach or mentor while a project’s in progress. Besides, Ernest has to be willing to acknowledge and accept his shortcomings.
At all times, the PM has to be cognisant of the effect of the effect her actions (or inaction, for that matter!) on team morale. Plummeting morale is the last thing she needs in the middle of a project.
I’m sure most project managers would have had first-hand experience of dealing with individuals like Ernest. If so, they’ll know that fixing the problem is hard, especially if the project manager has no authority over team composition. Although I’ve suggested some strategies to deal with such individuals, I acknowledge that the solutions can be difficult, time consuming and expensive to implement; especially in stressed-out project environments.
As Dunning points out in this article, we’re strangers to ourselves. So we’re all potential victims of this effect (yes, I realise that includes me too!). Having said that, I leave you now to ponder this question: how do you rate your competence as a project manager?
Managers aren’t good at listening
Are managers good listeners? This is the question Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan address in a note published in the April 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review. The research conducted by Barwise and Meehan indicates that managers tend to overrate themselves on their own openness to frank communication; the gap in self-perception being greatest when the views expressed are contrary those held by the manager. This conclusion is based on 360 degree surveys of more than 4000 US managers across a range of industries and functions.
The authors believe there are two factors at work here. Bosses tend to:
- Overestimate their openness to contrary views, as indicated by the wide differences between self evaluations and those of colleagues.
- Underestimate the extent to which the manager-managed relationship hinders their subordinates from communicating openly. That is, subordinates fear reprisals of some kind if they are the bearers of bad news or contrary views. The authors reckon this happens because bosses often unknowingly send out subtle signals discouraging their subordinates from speaking openly.
To get around this, they suggest that:
- Managers should assume they are less open to frank discussion than they think they are.
- Organisations should use 360 degree surveys specifically targeted to uncovering communication issues. They reckon that bad managers, when confronted with real data may be more open to changing their ways (Good luck with that, I say).
There’s no doubt (to me, at any rate) that Barwise and Meehan are right in their observations about managerial openness to frank communication . Most of us – managers or not – don’t like to be contradicted, and that’s no surprise.
On the other hand, I’m not so sure about their recommended solution. In my opinion fixes at the individual level, such as they suggest, will not work. I believe open communication needs to be fostered at the organisational level for it to permeate right through the corporate hierarchy. Put differently, it is an issue of organisational culture rather than management. Some workplaces have a culture conducive to open communication; others don’t. Those that don’t would not be able to fix the problem by confronting managers with the results of 360 degree surveys (or any other data for that matter). Given the anti-communication culture of the organisation, the said managers would simply deny there’s a problem and worse, may even confront those who they think are responsible for the negative feedback. In fact, because of the latter, such surveys may not even indicate there’s a problem as subordinates would not risk saying what they really think.
I’m interested in knowing what you think about this. Let me know via your comments.
Getting the most from your consulting dollar
Consultants are engaged for a variety of reasons ranging from strategic (e,g. help develop corporate IT strategy) to tactical (e.g. augment internal resources). They are so ubiquitous that at any given time an organisation is likely to have a bunch of consultants floating around in one department or another. Given the often outrageous rates billed by high-end consultants, it is important that organisations get maximum bang for their consulting buck. When I worked as a consultant I often came across situations where my services could have been better utilised. On the other hand, as a corporate employee, I’ve seen consultants hanging around doing very little. So I’m convinced that many organisations often underuse or misuse the consulting time they’ve paid top dollar for. This doesn’t have to be so. It’s easy to ensure that you get the best value from the consultants you engage. Here’s how:
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Know why you’re hiring them: One would think this should be obvious, but it often isn’t. Ask yourself why you’re engaging consultants and what (specifically) you want from them. The best way to be specific is to list the deliverables you expect from them. This gives you a checklist you can tick off as they progress through the engagement.
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Be ready for them when they come in: Over the last several years I’ve been surprised at the number of consultants I’ve seen hanging around the coffee machine or twiddling their thumbs (whilst racking up huge charges) , all because the client wasn’t prepared properly for them. This is like keeping a taxi waiting – the meter’s ticking but you’re no closer to your destination – a waste any way you look at it. Be prepared for your consultants: ask them what they’ll need before they come in, and be ready with it. You want them working on productive stuff as soon as they arrive.
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Listen to what they have to say: You’ve hired your consultants for a reason – presumably because they have something useful to offer you (knowledge, skills or whatever). It therefore behooves you to listen to them when they offer opinions (which may well be contrary to yours).
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…but ask for explanations: Listen, but don’t be uncritical – you want the what, but you also need the why. Ask for explanations if you aren’t convinced. Ideally you want hire them only once for a particular job. The next time around you should know how to do it yourself.
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Ensure knowledge transfer: This is really implied in the previous point. However, it is so important that I thought it worth mentioning again. You want to make sure that they’ve transferred all relevant skills to internal staff.
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Document, document, document: This is a frequently overlooked aspect of most consulting engagements. Sure, consultants leave you with a final report. But that report, in my experience, is often less than useful. What you want are working, nuts-and-bolts documents like standard operating procedures. Be sure that your consultant leaves you with useful documentation. Have your people check the documentation before the consultant takes off with your cash.
Few present-day organisations can afford to maintain all the skills they need in-house, so most have to hire consultants every now and then. Your organisation is probably no exception. The aforementioned suggestions may help maximise the return from your consulting dollar.
Eight to Late 