For many of us, the principals of Project Management are how we structure our work life, the ethical standards that PMI has all of us PMP's sign governs the way that we do (and don't do) our jobs. I agree that these are a great start to assist us in defining the boundaries that we want to avoid crossing, but I have been running into an additional barrier that many "corporate citizens" seem unable to pass, something that I want to call "Corporate Immaturity". It is akin to the concept of self-actualization that Abraham Maslow created in his hierarchy of needs that he developed and published in his paper "A Theory of Human Motivation", 1943 (see below for a basic depiction). This theory of the levels of human motivation have become very telling to me lately, and I am a firm believer that those of us that have not met our basic and primary needs are unable to make decisions without considering ourselves, and are therefore unable to act in the best interests of the corporation. The way I define it, Corporate Maturity has a few factors that define it: the ability to do what is in the best long term interests of the company, and doing so without considering the short term impacts to ourselves in terms of time or personal cost. I have seen many recent examples of how basic levels of motivation cloud judgment and individuals are unable or unwilling to do what is in the best long term interests of the company, and it bothered me enough to try to figure out where the root of the problem lies, and I'm pretty sure I've figured it out – many of us can't see past our own short term needs.

For those that aren't aware, I recently went through the process of a complete bathroom re-model. We're talking tearing out everything down to bare concrete (including walls) and rebuilt everything from scratch – adding electrical circuits, a corner tub with jets, moved all of the plumbing, the whole ball of wax. When we started this process I was told that there would be a "slight delay" in starting demolition, and that the process from demolition to complete would be 4 to 6 weeks. The delay accrued to 5 months, and the process took 15 weeks from the date of demolition to completely finished. And yes, I did have a general contractor involved in this process, who was the one that supplied the dates. After completion I provided them with a Project diary as well as actual task timelines, and reviewed their project performance with them and this is what I found:

• The motivating factor for sales was closing the sale as that is what got them their pay bonus, so they were more likely to fudge numbers and timelines to close the sale
• There was only 1 true VP that was functioning as a PM, and there was no timeline for any of the concurrent jobs so they were just reacting – trying to keep all of the balls in the air without crashing, with the result that durations to completion just kept on stretching
• The president of the company was worried about cash flow, so resources were focused on where the greatest payouts were – the start as well as a secondary milestone in most of the jobs (cabinet and granite installation, at that point 85% of the contract rate would have been paid)
• As less than 15% of the contract price was represented by completion of a job, there were many jobs that were stuck in the process of having the cabinet and tile work done, but not completely finished (mirrors, final painting, accessories installed) with new jobs coming on board without completing those that were still open

So I had a meeting with all of the partners in the business and learned that they were much more interested in telling prospects what they wanted to hear, rather than the truth about timelines and durations as they felt that it would kill their ability to close business. In my meeting I heard "well, it really only took 25 days to complete the work", which was true, but that unfortunately stretched over 75 days as they were continually shuffling limited resources.

OK, so what I, the client determined was that they lied. Maybe not intentionally, but they did not manage my expectations at all, and they continually did what was in their own short term interest. This has resulted in a lack of any future credibility from me, no more business from my immediate circle and a lack of a reference. Now, is it in their long term best interest to churn clients? I don't think so. I will be starting a new remodel project in the new year (obviously I'm not going to use them) and they have lost the business, even though they had a good shot at getting it if they had only shown some credibility. As Project Managers, isn't it always in our best interest and the interest of the company to tell the truth even if it's an ugly one?   If their focus had been more on the needs of their client (I had originally planned on having a Thanksgiving Dinner at my home that was cancelled due to the fact that I had half of my house still trashed with bathroom contents everywhere and a large box of cabinets in my living room for over a month) they would have been able to have my understanding rather than my distrust.

So let's make a point of getting out of our own way when making decisions. Let's evaluate the motivators for our choices and ensure that they are in the long-term interests of keeping the company healthy. I would rather be recognized as someone who brought forth a problem and rallied the troops to find a solution before it started an inferno, than someone who got caught burying issues and ignoring them hoping that someone else would have to deal with the fallout. If we as Managers of processes and people are unable to put our personal short term needs aside, then we shouldn't be making those decisions as it becomes a conflict of interest. Now on first pass I can guarantee reading this that you are thinking to yourself "of course I do that", but think about those around you that don't – and if you start looking you'll see that I'm right. There are many out there that are so focused on themselves that they can't see past that and they get in their own way, making the easiest choices that require them to do minimal work. All I ask is, let's all slow the process down and examine our motivators to complete a reality check so that we better understand what drives us, and align that with the best long term interests of our company. And let's try to help those around us to evaluate their motivators, so that we can all reach great "Corporate Maturity".

More resources to help your decision making

• An Executive View of Career- and Success-Limiting "Boxes"
• Priorities, Goals, and Actions Alignment Worksheet
• What's so important about understanding the goals of the business?

Comments

Unfortunately the story you tell is all too common and whilst lessons learned are great and lead to shared acceptance of past performance, strong managers are needed to action interventions at an individual level to fashion a better (long term) future.