Mentoring and Melon Balls

My mother made me lunch today; what a treat! There’s nothing like lunch made by Mom – no matter how old I get. She served melon balls for dessert, and I learned something interesting– if you have melon that’s not quite as sweet or fresh as you’d like, soak it for a few minutes in ginger ale before serving. That’s a trick that I’d never heard before – apparently, my grandmother passed this trick along to my mother who by happenstance passed it on to me. Makes me wonder what other interesting and useful, though nonessential tricks I might be missing because I never asked or they just never came up.


While those of you not versed in old kitchen lore may not find this as fascinating as I did, this example should remind us of the knowledge that leaves organizations when we do.

There are countless skills and work processes that less experienced employees would find both interesting and time saving. As we embrace technology and new ways of doing old work, it’s still important to learn from seasoned leaders what means, tactics and methods made them successful at what they do. Think about all the things senior professionals know that remain locked in their heads until they’re asked why or how they do what they do. While it’s certainly important for old dogs to learn new tricks, it doesn’t mean the old tricks might not have some value in the organization. Technology isn’t always the solution to every challenge, nor does it always make our work better, faster, or more efficient. And, sometimes, we need to remember the old ways to make the new ways work better.

This is the primary reason why I recommend in-house training programs that are conceived and implemented by senior leaders of an organization. While learning new things is always important, learning old things in new ways may be more important. For example, while we teach young project managers how to use the latest scheduling software, let’s not forget the art of using logic to set up a schedule using sticky notes on the wall. Or, how about learning customer service from someone who’s done it for 25 years instead of from a highly paid consultant who can teach theory, but not real practice?


While there’s certainly room for skilled, industry-knowledgeable consultants, firms get better value for their training dollar by considering how they use consultants. Hiring consultant trainers for specific programs makes a lot of sense, particularly if those consultants bring industry expertise or innovation to the organization. But, for standard programming or firm-specific knowledge growth, a better use of consultants is to guide the development of in-house programs vs. providing those programs as trainers. In this way, the organization retains the ownership of the curricula while gaining the value of outside expertise. And, the firm’s own leadership can and should then tailor the material, add real-life examples, and perform the actual training.


Long-term leaders are a firm’s most valuable asset; the firm can maximize the value of that asset by transitioning leaders from the boardroom to the classroom. Those responsible for training and development of employees should actively tap into the deep knowledge base of long-term leaders. Interview them to find out what they know and why they do what they do. Take a new look at standard curricula and think about ways to integrate leaders in a more meaningful way into the programs beyond the standard introduction and conclusion. Welcome firm leadership into the classroom with open arms and make it easier for them to participate in both program development and training implementation.


Sometimes, an organization uses outside trainers because leaders feel they are too busy to be actively involved in training. I’d argue that far from these leaders being too busy to spend time in the classroom, there’s nothing more important for them to be doing in the later years of their careers. Candidly, if leaders take what they know with them when they leave, they diminish the long-term sustainability of their organization and lose an opportunity to mentor and grow employees.


Actively integrating leadership into in-house training programs provides the highest value in training design and long-term program consistency. More importantly, it gives senior leaders the opportunity to interact with employees and pass on their knowledge and experience through examples and illustrations. By using outside resources to help guide curriculum development, the firm gains the value of the outside perspective and design based on effective training principles. However, by having internal leadership do the actual training, the firm gains the value of these leaders’ real world experience and the invaluable connection they will build with the next generation of employees.

Presentation Leadership

It’s the busy season for presentation coaching at CRNW, and I’ve been fortunate to work with teams across the industry on mostly winning presentations (the win record is back up there!).  While working with these teams, I’ve been exposed to a broad range of leaders and leadership styles, some dramatically more effective than others.  As a result, I’d like to propose some guidelines for organizational leaders in helping teams get ready for major presentations.

Ownership. I believe that the Principal in Charge (PIC) for the job should be the principal in charge of the presentation.  This means making sure the team starts preparation early – even before the short-list is announced (yes, if you think highly enough of your qualifications to submit, you should think positively enough to start earlier on the presentation).  Savvy leaders don’t transfer the ownership of the pursuit to the Marketing Department, nor conversely, do they micro-manage busy coordinators.  The best leaders stay actively involved, partnering with Marketing in the development of key messages and in motivating/scheduling team members. 

Too often I work with principals who are too busy to work with their teams throughout the pursuit process, providing a “vanilla” introduction and/or conclusion to the presentation, losing the opportunity to really connect with the team and add the value of their experience and knowledge.  Conversely, on the most memorable and successful pursuits in which I’ve been involved, the principals were integrally involved with every decision, not taking control, but really co-coaching by helping refine messaging and motivating team members with their passion for excellent communication with the client.

Practice. Firm principals need to be at every practice, communicating the importance of rehearsal and their commitment to the presentation.  This does mean that those of us who coach need to be sensitive to schedules and minimize the time it takes to get ready for a presentation. But, having the PIC actively engaged in even the more mundane periods of rehearsal can be extremely motivating to the rest of the team – and results in a more coordinated, cohesive presentation before the selection committee.

I’ve been fortunate to work with engaged principals who support their teams in presentations with the knowledge and comfort that comes from rehearsal.  And, I’ve also seen the reverse - principals who take over the presentation because they didn’t know the outline or the logic and didn’t trust their team members to perform.

Because of the criticality of their role to the final success of an interview, I expect the leadership of the team to be ready to present well at rehearsals.  If as a coach I have to spend the majority of my time working with the principal and not the technical members of the team, we lose time and focus.  Principals need to have done their homework, practiced off-line, and come to the rehearsal ready with their material so they have the time and the focus to help the rest of the team.

Grace. Effective leaders bring a sense of “grace” to interview preparation.  In other words, they help even the worst speaker look good by helping with both coaching and the final delivery.  They know that the success of the presentation is dependent upon the skills of the entire team, not just themselves.  As a result, they know each team member’s strengths and weaknesses and they work to help build comfort, not criticize.

Principals who are actively engaged early with presentation strategy tend to avoid last-minute changes and destructive criticism.  Those who come in at the last minute harm their teams by providing late feedback and attempts to rewrite others’ content.  As teams get closer to the actual interview, they need the full support of their leaders.  And, technical professionals in particular don’t do well with late changes or global criticism.

Courage. Finally, effective leaders have courage to try new things in an interview to differentiate their firms and their teams.  They listen well and they engage both coaching resources and their own Marketing professionals to find ways to present differently. And, they are willing to do whatever it takes to help their teams win, even if it puts their comfort in the process at risk.  For example, I recently got to work with a firm principal who was a very poor speaker himself.  He was willing to make an example of himself, trying new ways to rehearse and present that he’d never used before.  Ultimately, he gave the best presentation of his career, winning a strategic project for his firm.  Had this leader not had the courage to risk embarrassment in front of his colleagues or had been too afraid to ask for help, that presentation could have turned out much less positively.

Unfortunately, no one has found the exact formula for a winning interview, but, there are some commonalities to winning interviews. One such commonality is that in my experience, without exception, winning teams have a leader who believes in the project, the team, and the interview preparation process. And, s/he is committed to making the effort it takes and exhibiting the leadership the team needs to win.

Maintaining the Value of Teamwork through Effective Partnering

Across the country, team members spend countless hours in mandated and voluntary early-project partnering efforts. As a facilitator for the past 25 years, I have to report honestly that the results of these efforts have been decidedly mixed: some teams reap the benefits of stronger team relationships and the ability to work through inevitable conflict, while others perpetuate negative zero-sum behavior that benefits no one, least of which the project. While certainly the quality of partnering efforts can explain some of the difference in post-partnering behavior and more can be explained by the values/vision of the team members themselves, I believe that the long-term benefits of partnering can be strengthened by teams who take initiative to manage partnering as a core project activity throughout the project’s duration.

Maintaining partnering should be part of the project management plan for any project, with the project manager taking ownership for ongoing team relationship maintenance and facilitation. While larger or more complex projects may require the talents of an outside facilitator to maintain objectivity and focus, most project managers can use their strong talents in communication and leadership to maintain the focus on partnership and teamwork. I recommend two key strategies to maximize the value of partnering: establishing partnering metrics during the partnering session and making partnering a regular agenda item for every OAC (Owner, Architect, Contractor) meeting.


I’ve written about team metrics before, so let me extend that “conversation”. We know from performance management literature that accountability is easier when we set measurable targets; this works for both individual employees and teams. The challenge comes in creating measurable targets in an inherently subjective area such as teamwork. However, when I ask team members to help develop partnership metrics during partnering meetings, I’m seeing remarkable similarities, indicating that team members do indeed know what teamwork looks like and how it influences project outcomes.


At the start of a project partnering session, I ask team members, “As the project progresses, how will we know partnering is working?” As a result of the ensuing discussion, common partnering metrics include the following:

• Speed of decision-making


• Speed of dispute resolution


• Number of disputes requiring escalation


• Perceived effectiveness of communication across team members


• Number of unanticipated changes


• Perception of value of project changes


• Maintenance of user experience/expectations


These are just a few of the items team members have developed across partnering sessions; many more relate specifically to the characteristics of the particular projects. Importantly, for teams that use metrics as part of their overall project management process, these items are measured at regular intervals with data collected from all team members, making them true measures of team performance, not any particular entity. For teams using a longer set of project partnering metrics, I recommend bundling the measures into clearly defined categories such as Communication, Decision-Making, Project Management, Technology, and User Experience to facilitate clearer, more streamlined conversation about performance.

Project managers (or any person in a leadership role) can use the partnering measures to drive conversation about partnering at monthly OAC and regular team meetings. However, to be effective, ground rules for this discussion need to be carefully articulated and enforced by the team. The conversation is about team vs. individual performance, and solutions need to be team-based vs. focused on any individual or entity. If partnering is on the agenda for every meeting, with a standard amount of time allotted to discussion, team members build comfort discussing teamwork and recommendations for improving it throughout the duration of the project. Further, by having a regular conversation about partnering and partnership, team members are more likely to remain vigilant about keeping the partnering agreements they made at the beginning of the project.

At key points in the project’s schedule, the entire team can reconvene to reinvigorate partnership, using the established measures to objectively reassess and then discuss how the team is doing relative to maintaining teamwork. For identified challenge areas, the team can discuss possible changes or interventions. This mid-project focus on partnering has three distinct benefits: it communicates that the leadership team values teamwork; it involves the entire team in the maintenance of teamwork and the use of teaming to resolve issues; and it socializes new team members to the team’s values relative to partnering and teamwork.

Ultimately, while my industry colleagues and I do a good job helping teams start projects off strongly with well-planned and facilitated partnering sessions, this is not enough to help a team maintain partnering behaviors throughout the project’s duration. Project teams – and project managers – who believe in the value of partnering, take ownership for the process, use measurement to drive accountability, and continue the partnering efforts all the way to successful project completion. Project managers who take ownership for partnering communicate to their teams that partnership has value and that the team can – and will – use partnering values to resolve issues and add value to the entire team.