How To Get People To Do What You Want

Hannah Amess 6 years ago

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he/she wants to do it.

Eisenhower

Project management isn’t just about following a template or using a tool, but developing personal skills and intuition to find a method that works for everyone.

The ability to make things happen is a combination of knowing how to be a driver in a variety of different situations and having the courage to do so.

Project management - an art or a science?

Is project management an art that you’re born with or a science that you can learn? In my opinion, I think that project management is both.

It’s a science because it seeks to understand and apply processes, tools and techniques. The science encompasses the who-does-what-when issues and requires a solid schedule and budget to be managed.

The artistic aspect of project management involves the organisation and the people. Directing your teams when work priorities shift, resolving issues when they arise, and determining which information to communicate when and to who.

Truly successful project managers have both art and science based skills. When subjective situations arise, a project manager needs to use their soft skills to determine the appropriate course of action; different employee styles and different scenarios require different management tactics. Project managers need factual and objective data to manage an initiative and recommend corrective action.

Being a project manager means using a constant mix of hard and soft skills. Macro and micro assessing, thinking and acting, being proactive and reactive. At the end of the day, a project manager’s ultimate success could rely on one basic thing – getting people to do what you want.

The trick is to be persuasive without adopting dishonest or manipulative tactics. No matter who you are or what industry you’re in, the ability to influence others is crucial.

It requires a set of critical skills

Project managers think, analyse, communicate and motivate.

Thinking

Seeing any project from start to completion requires constant and critical thinking. A project manager receives, processes, aggregates, and makes sense of lots of information at every step.

Analysing

Constant analysis of a project is mandatory. Assessing all the aspects, getting to the bottom of any issues and seeing through what appears to be happening and what is actually happening, are just a few of the ways analysis comes into play.

Communicating

Spending most, if not all, of the day communicating: emails, phone calls, conversations, instant messages. Plus, there’s a lot of nonverbal communication: facial expressions, moods, body language. We have to make sense of all the information and deliver it in universal and productive ways. That means constantly listening, translating and re-communicating information to team members and clients.

Motivating

A good part of the day is spent ensuring tasks are moving along in the right direction. Aligning people towards a common goal, adjusting when things are veering off course and making sure that people are going at the right pace. All require motivation and this will mean different things to different people. It’s important to have a variety of motivational techniques and using them wisely and appropriately.

It’s about managing people

No matter what role you play within a company, your ability to work effectively with others can have a huge impact on your working environment. People skills not only help others to express themselves in a better way but it also encourages careful listening and reacting to a problem rationally.

Get the right resources behind you

Some people have a knack for this while others have to work at it. It’s all about getting to know people, their niches and tapping into your networks for knowledge and experience. This can take a lot of work and putting your best face forward – even when you don’t feel like it! It’s important to connect and converse with people on a daily basis. Once you’ve managed to build up a rapport and trust, people will want to collaborate with you to get the project completed on time and within scope.

Understand emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence refers to the capacity to identify, evaluate and manage emotions in yourself as well as others. It can greatly impact someone’s work life and career, so it’s important to understand exactly what it is and why it’s so important.

Every workplace is compromised of people with different strengths, personalities and emotions, which can affect the way they work.

As a project manager, I deal with people all day, every day, and rely on them to get the job done. Emotional intelligence is the ultimate integration of soft skills and technical skills.

People who possess high levels of emotional intelligence are self-motivated. They understand their own strengths and weaknesses in addition to how their actions could affect other people. They're also better equipped to handle constructive criticism and learn from their mistakes.

The benefits of people with high emotional intelligence in the workplace include:

• They can successfully manage difficult situations
• They can express themselves clearly
• Have respect for others
• Have the ability to influence people
• Entice other people to help them out
• Are able to keep cool under pressure
• Can recognise their emotional reactions to people or situations
• They know how to say the ‘right’ thing to get the right results
• Manage themselves, or in turn, other people effectively when negotiating
• Self motivate
• Have the ability to stay positive even during difficult situations

Though emotional intelligence is usually painted in a positive light and it is often considered a valuable personality trait, a balanced view of the concept is important.

Below are a few examples of how people with low emotional intelligence can impact the workplace:

• With arrogance – Arrogant people often seem to think that they know it all and that no one can teach them anything
• With insensitivity – Insensitive people are often perceived as uncaring. Therefore, co-workers are less likely to want to work with them or offer help
• With rigidity – Being inflexible in your thinking or approach, or if you’re not a team player
• With selfishness – If your agenda is the only one that matters, you could be perceived as being selfish
• With volatility – Volatile people can cause dysfunction in teams and are likely to upset co-workers

Project managers work in increasingly complex environments, and it’s not sufficient to bring only the technical skills you have learnt to be successful. Relationships need to be developed and teams need to be motivated.

If we can improve our ability to perceive the emotions of our colleagues, we can empathise and adjust our style to get a better outcome. If we manage our own emotions, we can be certain that the emotions we express to others are appropriate for the situation. If we use our emotions to improve decision making, we can enhance our ability to solve problems.

If we are self-motivated we can achieve more realistic goals and finally we can enhance our ability to interpret emotional tone, we can build more effective relationships and influence the goals and outcomes of projects.

Motivate teams

Sometimes things can get tough with projects - meetings can be tricky, feedback can be brutal and clients aren’t always easy to please. As a project manager, you need to act as the motivator to get your teams to do the best job possible, whether you pick up some treats for those who are working overtime in the office or give someone praise in front of the team for doing a great job, we have to be genuine and caring to feel like part of the team.

At the end of the day, we’re responsible for keeping ourselves and our teams motivated to complete projects successfully. It’s no easy feat, but with a few tweaks in the way we work and communicate we can keep everyone motivated to produce great work on time and within budget. After all, nothing feels better than finishing a project and feeling like you gave it your all!

It requires constant communication

Communication is an essential process in our day-to-day life, and the world revolves around it.

The ability to communicate comfortably with people at all levels about a project is often named as one of the top skills a project manager must have. It’s important to tailor your message to the audience to ensure the right level of communication. Every person needs to be engaged differently, some may need a lot of details while another might prefer a brief overview.

How to be more assertive in the workplace

Being assertive is a happy medium between aggressive and passive. While aggressive people adopt the ‘my way or the highway’ approach, coming off as hostile and abrasive, passive people can be pushovers, giving up their power and allowing themselves to be taken advantage of.

Assertive people tend to seek out and create win-win scenarios. They understand the value of making their desires and beliefs known, but their pride isn’t damaged if their solution isn’t the one that comes out on top.

Many people find it challenging to project assertiveness as it requires you to walk a fine line between being pushy and pacifying. Here are a few techniques for how to be more assertive within the workplace - without turning people against you.

• Give instructions – use positive language and ask for what you want/need (as opposed to stating what you don’t want)
• Give reasons for what you want – Giving reasons allows the person you're speaking to, to understand the criteria and why you need something done. People are more likely to comply when they understand ‘why’ you need something
• State consequences of actions – Consequences allow the other person to understand the positive (or negative) results of your objectives
• Negotiate gently giving options or alternatives – If you’re met with resistance you may need to offer options or suggestions as a way forward, or alternatives that may appeal to the other person
• Restate your point of view – If you’re met with further resistance you may decide to reaffirm your objectives while increasing the consequences to the other party. If you have progressed to this stage it is important to remember that you must be willing and able to carry out your stated consequences if you wish to be successful

How to communicate effectively over email in the workplace

Email is the most widely used tool to communicate in the workplace. It is estimated that we receive an average of 88 emails per day and send 34. It is therefore imperative that we make the best possible use of email to communicate effectively in the workplace.

• Consider what might be better as a phone call or face-to-face conversation
• Understand that emails default to a negative tone

How to avoid miscommunication in the workplace

Communication can make or break a project. So, understanding the roots of miscommunication and the impact of this risk is critical to developing a communication strategy that ensures deliverables are being met by your project teams.

Below are the some of the most common miscommunications that happen in project management:

1) Thinking that you’ve communicated, when you haven’t

Never assume that you’ve communicated thoroughly until you have received an acknowledgement or response back from each member of the team you’re communicating with. It’s easy for people to misinterpret what you’ve asked.

2) Assuming that you communicate enough

It’s difficult to over communicate. However, it's VERY easy to under-communicate. Be clear and to the point, state what you need and what you expect. Be sure to ask, "Does anyone have any questions?” It’s important to demonstrate that you prefer questions up-front as opposed to misinterpretation further down the line.

3) Adopting only one method of communication

Some project managers are heavily reliant on email and think that it’s the only way we can communicate, as it provides a paper trail. While that's acceptable and provides a useful record of conversations past and present, the best form of communication is, and always has been, face-to-face communication.

4) Pay attention to nonverbal communication

We don’t communicate with words alone. An individual’s facial expression and body language can be a powerful message that is delivered involuntarily – and may intentionally contradict what we’re saying. Think carefully about your tone of voice, eye contact and what your body is 'saying'.

It requires project management tools

Many early project management applications were general purpose tools not designed for a specific aspect of project management or for a particular industry.

Today, there are a number of tools in the market for helping project managers manage and communicate with their delivery teams, that target specific industries. And these tools come in different forms: paper-based tools, such as templates, checklists and forms; automated tools, which could reside on local computers for primary users or reside on a network server for different users to web-based tools.

The primary purpose of project management tools is to help managers plan, execute and control all aspects of the project management process. Because PM tools enhance resource efficiency and ensure project scope, such tools are especially important for project managers involved with complex or large projects.

The benefits of project management software:

• Collaborate on projects
• Internal and external communication
• Delegate tasks
• Budget management
• Monitoring progress
• Document sharing

There are endless project management applications available and below are a handful of examples of some of the best on the market:

1. Basecamp – It allows you to create multiple projects and setup discussions, write to-do lists, manage files, create and share documents and organise dates for scheduling.

2. Teamwork Projects – It allows you to keep all your projects, tasks and files in one place and easily collaborate with teams. It can also help you visualise an entire project through a marked calendar, Gantt chart and setup reporting.

3. Trello – It allows you to glance at an entire project with a single view. You organise cards, these cards can be your thoughts, conversations and to-do lists and be placed on a board for everyone to collaborate on.

4. Jira – Specifically targeted for software development teams. Jira offers the ability to raise issues and bugs. This application makes it really easy to track bugs and see which issues are still outstanding and how much time was spent on each task.

To summarise, project management is a complicated role which requires you to master a number of things; planning, understanding what tasks need to be done, ensuring briefs are provided, understanding how to make good decisions, having good communication and interpersonal skills, knowing what to do when things go wrong and keeping teams motivated while continuously keeping projects moving forward.

You can’t be a great Project Manager without people skills. It’s certainly no easy task, but if you focus your time and energy on the people you work with, they will see that you not only care about budgets and timelines, but about the people and process as well. If you can get your colleagues to not only like you but respect you, you’ve won half the battle.