The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - These are the 4 Books That Every PM Should Read | PPP #98

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Sharing lessons I learned from the books Killer Angels, Tribe, Extreme Ownership, and Streetwise Project Management.Book 1: Killer Angels by Michael ShaaraBook 2: Tribe by Sebastian JungerBook 3: Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif BabinBook 4: Streetwise Project Management by Michael S. DobsonRead more and listen at https://kevtalkspod.com/4-books-every-pm-should-read/

People Process Progress is a show eager to remind its listeners of those three important keys to any successful venture. The podcast is a mixture of short inspirational talks along with deep dives into important subjects that will have you thinking throughout your day. The goal is to not only hear the insights, but to learn how to put them into practice in the real world. But first, please silence those cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, and we'll get started with the People Process Progress Podcast in 3, 2, 1. Hey everybody, thanks for coming back to the People Process Progress Podcast. I am your host, Kevin Pinnell. Welcome to episode 98, four books that I recommend for project managers. Hope you enjoyed the new intro.

It's a little bit longer, but wanted to set the stage a little bit, right? Now that we've separated and we have the Up in the Morning podcast where I'll dive into jiu-jitsu and fitness. Here we will circle back, stick with project management, incident management, special events,

those kinds of things, hear from experts in those fields, and talk process and people, of course, which are core so we can all make progress. So I'm gonna jump into these books. It's four books. I'm going to give you when I read them, kind of who wrote them, the gist of the book, and then lessons, leadership lessons, of course, that I took from it that I'm sharing with you all that hopefully you will take from them. I encourage you to read each of these books. The four books I'm going to go over is The Killer

Angels, Tribe, Extreme Ownership, and Streetwise Project Management. I've talked about these in varying ways, different parts of them throughout the show, the seasons of the show, the episodes of the show rather. But here I'm going to give

some specific takeaways, just some prompts, not give you all the details. You all, I encourage, if you're a budding project manager, this is a great foundation to read to get some perspective, both practical application stuff that you can get hopefully here on the show, but also some human nature, those kind of perspectives. And just, you know, you'll hear

when I talk about those recommendations. So the first one is The Killer Angels by Michael Schera. And so I read this as part of my assignment when I went on the Gettysburg staff ride. And I talked about that in my 10th ever podcast episode, which was under the name Behind the Shield years ago. And it was a great experience. We learned from the leaders, good decisions, bad decisions at the Battle of Gettysburg from both sides, the Union and the Confederate Army. It was with Omni International, so shout out to them. They have now partnered with Echelon Front, which is Jocko Willink's company with Life of Advent and all the other extreme ownership folks there. And it was a great experience.

So I encourage you to check that out. If your company needs some leadership, if your team does, project team, incident management team, special event planning, whatever, public safety, do a staff ride, check out Omna, Echelon Front, go get that done. So we read that book because it's a history. It's a novel about it. It's the novel that the movie Gettysburg was based on. I did a leadership lessons from Gettysburg and beyond. I've done a presentation on that a few times

and talked about it here on the show, like I said, a long time ago and piece of it now. So how does this apply for project managers? So combat and battles such as Gettysburg have so many lessons, right? Good ones and bad ones. And so in the Killer Angels, we get some great takeaways from this. I read this in about 2013, 2014. That's when I did that staff ride. The first one is adaptability. And to me, this was shown by Major General Buford at the very early parts of this battle where he had cavalry there, but he saw all these Confederate soldiers coming in and they were on foot. Well, if his guys are on horseback, that's a big target up there. And so he had them all dismount, fight like soldiers, those kind of things on the ground, not cavalry. And as project managers, particularly if you're new and maybe you

came from an academic project management background, but you haven't been in the world a lot, you have to be adaptable. Not everything's going to go like it says in any book, right? There's some straight math stuff that works, but people, human nature changes things. The nature of the world, supply chain issues, people being out sick, whatever it is, they change things. So for us as project managers, we have to use Buford's adaptability and think, okay, that's why we do our contingency planning, right? Or that person didn't do what I thought I clearly communicated as the next task. So how can we then look at that? And we'll touch on that ownership

piece of that here in a little bit. But adaptability is a big thing for project managers. It's really highlighted the way Buford makes a call, leads his people, and adapts to the situation. The second of these from, and I have three of these from the Killer Angels, is the time wedge. And I love this expression, which basically means the more time goes on, the less options we have. It's a triangle that goes down to a point to the right with time and options both going to zero at some point. The focus of this was from Lieutenant General Ewell, who had a missed opportunity to push through, take some high ground. He didn't do it, didn't take the initiative, and then he was out of options because then the Union Army took the high ground and that's where you want to be in battle, and that's what they did.

So similar to project management, we want to be ahead in our decision-making. We want to have time built in. We want to have extra resources built in. We also, again, contingency plans, want to have those built in. But to understand that we can't just wait and languish. We can't wait for someone to respond via email. That can't be our reason or our excuse of why we haven't taken action if we haven't followed up with a phone call or a text or a message or something like that. So just always be thinking about as soon as a project starts, the clock is ticking, whether you're

doing sprints and agile stuff or you're doing waterfall, this, this, and that. The clock is ticking. Remember that time wedge. The more time that goes on, the less options you have, just like Lieutenant General Ewell ran out of options. The third thing from the Killer Angels is, and this is something that I've worked on from being a young new petty officer where I got hotheaded a few times with my people, learned that lesson, wrote a few essays about leadership from my leaders that was pretty helpful. But this is to be imperturbable.

And this is a lesson from General and Chief Grant. And I told the story in the other podcast, but basically he would whittle wood in the middle of battle, bullets flying around, or he had a picture taken and this glass fell right where he was sitting, which if he would have been sitting there, had he not gotten up a few minutes before, it would have killed him. But he had a very calm demeanor, they say. And that's one thing as leaders in any capacity, but particularly in project managers, project management is full of frustration and it is full of imperfection. And that's part of what we help keep together. And we have to manage ourselves before we can

manage the team, lead the team, partner with the team, build relationships. So if you're going to be hotheaded, if you're going to always point fingers, if you're going to get upset really easily because something doesn't go your way, it's not going to work out really good. So this is a practice in life too, right? If you're that way in life, it doesn't work out good. But for project management in particular from General Grant and then eventually President Grant, try and be imperturbable in the way that you conduct yourself. The second book that I'm recommending, and like Killer Angel is not a project management book, but there's always knowledge to be pulled out of these, right, is called Tribe by Sebastian Younger. I read it in like 2016, 2017. It came out

around then as well. And this is really for lessons about human nature. A big focus of this has to do with how different societies evolved or didn't evolve. It has to do with some PTSD for folks returning from war. But underlying, it has to do with human nature and different circumstances. And it both builds on some things that we assumed and then it crushes some assumptions like people don't get along during bad times, which actually during disasters, largely natural disasters, people come together. So good examples. The two that I pulled out though is, and this is from an example where in the early days of this country, folks that would get captured by the Native Americans would be treated pretty well and they would actually want

to go back to them as opposed to going back to whichever society they came from. And so there was more of a communal feel with them amongst the Native Americans, and that's outlined in the book and mentioned. And so to me as a project manager, we should try and build that community, a communal environment where everyone's opinion is welcome. People can talk freely. We use manners with each other, right? Not crazy stuff. And people want to come to our projects because that's the way that we've treated them. We are creating this internal society in our project. That's welcoming. That's open. That's honest. That, you know, isn't pointing fingers that we are the project manager or owning. And again, I'll touch on that with go figure the extreme ownership book, but that's something

that I think, um, really was really great stories in that book and tribe anyway. But that whole piece of the difference in how communities build themselves and how they treat each other and even how they treat strangers or captives is pretty telling. And again, like I posted it a while ago in an episode where I talked about those conscripts on project teams, Not everybody on your team wants to be there. So remember that they've been assigned, voluntold, as we've heard before, right? So try and build that community in your teams. The second one from Tribe, and there's a lot of other lessons, just trying to not spew the whole books here, is people's experiences differ, right?

And the outline in this one is someone returning from war. One person's war is horrible PTSD. They just it's the worst experience of their life. Somebody else's experience is the best experience of their life, right? Not because they're crazy, they want to just go kill people or whatever. But for them, they maybe adapted a little different. Maybe that was the highlight. And then and then they came back and they didn't have something good. And who knows what the different factors are. But as younger outlines and tribe, you know, people have completely different experiences with the same hardship or the same event, in this case, war. So people are going to have different experiences at your organization and your project with your team

with decisions that are made what we do or don't do, how long it takes, the hours we work, all those different things. And remember, outside of all these nice schedules and Gantt charts and budget discussions, people are living their lives, right? They have significant others, kids, pets, mortgages, all that kind of stuff. So we have to remember that everyone is living and already has different experiences that we are than we do. And again, don't think it's all going to happen by the book because it's not. The books can't account for the human experience.

This third book I've talked about, I've talked about these folks quite a few times on here. Lots of other people have talked about them. It's Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. I got that first edition. The book came out in 2015. I read it around then, 2015, 2016. And these are lessons from Navy SEALs that they learned in combat, but that apply a lot of places, just like when I talk about the foundational five are very similar to maybe not just like

the lessons I learned, those foundational five, I got largely from public safety and incident management. They took these things from combat, and they've applied them and taught many business folks done just great things. So look up Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, or Extreme Ownership. And while there are many, many lessons, I'm going to touch on three kind of big categories from here. The first one is, as PMs, just like that adaptability and other things I talked about in our head, and this is from them, there are no bad teams, there are only bad leaders. And the best example they talk about in the book is in basic underwater demolition school or buds, the seal training they

go to, they have boat crews, right? You carry these big rubber boats around, they're super heavy. And they had one boat crew that was performing excellently, and one boat crew that was performing horribly. And they switched leaders on the teams. And then the horrible boat crew started excelling. And the other boat crew started doing bad that had been doing better. So between that and, you know, their longtime experience in working. And for those of you that have been working out there, you realize, too, at some point, really always, it always comes back to leadership.

No matter what level the failure is in, if it's at the ground level and somebody didn't bring the right supplies, well, did we as leadership set up that supply chain, that logistics chain I've talked about in the past couple episodes to make sure they had the supplies they needed, they knew where they were, they were educated on them, on and on and on.

So as a project manager, I use this mantra, talk about this to myself in my head and have shared this with many other folks. No bad teams, only bad leaders. So how are you leading your team? Think about it at every turn. Even though, say, someone did the wrong thing, you thought clearly three, four times we reviewed

it, et cetera. How could we have done better? How can we always do better? And just keep that cycle of self-improvement. You're not berating yourself constantly, but you're thinking, okay, if there's no bad teams, there's only bad leaders, how can I be the best leader I can and facilitator of this project team? The second principle from this that I'm sharing that I think is really relevant. So it's called extreme ownership, right? Which means just like the quote I just said, you take ownership for things because you're the leader, you're the project manager, but you can't be too extreme.

You can't own every single thing. And I found myself doing this before where you think, well, I'm the PM. I have to own all the parts of it. I have to be responsible. I have to plan them out. I have to do this. So share a practical example from the project management world. So when you do a project, right, you scope the work early, you get the work done, you're monitoring it, all that kind of stuff, then eventually you have to hand that off to operations. Well, you should map out workflows and support stuff and all that jazz. And one thing I've done in the past is I've taken all that last part on. Well, I don't own support, so I should help build that based on the project, but I shouldn't be the one that has to do all the Visio charts and put the list together and make the documents.

That's a holdover, and it's also a holdover from, I recall when I was coming up in the incident management world and a planning section chiefs, which is akin to a project or program manager, my leader saying, why are you sitting there filling out forms? Why are you doing this kind of level work? And it's not that you don't want to help, but you have to know what level you should be working at at what time, right? If I'm doing a bunch of forms, if I'm trying to fill all these flow charts out, I'm not stepping back and looking up and looking at the whole process to make sure that's getting done. And that's a hindrance, right? So sometimes you can take too much extreme ownership and that takes away from your team instead of helping them. And in fact, Jocko and Leif talk about this. It led to them writing their second book, The Dichotomy of Leadership, to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. A dichotomy, right, is you

do want extreme ownership, but sometimes you can go overboard. Read more of that. Look at extreme ownership. Look at the dichotomy of leadership. You can get the details of it. Certainly listen to Jocko's podcast and all that. So again, don't be too extreme. I'm going to share a very, very quick summary of the other big part of this book, because they're they're very applicable, right. And this is a big part of what they help teach businesses. And these are the four laws of combat. I share this and wrote this up on the people process progress.com website in August of 2019. So go check that article out where I map their laws of combat,

the foundational four, I used to call them before I added communication for those foundational five things, that leader's intent, objectives, org chart, resources, and communication, and then also map them to the project management world. So again, check out that four laws of combat article on peopleprocessprogress.com.

Leif and Jocko, they'll talk about them as cover and move, right, which is I'm moving in combat, and I'm going to shoot at the enemy. So you're covered. But they elaborate on that as far as us, you know, in the business world of taking care of each other. Simple, right, then has to be complicated. Keep it simple. That whole kind of thing is, you know, we don't have to have elaborate plans or elaborate presentations all the time to get a message across or get the planning across. And especially for the plans they used to do in combat

or if you're in public safety and you're doing an incident action plan, doesn't have to be crazy complicated, just enough details to keep people safe and get the job done. Prioritize and execute, that has to do to me to that time wedge thing, right? What's the most important? We got to get it done. Let's go. And then the last of one of their big, you know, tenets of the four laws of combat is decentralized command. So again, that talks about that balance of extreme ownership, right? You can't do everything. You can't own everything. And so sure, you may be delegated as a project manager or the incident commander or somebody to be in charge, but you have to let your people do

their job. So if you're enabling them, but you have to let your people do their job. So if you're enabling them, if you're getting the resources and the time and the information, then you need to let them make decisions and let them do things. That's gonna be the best way for that decentralized command. So if you're that new PM or one that's just upping your game or transferring from another field,

remember to take extreme ownership, but not too extreme. Four laws of combat. Good stuff. The fourth book that I'm going to close out this episode with is called Streetwise Project Management by Michael Dobson. And I've talked about this and written about it before. It's just a really good, and this was in 2004, 2005. I've had this book for a long time when I thought I wanted to do project management a long time ago. Roundabout still have it, thankfully. But it's a really great book. It's super practical advice with some, you know, official stuff in there too. So you can keep track if you're studying for the PMBOK or one of that stuff. So there's three things and there's tons of stuff in this book. But three things that I

want to mention in this episode is one of the four books that I recommend for new or, you know, experienced PMs alike. One, he has a great statement that says, project management is a hybrid occupation. That's a great thing. And it's technical plus people skills, right? And technical doesn't have to be IT. Let's say you're a project manager coming out of the healthcare space.

So let's say you're a hands-on nurse. Well, your technical skills are your patient care skills, but you also have to have the people skills. Same thing if you were a coder in IT, or let's say you were in construction, whatever that real tactical skill set that you used to do, you still need to know a little bit of if you're still in that industry. Plus, you got to have those soft skills, those people skills, right, to be able to talk to people, build relationships, all that kind of stuff. So it's really good to think about project management as a hybrid occupation.

The second, and I guess I actually have two of these, I just elaborated on them. So the second is run your meetings well. And really the way he says this is as bad as actual natural state of meetings. And why that is, is because a lot of folks come to a meeting, they're not engaged, especially now, right? People are probably burned out from being on Zooms all the time, or you have to be in person and you have all these restrictions or who knows, or you can't be in person, whatever it is. But some people assume going into the meeting, it's not going to be productive. The communication is not going to be good, et cetera. So ahead of

time, be prepared. And here's some great tips that he has is make sure that you're having meetings at the right frequency, right? Once a week, twice a week, daily if you have to, but too many meetings is no good. Kills people's schedules and kind of work that balance out with you and your sponsor or whoever else on the team. Make sure you have the right audience, right? Are you inviting the right people that need to be there versus you're blasting out an invite and you got like 20 people when you need five. That's also a disservice to you.

It's not as productive and to everybody else who's taking up the time that doesn't really need to be there. So make sure you have the right audience, uh, and focus on the essentials, right? Here's what we need to talk about today. Talk about all the things. And here's what we talked about and then send a quick update and then get rolling. That's it. Um, sometimes meetings have to go long, usually earlier in the, you know, when you're getting those requirements going, you're making sure everybody's on board with what the project's about. We're getting the resources, then we're rolling. And then maybe if you run into some problems, like you see a bunch of risks and you need to start contingency planning for all those and go through, or if you get to the point where it's a go, go later or go, no go kind of decision, then you may have to have a longer

meeting. But there's ways to make that easier too, where if you have the information queued up and decisions queued up, there's a talking point, what should we consider decision? Talking point, what should we consider decision? Boom, boom, boom. So you can really optimize those. And depending on where you are, talk about what you all do in your organization, which may differ from what I do or other people do.

The last thing that's part of that running meetings well that he suggests is the KISS method, but his is a little different. Keep it short and simple. So similarly, meetings don't have to be an hour, hour and a half long. I've gotten just as much done in 15 minutes as I have an hour meeting sometimes with the right frequency, the right audience. You focus on the essentials. You keep the meeting moving.

And that's a talent you'll learn with more experience is kind of how to redirect or have somebody not elaborate when they don't need to on certain topics, but just give that quick elevator speech answer. And so you know, the kind of ever popular we'll talk offline, that you know, statement, but how to how to kind of drive those and say, hey, you know, let me note that and then I'll catch up with you later. For now, we really need to move and focus on this, this and that. So again, four books, very different, right? Not project management, except the last one, Streetwatch Project Management, obviously.

But I really recommend for anyone that's going to manage projects, that's going to lead teams, these four books, The Killer Angels by Michael Scherer, Tribe by Sebastian Younger, Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willick and Leif Babin, and Streetwise Project Management by Michael Dobson. There's a lot to learn in those. And there's a lot of great things to take to practically apply them across the board from leadership stuff to practical time management. And really, when you dig into those, and for me, some of them like Killer Angels is just a cool book to read, just because I like history. And it just has just all those all those decisions you can kind of read into. So I thank you all for listening to the show. For sharing the podcast, please

leave a review wherever you listen, especially on Apple podcast that helps the show grow and let more people hear the message either from me or my guests. If you have guests you want to hear about, let me know. PeopleProcessProgress at gmail.com. Go to the PeopleProcessProgress.com website. There's resources there. Seems the popular one is that presentation they put together about incident management principles and practical application that helps folks pull together teams and deploy them using the Incident Command System.

And also, if you are interested or know somebody that wants to be on the show, there's a Be On The Show link on peopleprocessprogress.com. So I hope you all are staying safe out there. For gosh sakes, wash those hands and Godspeed.