The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How to Support the Otto on Your Project Team | Foundations Friday #97

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

I recently watched A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks, Mariana Treviño, and Rachel Keller. I cried. A lot. In addition to the emotional story, A Man Called Otto reminded me that we've all had "Ottos" on our project teams.In How to Support the Otto on Your Project Teams | Foundations Friday #97, I share 5 traits Ottos shares and how we as team leaders can leverage them and support the human behind the gruff and direct personality that Otto displays.

Last night I watched the movie A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks, Mariana Trevino, and Rachel Keller. And in addition to just being a very well acted, entertaining movie, man it hit all the emotions and I certainly let the waterworks fly. But what it also reminded me of is that on our program and project teams or maybe on our public safety teams, there's an auto somewhere in there. I've always known somebody like that. So today I'm going to talk about in Foundations Friday 97 how we can support the autos on

our team. If you haven't seen the movie, there's going to be some spoiler alerts, not too much on the story, but I'm going to describe who Otto was, who I took away from it, and then how through these five traits that he had in the movie, how we can support that if we find folks on our teams that have the same traits. But first, thanks for coming to the KevTalks podcast. Here you'll lead industry leading best practices and program project and all hazards incident management with a dash of jujitsu and a smidge of health and wellness. So whether it's a solo episode with me, Kevin Pinnell, or one of my fantastic guests, the focus is on people, how we can share our processes so that you and I can make progress together.

Thanks for listening. Now let's get back into this episode. Hey, everybody. Thanks for sticking with the show. Again, if you could, please like and share this on Apple Podcasts. Leave a review. Every five-star review gets this bubble to the top a little bit. Itares not just my two cents, but people's stories that I've talked to. Much appreciated. So on this Foundations Friday 97, again, I'm going to talk about

characteristics from Tom Hanks' character Otto and a man called Otto that I've seen on my teams throughout my career, whether it was in the Navy or public safety and in project management, and really how the movie not only kind of reinforced perspective that everybody's going through something, right? And when you watch the movie, you'll find out what those things are, not to totally spoiler alert it. But it's easy when someone say a little grumpy, a little crass, a little something to just go, Oh, what's their problem? But we have no idea what's behind that, right? So how can we how can we support them as leaders of teams? Let's get into this. So here are the characteristics that Otto displays, and there's others, is he's very direct, right? He's very direct with people.

He gives very objective feedback. He's a bit gruff and angry, frankly. He's very meticulous, but he's also very efficient. So with those characteristics, I'm going to talk about how folks, I've seen other leaders do this, how I've tried to do this to help support the auto on my project team. And the first is the directness. Sometimes you just get folks that are unfiltered. Hey, I just say what I'm thinking. And I've heard the saying too. Sometimes people that say what they're thinking or just, you know, a holes, but that's not always true, right? Sometimes that's just their nature. That's what they've learned. That's, that's who they are. And the first thought I have, if someone's that direct is to check my ego, like, am I, am I getting upset about it because I don't want the feedback? Cause I don't think I

need it. Or is it the way it truly the way they're speaking? Is it just a horrible tone? It's disrespectful, whatever. But really, for me, if someone's being very direct, they're giving you direct feedback, it's actually a good thing because not everybody's willing to do that. Some people are afraid to. So I need to check my ego. I need to accept the feedback if it's helpful and thank them and sit there. And I know there's a balance, right? Some people that are true director may be off, but that's my first thought there. The second, Otto's very objective, right? It's very black and white. It's do this or not. He patrols his neighborhood. He was in charge of the neighborhood association, those kinds of things. So very, very objective in

his judgment of people following the rules. So I think we should value that, right? Because it gets rid of some subjectivity that people's emotions and opinions get mixed into, which sometimes when we're standing up programs or projects isn't helpful, right? People's opinions do matter. People's bias though can affect what they say. So we need that person on the team that's going to give you objective, direct feedback to say, well, here are the parameters. Here's what fits in it. Here's what doesn't fit in it. And that's a great thing, right? Data helps drive decisions and it can, or the boundaries of our scope or our budget or all

the standard things for a program or a project. Now, Otto's a bit gruff and, quite frankly, angry. He has good reason to be. And again, you'll find out in the movie, he hadn't had a great life. Some bad things happened to him and his wife. And that's a factor, right? And the way, to me, that I've addressed that before is to talk to the person. Realize, and I learned this both in crisis intervention training or CIT that you use on the street. And then just from these soft skills that we develop as program

and project managers and just people being around for a while and as a dad and husband, and it's to talk to someone and say, you know what, I see you're upset. I hear the way you're talking and you seem angry. How can I help? Is there anything you'd like to talk about? How was your day? Is there anything you need help with here or time off or something like that, right? How can you support whatever they're going through to help make it better? Because that's what it's all about, right?

The people. And so even if someone's not in a great mood, if they're gruff, if they're super direct, if they're acting angry, that to me is an opportunity to figure out, hey, what's going on with this person? Because whether they're like that all the time or not, maybe they don't have somebody that's ever asked if they can help. So you can be that person. We can be that person. The fourth thing is Otto is very meticulous.

He's an engineer. So engineering, and I've gotten engineers in my family, very meticulous in how they do things. And to me, that's a huge asset for the team, right? So how can we leverage that skill and say, hey, we really need a detail-oriented person to look through these specifications for the system, or to look at this space that we're planning out, or, you know, whatever it is where you really need a fine-tooth comb to go through there and get the details and figure out what we're going to do before we execute on anything. And being meticulous is a huge advantage in having someone on your team like Otto that's meticulous can also be very helpful. And the last, and there's other things, these five stood out to me the most. He's very efficient. So because he's meticulous,

because he's direct and objective and because he's you know a smart guy he's very efficient too right so he gets things done in an efficient manner he knows how to build things he knows how to fix things and you know that's an asset to any team and can we take that efficiency and ask hey how do you do that can we model that workflow can we model that skill set and then emulate it and then do a knowledge transfer from the auto on your team to other folks, right? That's a huge advantage. And having somebody that, you know, is so efficient can, you know, save time and money

and keep us in scope and keep us, you know, with high quality and all the things that we want to do in a program or a project to get stuff done. So if you have an auto that's direct, check your own ego and take that feedback. Those are so objective. Value that over subjectivity and not being clear or getting clear feedback. If they're a bit gruff or angry, ask them what's going on. Ask how you can help. If they're meticulous, that's a great asset.

How can you leverage their attention to detail? And if they're very efficient, let's ask them for that knowledge transfer and that workflow and share that with others. Thank you for sharing the show, the KevTalks podcast with others. I appreciate your time every minute you listen. And as you go about your day, think about maybe the auto in your life or the auto in your team at work, outside of work, and think about that they may be very direct and they may be kind of gruff and angry, but who knows what's going on in their life. And so maybe they just need someone to ask and to care, and we can be that person. Thank you so much again. Please visit calvaltalkspod.com for the write-up for this episode and more resources and certainly the episodes with my guests that have shared so much from mental health resources for first responders and then all of us to some jiu-jitsu discussions to being a genius leader with Anna Liebel and just all of the other great discussions I've had with folks over the years. So thank you again. Remember, everybody, have a plan to keep everybody aligned, stay informed with facts, not just fear and rumors,

and get involved so you can make a difference in your organization, in your personal and your professional life. Godspeed, y'all. Thank you.