The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - What Hiking a Mile High Can Teach Project Managers | PPP #80

Episode Date: July 25, 2021

Sharing 5 lessons learned from a family trip to Mt. Rogers, Virginia that can be applied to the professional world.

Welcome to People Process Progress, episode 80. Five professional lessons I learned from hiking a mile-high mountain. Silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, and we will get started with People Process Progress in 3, 2, 1. Still a quarter mile from the top, my feet ached, my lungs burned, and part of my mind wanted to stop. I knew I had a hard climb ahead, and once at the top, time for a short break, then had to get back to the rest of my family and finish the four mile return trip. That brief intro, kind of a window into my thoughts, comes from a recent trip I took with my family to Mount

Rogers, Virginia to the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area. Beautiful part of Virginia. It's over 5,700 feet tall at the peak, which is part of why my feet hurt and my lungs burn is my oldest and I went over the course of almost a week. My family and I, we hiked a lot of the area. We did a couple of hikes that day. We went to bubbling streams in our last full day. We tackled the main attraction, Mount Rogers. And that was after we had already done as a family, two and a half mile hike. So my oldest and I ended up doing 12 plus miles with packs, going uphill, some steep stuff. It was great. That area, my wife grew up riding horses there and went on trips. And I went there a couple of times and we took my oldest there. It's just a

beautiful place to just free your mind, reconnect with nature, see beautiful open mountaintop, 3,000, 4,000, almost over you know, at over 5,000 foot height on the East Coast, which is great. This time we were in people power there. My wife grew up riding horses in the area. This time it was just us on feet. So, you know, what did I learn and what came from spending time? Well, you know, as I mentioned in my last Foundation Friday, disconnecting and getting

back to nature and spending time with your family is so worth it. I did that this past week, and I wish that all of you can get there to do that in whatever capacity you can. Minimal signal. We smell like campfire. We hike till it hurt and beyond. What can we learn? How can we apply this to not only our personal lives with our families and ourselves? I'll say for me and my oldest, and we mentioned this when we were close to the top

or at the top, you know, our fitness level and staying active gave me a good feel, you know, that we can go 12 plus miles in a day with packs on, you know, and keep going and sure my feet are still sore, but you know, we did it. So what if I had to push? What if my family got stuck and I had to go and I had to get help? It's more than just trying to look good and be healthy and resist disease. It's practical. What if you're stuck somewhere and you're the one that someone's responsible for, man,

woman, child, whomever, but a way to get after it. So I'm going to share five things that I thought about in retrospect that day after that I will apply and do my best to apply for the business world for my professional life. And really in the realm of, you know, my former planning section chief on the all hazards management team, and currently as a senior project manager, you know, what are these five things? And again, I'll share these on and please visit the people process progress.com website, Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter Twitter, and follow us and share. Be greatly appreciated.

And so let's jump into the first one. One, prepare for what may happen. So for me, as a former corpsman, an EMT, a firefighter, an emergency management person, I always think forward to what's the worst that could happen. And you know what? Sometimes it's depressing and it's not the best conversation or thoughts for me and my family. But it also means that I'm prepared, right. So in my pack, I have medical equipment, water, snacks, braces, cravats, those kind of things just just ready to go, right. And so I'm the one that does it. And usually, I have to use

it just like we did in this past hike, right? So I had to use, you know, clean out some cuts for my kids and put band-aids on them when they fell, run on the rocks and those kind of things. And, you know, I had it as a planning section chief and a project manager, it's totally key to have what we need and then not to need what we don't have, right? Whether that's people, you know, do we have the right resources? Did we ask for them early? If we don't have, right? Whether that's people, you know, do we have the right resources? Did we ask for them early? If we don't, can we get them now? But ahead of time, how can we better predict that kind of stuff? What facilities might we need for a go live or for housing folks that are coming on site to work with us? Or if we're going in the field on incident management team, you know,

when you're the planning section chief or the leader of any type of group, what kind of housing, food, workspace, all that kind of housing, food, workspace, all that kind of stuff. You got to think about all those kinds of things. What equipment do you need? What supplies, right? What time do you need? How much time do you think you need? When my oldest and I pushed on, it was late afternoon for something.

We knew we had a few hours, three, four hours of sunlight left, but that was to get up and back, which was, hour or two. And then to get back the rest of the four miles with my little guys and my wife and our dog, who was, you know, super tired too. He's not used to climbing the mountain. So when you think about it in that context, do we have enough time to get there, to come back, to make sure that we're going to be on pace? And so on a project, the same thing, if we add these new features, if we want to do these enhancements that people keep throwing at us, do we have time to do it? Do we have the resources to do that? Have we prepared for what might happen?

And this also is kind of that contingency plan that I've talked to quite a few times. But as much ahead of time, my first thing is prepare for what may happen and both for my hike and as a planning section chief and as a project manager, I do my best to do that. Not always perfect at it for sure. Certainly forget things, but I think that's something we can all consider. So first prepare for what might happen. The second thing, don't let your discomfort limit others. And me as a dad, man, as a dad of three boys, I try to let them take risks, right? Let them grow. Let them get bumps and bruises. But when you see one of your kids, your 10-year-old, climbing on the rocks and over the other side is, you know, a pretty significant fall, but they're so confident. I'm more nervous than them, right?

And for other parents out there, you can understand that. But it also helps them grow. And you see that one. Maybe it's your child that's not as confident, and they have this confidence all of a sudden. It's awesome. I like to balance the potential with the growth opportunity there, right? And the same thing holds true, you know, if you're a planning section chief and you've got these unit leaders and they have an idea, you know what, let them, if you're not comfortable letting go, that's a skill you have to do as a leader. Just because you're in charge doesn't mean you have to make every decision at every level and be in the weeds with everybody. Sometimes you have to stand back and let people do things. And as a planning or a project manager, rather, that's that's like the job, right? Unless you're a construction project manager, or maybe a technical project manager, where their ask is that you have a certain amount of technical know how in this field,, you're going to facilitate the process and keep people on track and things like that.

But just because you're not comfortable maybe with a decision or maybe you're leading a team of more junior project managers or other folks, let them lead. Let them do some things like that. We don't have all the answers and we shouldn't, and that's okay. We shouldn't hold others back or let fear or ego, you know, guide our leadership. Right. And I found personally for me that, and I told him, you know, I talked to my kids and, you know, I tell them, you know, it's, I am, I am always thinking hopefully two, three steps ahead of what could happen both from life experience. And as your dad,

if something happens, can I rescue you? Can we do this? Do we have communications? And I'm balancing that with I want you to spread your wings a bit, climb those rocks, scrape your knees, do that jujitsu, all that kind of stuff. And it's hard to do, but I think that was one of the best lessons that I took from this trip was to not let my discomfort limit others. The third for me professional growth opportunity I got from this

great personal experience was to get comfortable feeling uncomfortable. Right? I, you know, can remain calm and real emergencies, but then get totally frazzled when the kids are yelling in the car. It's weird, right? And that's a thing for me. But I think from being used to dealing with, you know, injuries and going on calls and thinking, okay, I'm driving the engine. When I get there, I'm going to put the wheel trucks down and you do this or that or pull the lines, you know, whatever it is. And on projects, you know, I don't get too flustered either. There's times I do when I'm stressed out or overwhelmed, but, you know, just trying to think and maybe jujitsu helps. In fact, somebody's

mentioned that to me. Oh, that explains why you're so calm when you put yourself in difficult situations. Or for those of you out there that exercise regularly or do hard things, when you go do maybe your regular job that isn't those real hard things, or maybe if your job is those hard things, you're already comfortable being uncomfortable. And, you know, for me on this hike, that last part hurt, man. I'm 47. I got a knee coming up with another, I think, you know, meniscus kind of thing like I had a few years ago. But again, I was with my oldest son, I was so proud, we were making great pace. And my feet hurt, you know, already, I was like, you know what, but you're going to do this thing, you're going to accomplish this goal. And I think the same thing holds true

for us at work of looking at, you know, what about the impact of risks and issues for projects or same, you know, very similar for hazards for incident management teams. Sometimes you're going to have to be a little uncomfortable if you're pulling together a team and they're going to go in dangerous things, a building collapse, God forbid, an active shooter scene, or, you know, any other horrible scene, folks are going to go in the field and the field is dangerous depending on, you know, where it is. They're out there. There's a lot of unknown variables and similar for projects, you know, talking about, you know, the perspective. So, if you have risks that you've accepted on your project, you've got to be comfortable being uncomfortable because you or the sponsor, you with the sponsors, right? Because you're the

project manager, you're not in charge of all those risks, accepting them, got to get used to that and got to kind of drive on, you know, is it, you know, life or death? Is it money? Is it lost time? What is it just looking at? Okay. What can we accept? What can't me? So what can't we accept rather? And just having that, you know, comfortableness of not being a hundred percent comfortable. I think both as a parent, right. When you're, you know, instead of hovering over your kids and not letting them grow, and your project teams, and your incident management teams. Sometimes you got to step back and let them do their thing

and, you know, have guardrails, so to speak, or literally to kind of keep them safe. The fourth thing for me is remember why you started. It is so easy to lose sight of the why when your feet hurt, your back hurts, you cut your ankle on rocks, your pack's heavy, your back muscles hurt, or you're just plain exhausted, right? What am I doing this for? I could stop and turn around or take a break or go back,

but you got to think about, but I want to reach the highest peak in Virginia or I want to accomplish and get this new product out. I want to affect the rescue and find the people in the collapsed building, right? I mean, that's what these search and rescue teams, these instant management teams do. That Y keeps them driving, save lives. You know, it's true when you're close to the summit or, again, back in the office. You know, say you're doing office work. You're working those 11 to 12, 13, 14 hour days. It can be really easy to lose sight of why in the world am I doing

this and, and step back and go, Oh, I'm making organizational change for thousands of people. Right. Or I am working to save lives, right. For those out in the field. And you know, while it's hard, it helps to breathe, take a step back, think of the positive change, right? Or just like I mentioned about disconnecting, go for that walk, get your exercise in. So remember the change you're making, the goal that you're achieving for yourself, right? It's not selfish to remember why you started some journey in a career or a hard path or for your family. Are you trying to bring your family back together? Are you working towards that? Or again, the organization that you're going to help change, not just monetarily or business-wise or whatever, but how are you going to make people's lives

better? So the fourth one is remember why you started or your why this is one again as a father where i always try and instill and help build leadership in my kids and i do the same thing at work and i hopefully have done the same thing when i was a first responder and an instant management person is that there are always opportunities for others is my fifth thing. My 10-year-old loves chopping wood. So not everybody's going to let their 10-year-old pick up an ax and start chopping wood. Come to find out he also likes climbing rocks. These two activities, pretty cool for boys to do. Some would say dangerous. And this for my most cautious son. My youngest is pretty scrappy and adventurous. He loves the water and is a big helper for me and his mom. And my oldest is almost 15. He's the leader of the brothers. He works out every day. Great example.

And he helped push me to the summit, right? I knew he was behind me. I knew he was there. I'm the dad. So I've got to keep going and keep pace. However, I offered to let him take the lead. I said, hey, do you want to take the lead? Because I knew he was there. He's in great shape. He didn't on the way up. He said, no, I'm good.

And then we came back down and we met up with the family. He took the lead, leading us down. And then we came back down and we met up with the family. He took the lead leading us down and I was happy that he did. So that anecdote to me is maybe when we're ready to give folks leadership opportunities, they're not ready. Maybe we think about, okay, no problem. I'll keep driving on. You stick with me. Let's go.

But then later on, they are ready to take leadership opportunities. Sometimes they just need time to adjust mentally or physically to prepare for their roles, depending on what career field you're in. You know, the same holds true for incident management team members. So those unit leaders you have in whatever section you're in on the incident management team, maybe they're not ready to step up into the chief role, or a chief's not ready to step up in an incident commander role. So observe that, help pull them up, give them some space. Some people do need a little press. If you've met folks that seem to be pushing back against wanting to take leadership, when you know they'd be a great leader, then you have to be kind of creative and think

about how you could prop them up. Hey, why don't you come with me and just kind of hang out, you know, observe. We'll talk about it after that. You don't have to make any decisions. We'll work there and kind of integrate them in. Hey, you know what? John's going to give this brief today. No problem. Talk to him about it beforehand. Give him a little bit of the time, help build them up, do those kinds of things. Certainly solicit their opinions throughout and integrate that into decisions. Hey, another great decision by John. We're going to use his plan today. We're going to do this and that, right? It's just a great way to weave other people's input into the overall big plan that has exposure, but not maybe put them in the limelight. So those in official leadership positions like moms, dads, planning section chiefs,

senior project managers, fire lieutenants, and on and on should always look to provide opportunity for others to step up and step out of the way. If the new leader at first says no, don't harp on it. Let them observe, then check in a later time, but do check in again, right? Don't just write that person off. Maybe just at that time, they're not comfortable, but again, they might be later on. So that's the five things and i learned a lot more but that i thought are pretty directly transferable to my professional life and i'll summarize those in a second but as i touched on earlier as a bonus regular fitness prepares us for hardship right i found that during my exercise routines jiu-jitsu just pushing myself hard really did get me ready for this.

I can't recommend enough. If you're not active now, if you're not regularly active, if you're not exercising, please do so for yourself, for your family, for others around you. You never know when you might need that endurance for yourself or others. So the five things that I learned from my wonderful trip with my family, getting in the mountains, disconnecting a bit, pushing my body, reconnecting a bit more even with my family, helping teach my son skills. One, prepare for what might happen. Two, don't let your discomfort limit others. Three, get comfortable feeling uncomfortable. Four, remember why you started. And five, there are always opportunities for others to lead.

And of course, that bonus, fitness prepares us for adversity. In a future episode, I'm going to cover the six essential elements of leadership from Colonel Wesley Fox, United States Marine Corps retired. And as it turns out, his sixth element, just like the fifth one, the fifth of the foundational five, is communication. And in that section of the book, I'm going to quote Lee Iacocca from Where Have All the Leaders Gone, which Colonel Fox quotes, that says, when you look around, you've got to ask, where have all the leaders gone? Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, As leaders, both Lee Iacocca and Colonel Fox, who is a Medal of Honor winner, are hard to follow. But I will say in closing this episode, one, thank you again for coming here, for listening, subscribing, going to peopleprocessprogress.com, Facebook page, People Process Progress. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

I'm Kevin Pinnell, People Process Progress on Instagram. I will say that hardship, particularly self-imposed hardships, bond us with others, and they give us a feeling of accomplishment. I'm not the only one to say this. This is true if you read any stories about hard selection processes for jobs or the military, but also for your family. If you go into ice cold creek with your family and you're catching trout and you're being cold and you're doing water tests and dunking and your kids are dunking under it, then you're climbing a mountain. Your youngest kids, your 10 and 8 year old are doing 8 miles a day and your oldest is doing 12 plus. That bonds you. You're out there by the campfire. You're heating your food up. You're

chopping your wood. You're teaching. You're trying to help get the fire started. We need this as humans, as families, as manager teams or project teams. We need a bonding event, a hardship that brings us together. Sometimes it pushes people apart, right? There's nothing like being burnt out after that so many double-digit days of hours, of shifts, of deployments, of whatever it is. Sometimes you're tired of seeing those folks. Sometimes you have to step away for your own good and for the good of others. But after those experiences, you're also more bonded than you will be with many people.

Thank you all so much for being here, for listening to the show, for keeping it going. Please stay safe out there. Wash your hands. And Godspeed.