I started working for Mike Wallace as a senior project manager (PM) with the responsibility for multiple projects on the following Monday. He had a cubicle for me which was a typical office for a PM.
He had 4 other senior project managers reporting directly to him. The full team of project support staff included a secretary as well as a couple of other admin support personnel.
I was curious to know what kind of background Mike had. I tried to pin him down for a meeting to chat about his background and his vision about his department but it wasn’t easy to get him committed. He had mentioned to me during my first meeting with him that he had worked in Saudi Arabia on an assignment for a little while. I wasn’t sure about his experience here in Canada. All I knew about Mike was that he was one of the new hires since the new guy (Ken) took over the IT function at Canada Post.
I finally nailed him down by offering him lunch at the restaurant where I used to go every day. He showed up on time and started talking about the management meeting that he had attended before he arrived. He said what a waste of time. Listening to my boss and other directors for more than two hours was a lost cause.
As usual the wife of the owner showed up and took our orders.
She came back after 5 minutes and said to Mike, please take off your jacket.
Mike was shocked and said why?
She said because your jacket needs fixing on the left shoulder. I can’t let you dine with Dr. Ali with this jacket on.
Mike was stunned but he stood up, took off his jacket, and verified that it did indeed need fixing.
She spoke to Mike directly and said she used to be a seamstress in her previous life. She decided to come and work with her husband in the family business, managing the restaurant.
Mike was looking at me nervously. I said you will get your jacket back before we have finished our lunch, Mike.
He handed the jacket to her reluctantly.
We got back to our discussion as I was keenly interested in finding out his vision.
After listening to him, I made the observation that apart from being a nice guy, Mike had no real qualifications to manage the total development activities for an organization the size of Canada Post. Nevertheless, I thought I should try to help him as much as I could.
I suggested that I could look around and try to gather some documentation on both the applications that he wanted me to organize and initiate projects for. I also suggested that I should go around and meet the users of those two applications to understand their status before I began drafting a project plan for each application. Mike liked the idea and kept telling me to do what I had done for the consumer sales tax for the Government of New Brunswick.
By the time we finished our lunch, the owner’s wife brought his jacket back. Mike looked at the fix on the jacket and thanked her profusely. At the same time he asked me how I get these things like happen. I said they are just kind people who care for their customers.
Mike put his jacket on. While we were walking back to our office building, he said he had two kids and an ex-wife. He lives alone in an apartment and nobody’s there to look after him.
I kept myself busy with the collection and reviewing of the relevant documents. After that I started chatting with the folks who were responsible for managing the current applications. However, I found it difficult to meet with Mike to discuss anything as he was all over the map. When he didn’t show up for a scheduled meeting he was always complaining how busy he was with everything else. I thought the best way to manage Mike was to give him an electronic scheduler. I bought one from the computer store before it became Best Buy.
The scheduler was sophisticated enough to do more than schedule meetings. It was also designed to issue notifications and reminders. Mike hesitated to accept it from me. I said it was not a bribe, Mike. Nobody has to know about it. I remember telling him that he missed three meetings with me during the last two weeks. If I asked other project managers, they would agree with me that they had similar experiences.
He said you got me there, Mir. Unfortunately, I am not known for punctuality.
I told Mike that perhaps he would be better off with an electronic scheduler compared to the appointment book that he carried all the time. The book had no capability to tell him that he could not schedule more than one appointment at the same time. He laughed and said Mir you were supposed to manage projects, not your boss.
I said unfortunately I could not manage any project effectively if didn’t know how to manage my boss. He said touché.
Once Mike had his secretary enter his meetings in the scheduler, he took it with him everywhere and followed it accordingly. It didn’t take too long for people to say that Mike’s showing up on time for his meetings.
Mike started feeling comfortable with me. From time to time he asked me if we could have lunch at my favorite restaurant. They knew that Mike was my boss and they welcomed him wholeheartedly, regardless of whether I was with him or not. Mike told me that once he went there for lunch with his boss and as soon as he entered the restaurant, he was treated like a king. His boss asked him how the heck he managed to do that.
One day I was talking to other project managers. They were saying that having a scheduler helped Mike to better manage his meetings; but still it required discipline to allocate time for each meeting, and to not overrun or overlap meetings. Plus they were complaining that they didn’t get to see Mike as much as they needed to. I suggested that the timing of meetings and following the scheduled meetings are very personal. It would take some time for Mike to control them. In the meantime, perhaps we should get Mike to meet with us every week to brief him about what we are working on and where and when we need his help to deal with the politics.
Everybody liked the idea. They said perhaps I should take the lead to get him to agree to meet weekly.
I thought about that before I asked Mike to have lunch with me. When we met, I briefed him about my activities. He appeared to be very happy with what I was working on.
When he mentioned that he was really grateful for the idea of using the scheduler for his daily activities, I thought this would be the right time to mention the need for a weekly management meeting. I remember saying that while things seemed to be more organized; I thought there was a need for us to have a weekly management meeting with all PMs. I told him I had discussed this idea with the PMs. They thought it was an excellent idea and they authorized me to discuss it with him.
Mike sipped his Coke and looked around before he began to talk.
He said he didn’t like the idea of having meetings as he believed that they are usually just time-consuming and accomplish nothing of significance. For instance, he continued, all we directors have a weekly management meeting with our boss for almost three hours. All we discuss is politics and stupidity which doesn’t help to get things done in our real world.
I had to be very careful about how to respond to his comments, which were totally valid. I finally said I understand that, Mike. Still, we cannot neglect the fact that weekly meetings will help boost morale of the project teams, and it will help provide updates on specific projects.
He said do you want to know what else really bothers me about our weekly meetings with our boss. I said shoot.
He said he takes telephone calls during the meeting. While he’s on the phone, everybody else is looking at each other and doing nothing.
I came very close to say your boss is an idiot but I bit my tongue.
I said here’re the following suggestions:
- I will organize a weekly meeting starting on Monday at 7:00 AM to be finished by 8:30 AM. That will allow us to be in the office on time and continue our routine activities;
- I will arrange and pay for everybody’s breakfast so that there won’t be any telephone calls during the meeting to interrupt us; and
- I will prepare an agenda, coordinating the content with other PMs. I will monitor the meeting so we stay within the time frame.
Mike said – WOW. Mir you cannot do that. You have been very generous with your time and money with me. I really appreciate that, but there’s no need for you to continue to spend money on us.
I said my total focus is to facilitate a weekly meeting where all PMs get an opportunity to get your direction for their projects.
Mike said I don’t have any problem with making a commitment to meet with you guys every week and spend time to listen and provide some directions as you suggested. But I am not too sure if letting you pay for the breakfasts is the right thing to do, Mir.
I don’t know any other way to make sure that no PM will have an excuse not to show up for the meeting, Mike.
Mike said let me think about it, Mir.
