David Julian Price - Workshop for Project Management Institute 2

Have you noticed that? Not in a lounge chair but at a table. And they'll nearly always sit at right angles to you. And they'll put a brochure on the table. And you think they're just putting a brochure on the table. They're not. They're testing you. Because the minute the brochure goes down, what will a specific do? Look at it. How will they look at it? Pick it up. Where will they start looking? At the front. At the front. They'll turn it over and a specific will do something that a global will never do. They'll read words. Globals don't do that. Globals like pictures. You're the customer of your financial planner. You pick up the brochure and you start looking. They know you're a specific. Now what happens then is the financial planner changes gears to specific and they sell to you specifically. Completely different language to global. What does a specific salesperson look like? And I don't mean physically. What do they do?

Detail.

They'll give you detail because they'll know that you want detail and they've evidenced that by the fact that that's how you picked up the brochure. The global will pick it up, they'll immediately turn it over, they'll flick from the back and then they'll probably put it down. So what the salesperson now does is sell to you globally, which means you don't want detail. You just want, look, this super package is going to be really good. It's going to give you $2 million in 3 months. They'll just give you broad stuff and the global will be perfectly happy with that. Now, Elsa, would you be happy with the global answer?

No.

Would you be happy with the global answer?

If it was good, yeah.

Yes. Would you be happy with the specific answer? No, you wouldn't. You'd be bored out of your brain. The specifics don't speak the same language as the globals. The globals don't speak the same language as specifics. Is this making sense? Okay, we're going to do one test. Pick a person that you're going to talk to or a threesome. Threesomes are always fun, I find. So here is the question. Tell the other person or the other people this. How do you get from this room in the City West Function Centre to the DNA Tower in Kings Park? And if you don't know where the DNA Tower is, just make it Kings Park. Tell the person. Now, the listeners, I want you to listen to what sort of answer you're getting or description. Are you getting a global description or are you getting a specific description? Listen Go. Tell the person how to get to the DNA Tower.

Okay.

Who got a really global answer? Okay, can you tell us what you were told or who gave you the global answer?

He did.

Okay, tell us your global answer. My global answer was to walk outside the room, turn right, essentially hop in your car and then drive into the city and then take a northeast approach outside of the city and on your left-hand side is Kings Park. So let me tell you, that's not a global answer. That is nowhere near a global answer. That's about a number four answer. Number five, six is the midpoint. Four is in the specific side. So that's a specific answer. You got a global answer? Patrick gave me a global answer. Take an Uber. Okay. So Patrick, that's what you said. That is a typical global answer. That's a number ten answer. These other number ten answers. Who else got a number ten answer? What was yours? Enter your car.

Put a GPS.

Exactly. That's the most common one. Just look it up on your GPS. Okay. Who got what they think was a number one answer? Okay, what was yours? Okay, tell us, go.

I think that if you go down Wellington Street, then turn right over the Horseshoe Bridge over William, and then right onto St George's Terrace, and then you keep going to a roundabout, and I can go on, but—

Okay, so that's about a number 2, 3 answer. I'll give you a number 1 answer, okay? Very common, and we get this. Well, stand up, walk to the door. And I'm not joking. And they think that that is absolutely Absolutely appropriate and it is for them. And they'll say, walk to the door, turn right, you'll go through some glass doors, be careful, they're strong or they're heavy or whatever. Walk to your car. Where is your car? Underneath? Okay, then you need to go across. There won't be much traffic on Pleistomeuse so you won't need to worry about traffic. And you go over there and you get into your car. Where's your car parked? Which way is it facing? Oh well, if it's facing that way then you need to go— and then you go down that path. That's a number one answer. Now, Imagine putting— who was our get the Uber? Okay, sorry, what's your name?

Patrick.

Patrick. Imagine Patrick and—

Kia.

Kia in a meeting. There is no meeting. But seriously, you get in every meeting globals and specifics and they speak a different language. So with the greatest of respect to you two, when Patrick's speaking, you're thinking Come on, give me more. I want more detail. And when Kia's speaking, you're thinking, yeah, but what's the end result? I don't care. We'll do that after. I do not need this. You know, and they create some conflict sometimes which sometimes becomes what we call a personality clash. It's not actually a personality clash. It's a clash in the way we think and communicate. Kia is just as valid a person as Patrick. Patrick is just as valid a person as Kia, but they don't see eye to eye. And I don't mean literally you two using the example, you understand that. The globals and specifics do not agree with each other and they do not see eye to eye. And the reason they don't agree is because they don't see eye to eye. They look at a problem from a different perspective. Now let's come back to decisions. You're in a meeting, you've got to make a decision. Kia will not make the decision until all the detail is there and it has been analysed.

Yes.

Patrick will want to make the decision quick and worry about the details later. Okay? And he has every confidence that the details will be worried about later by Kia. Am I right?

Yeah.

The globals know how to run the world. Evidence, Mr. Trump. He hadn't got a specific brain in his— well, I was going to say bone in his body and brain came out. Don't know why, but anyway. But globals just want to get the job done. The problem is they don't want to do it. That's what other people are for, to do the work. But what you wanna do and what the specifics wanna do is do the right stuff so that you don't have to do it again. And it's this problem that causes decisions not to be made in organisations. So is there a way? Yes, of course. If you're chairing the meeting, then open it up and say, okay— because you will all know who the globals and specifics are if you go back and think about it. If you sit down at your desk tomorrow and write down a list of people in the meeting, You'll be able to put a G or an S next to them all. You'll know now you know the concept. What you do is you open it up and you may say, let's do some global thinking about this. What do we need to achieve? The specifics, what do we need to get there? What's the detail that we need? Any of you done de Bono's 6 Thinking Hats? This is just a simplified version of broadly that concept that you look at every coloured hat and apply that to the issue or the situation and it helps you get to the right decision and that's what's important, the right decision. Okay? So the global and specific is a really, really important thing. So let me just give you another example. I want you to just now talk again to the people around you but here is the issue. You need to get to Paris. Will you fly Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Qatar, or Cathay Pacific? They're your 4 choices. I want you to have a little discussion and make a decision just with the people around you. You've got to get to Paris. Are you going to fly Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Qatar, or Cathay Pacific?

Emirates.

Um, do you want to do any questions and answers? I'll do that in a second, so I'll build that in if you like. So shall I do that now? No, well, you've got really around between 10 and 20 minutes. Oh good, perfect. Now I'm just gonna park that for just a minute. I'm just gonna put it on a shelf for just a minute and I'm gonna come back to it. How many of you were in a meeting today where a decision was made? Okay, are you able to tell us what the decision was without breaking any confidences?

Oh yeah, it was—

Tell us whatever you feel comfortable to share with us.

So it was about detail of within transport of equipment. How do you actually sign off the receipting and so forth?

Perfect. Now, Mark, wasn't it? Yeah.

Yep.

So Mark, I'm not trying to be a smartass here. How How many were in the group?

About 7, 8.

Okay, so 7 or 8. Is that in your experience a medium meeting, small meeting, or a large meeting? Medium meeting? Yep, okay. How did that group make the decision? Now pause. Do you agree that's a simple question?

How did you make Well, there was a bit of conjecture within the meeting and in the end it was, I'd say, the CEO actually intervened.

Gosh, really? Gosh, I am shocked. The boss made the decision. Gosh. Okay, keep going. What do you mean by that?

Well, he made a decision to basically put it in place and to further, like down the track, like just to see how it goes.

See what happens. Okay, is that a reasonable strategy, the see what happens strategy?

Yeah.

Well, that's interesting. Okay, who thinks that is a reasonable strategy generally, the see what happens strategy? Who thinks it's not? Oh, that's really interesting. Now I wonder if that's because you're project managers because if I do this in a normal audience, that is people who are not project managers, the vast majority say that's fine. By the way, what do you think the globals almost universally think?

That's fine.

That's fine.

Why?

What do the globals want?

Results.

They want results and they want to get onto the next Well, our CEO is global. Yep.

After what you've said here today, he's a global guy.

Yeah, so the see what happens strategy is a very, very common one. Now for those of you who put up your hand that you don't think that's an appropriate strategy, here's a lesson for you. You are in the minority in thinking that and I'm not for a second implying that you are wrong. I'm just saying that most of the people you will work with, particularly people who are not project managers will not think— will think that's an appropriate strategy. So they'll think differently to you. So just be aware of that, that there's other points of view. But let's come back to the question that you all agreed with me was a simple question. How did you make that decision? Has Mark actually told us?

No.

No.

No reflection on you, Mark, because almost everyone in the room would have done something similar. So when I do this work and I go to organisations and I say that very question, How did you make that decision? And I always then stop and do what I did with you, and I say, do you agree that's a simple question? They all agree, yes, it's a simple question. Then I ask them to answer it. I'm yet to get a satisfactory answer. You know, in a meeting, there are participants who give inputs, but maybe CEO had the authority to make the decision, and he had—

time is limited.

You cannot be discussing all the details and ifs and buts. Perfect. So let me give you a Fredo Frog. So let me analyze what you've said. So what happens— well, it's a few things you've said in there. First of all, have you ever been in a meeting where you've discussed something— that's a horrible word, discussed, because it doesn't mean anything— you've discussed something and then you find out that you don't actually have the authority as a group to make the decision?

Right.

So your response clearly means that's a very common thing. Would you rather have been told at the beginning, here's the issue, people. You're not making the decision but we want your input for the people who are making the decision. Would you be happier in that meeting?

Yes.

Yes. Let me tell you a little story. A guy who actually used to work This building, but, you know, in Place des Murs behind where there's lots of businesses. He was a sales rep for an organisation. They sold photocopiers and they had a weekly sales meeting and his sales manager came in and held the weekly sales meeting and said, we need your opinion on such and such. And this particular guy said, so boss, let me just clarify. The decision hasn't yet been made and you're seeking our opinion. Is that right? The boss said yes. So they went on with the meeting. 2 other times the guy interrupted the sales manager and asked the same question. So boss, just let me get this straight. The decision hasn't been made yet, but you want our opinion on it so that the national sales manager can make the decision. Is that right?

Yes.

And you were part of Of that team? State sales manager?

Yes.

So he asked the question 3 times. And then at the end, the boss said— well, the sales manager said, I'll take that to Sydney. And this guy then said, why bother taking it to Sydney since we all got an email that was sent earlier this morning telling us that the decision's already been made? And I've asked you 3 times if that's the case, and you were copied in on that email. Where do you think loyalty and morale went? By the way, where do you think the state sales manager went? He was out the door. He was out the door because that got back to Sydney real quick and he was out the door. So you've got to look at the people side of decision-making as well. So if people are not given the authority to make the decision, don't pretend that they do. Now coming back to your comment, if you just want to gather opinion, people are happy to do that. And in your situation that you've implied, the boss makes the decision, that's fine as long as you know you're happy. Is that generally the case?

Yes.

But what people are not happy with is when they're told you make the decision but they don't, the boss does. Or what's worse is the story I've just told you where the boss has already made the decision and pretends that you are being gathered together to make that decision. That's a real morale killer and then some managers wonder why they don't get the best out of people. You know, I guess, the reason why 99.9% of people leave their job, the universal reason.

Their managers.

Because of their immediate manager, their immediate supervisor. That's 99% of people leave their position because of their immediate supervisor. in something that they do or some way that they work. So let's come back now to the airline example. Who's gonna fly Emirates? Who's gonna fly Singapore Airlines? Who's gonna fly Cathay Pacific? And who's gonna fly Qatar? Funny, no one's flying Qatar anymore. Put that in there deliberately. Emirates people, who's an Emirates person? Well, we had you, Mark. In the back, in the middle.

Why? I know their route to Paris from Perth is generally pretty good. If I'm flying economy, I usually get 1 or 2 seats to myself.

Okay, so who were you talking to?

I was talking to Steve.

Steve. What issues did you consider in that discussion?

Cost. Cost.

Okay.

Availability.

Availability, yep. And so did you make some assumptions?

Pretty much.

Yeah, so what were your assumptions? That Emirates was cheaper?

Emirates generally will be more expensive.

Right.

But obviously flight time is going to be slightly less and the time you fly out and arrive is more convenient for me.

Okay, and availability? What assumptions did you make about that? Because they had to make assumptions, would you agree? You all did because I didn't give you any other information. I didn't say that all the fares were within $100 of each other or anything like that. So what assumptions did you make about availability?

That there are generally more flights going out.

Yep, okay. So can I come back to you with the same question I asked Mark? How did you make your decision?

Basically weighed up availability versus cost.

Okay. Which was greater, cost or availability?

As in more beneficial to me?

I don't know, I want you to answer my vague question.

Availability is more beneficial to me.

Okay, so what we now get into is that there are some factors that are weighted higher than others. Now you all know this as project managers, don't you? How often does the word weighting ever come up in a meeting when you're making a decision? What do people miraculously assume that all the factors factors are equal, but they're not. Some are much more important than others. Okay, for my son buying his property, what do you think was the 2 major factors?

Price. Price and?

Location.

Location. They were the 2 major factors. They had much higher weighting than the colour of the tiles in the bathroom. You know, that had no weighting whatsoever. But in a meeting And when decisions are being made, people, intelligent people like you, and I'm not having a go at you, I'm having a go at everyone in the workforce, don't tend to say, well, hang on, when we're considering whatever the issue was about transport, this has a higher weighting than that. And you also make assumptions. You made assumptions. Of course you did. You all made assumptions in the issue about the airline. What's the important thing about assumptions? To know what they are. To know what assumptions you've made. So one of the best chairs I've ever seen at chairing meetings used to start every decision-making process with, OK, let's first of all put on the table what assumptions we've made or we think we've made. And then those assumptions got put down. One of the best tools I've ever seen— I've only discovered it in the last week, many of you have probably seen it before and that is making a meeting table a whiteboard. So that everyone writes literally on the table. It becomes a whiteboard. Any of you seen those or got those at work? The video I've seen of it is— you've got one? Do you use it lots?

I don't know.

You've got one but you don't know if it's used. But think about it, it's just fantastic. How many of you are doodlers? Now you need to understand that you drive the other people up the wall. You're doodlers but I'm a doodler too. Tough, they just have to live with it, don't they? But if you clarify the assumptions, one of the best tools you can use in any meeting, whether it's on the table or on the wall, is a whiteboard. Virtually every meeting room I've ever been in has a whiteboard, but in meetings they're hardly ever used. But what does a whiteboard do? It puts the stuff up there, it makes it visual, but it also depersonalises it. So if Alison comes up with something and it's put on the whiteboard, in many ways it's no longer Alison's and that's how it should be. Okay? And then Dee puts something up, it's no longer hers but the 2 things now get considered objectively. And the great thing about the whiteboard is you say, well, hang on, the issue that Alison's raised is of higher value. It doesn't mean Alison's of higher value but the issue is a higher weighting. than the issue that Dee's done. Now you can do that on a whiteboard. You can't do it by just talking. So this is all the sort of stuff that goes towards making decisions much, much, much more effective. But I wanna finish on the killer, the absolute killer of meetings and of decisions and it is this: opinion disguised as data. Opinion disguised as data. Opinion disguised as fact. So you will all have been in meetings where someone says, I believe such and such. Now if you've got a specific in the meeting, someone might say, where's your evidence for that? And they'll say, oh well, everyone knows.

Mm-hmm.

And the reality is everyone doesn't know. What they've done is given their opinion and many times they genuinely assume that their opinion is data, is fact and it's not. It's their opinion. So one of the things to do if you're ever in the position of chairing a meeting is clarify what is actual fact and what is opinion. But you need to do that in a respectful way because we all do it. Every one of us does it from time to time, some more than others. Presenting opinion but genuinely believing that it is true. Perfect example, Facebook. All these things that came up— come up on Facebook. Who received a message, don't receive a friend request from Jayden whatever his name was? How many of you got that? Yeah, so about a quarter of you in the room. So many people— I've got people on my list who happen to be relatives So, you know, you can't really unfriend the Rellies. But all this stuff always comes from one particular Relly. She believes everything and it is fact in her view, but it's not. And it come out that it's just a scam. The whole thing is just a scam. So opinion disguised as fact is one of the absolute danger signs that you need to look out for in a meeting and particularly in decision-making. Because it's that that leads to poor decisions an enormous amount of the time, when people are using what they believe is fact that someone else has presented but is actually opinion and there is no evidence. So the most crucial word to take away with you tonight is evidence. When you're making decisions, look for evidence. What evidence was presented, Mark, in your meeting today? What actual evidence was presented? Now it wouldn't have been called evidence, by the way, probably.

Yeah, it's like past reports.

Right.

That's what basically brought the subject up in the lack of the reports.

Okay, so let me pause you there. What does every report need to make sense? Every report. It needs a comparison with something. Here's the report. Well, big deal. Here's the report. Bully for you. So what? So the question you've got to ask is, compared to what? You know, Alison's a wonderful person. I know that because she's named Alison and I was going to be Alison but I wasn't. Alison's a wonderful person. Compared to who? Compared to yourself. Yeah, compared to everybody. And quite clearly you are. So everyone give Alison a round of applause please.

See?

But the reality is the words compared to what are really useful words and every report is only of value once you compare it to something. In fact, every piece of data is of no value whatsoever until you compare it to something. So I'm gonna make up this figure. Does anyone work for Fremantle Ports or any of the ports?

No.

No, then I'm just making up this figure. I have no idea what reality is, I'm making it up. Okay, tell me what this means. Last year, 45 million tonnes of freight were exported from Fremantle. What does that mean?

Nothing.

Why doesn't it mean anything?

No evidence.

Well, yeah, here's the evidence. Here's the evidence.

45 million.

Compared to what? So I might now compare it to the year before, or this year, or Bunbury. Or Sydney or whatever. Once you have some other set of data, that first set now means something. But until you've got the second set, it means absolutely nothing. So when you're going through your decision-making processes in your meetings, ask the question, compared to what? This is the best thing since sliced bread. Compared to what?

Sliced bread.

Yes, yeah, sliced bread, yeah. So I've got a few things for you. Many of you, particularly those of you from about here back, did the Australian thing of decision-making and that is, I'll sit in the back row so if he's no good I can slip out. If we were in America, the front rows would be full, the back rows would be empty but in Australia it's the reverse. And so some of you have missed out on the handouts which I cunningly put on the front seats. You'd think by now I'd learn, wouldn't you? But I didn't. So there's 3 things that I've got to offer you, all free, none of them cost a cent. They're on the white sheet and if you didn't get a white sheet there's still some down here. So the first thing is a free enrolment to a course that I've just done, an online course, How to Chair a Meeting. It's a very comprehensive course. It's an online one. It's completely free. So if you want to do that, I encourage you to. I've just released it. I'm really interested in some guinea pigs, which is why I'm offering it to you free. But it's a complete professional course. So that's there. You can— that's there free. The second one is 2 ebooks. And they are actually this. This is the hard copy of it. It's 2 books in one, Going Through the Motions and The Meeting Toolbox. 2 books in one. There's a free copy of that for an ebook if you're interested. The 3rd thing is the biggie, and it's this: in July and August, I'm offering to come into organisations and be the objective outsider and just sit in one of your meetings and talk to a few people and do a diagnostic of your meetings and your decision-making. You would all know this. Any of you who've been a consultant, you would all know. You go in and you see things that the people who are there don't see. Do you get that?

Yeah.

Yeah, so the outsider always sees things. So I'm offering that if you wanna take me up on that, and I really encourage you to, I'll come in for a couple of hours. I'll sign any non-disclosure agreement you want me to sign. I don't blab about anything. I'm very good at recognising confidentiality. But I need to sit in on a meeting. I need to talk to some people and I'll give you a report back about your decision-making and your meetings. I promise you, you'll save thousands of dollars because so many meetings are so poorly run and they cost organisations millions and millions of dollars and they don't know. We're going to have a draw a little later in the night. Cole's going to do a draw at the end of the evening and I've got a pile of my products I'm going to give to the lucky person. So look, I want to thank you tonight for making a decision to turn up. What I'd really like you to do is think about the specific, think about the global. I want you to think about fact versus opinion, and I want you to think about the word evidence. When you're looking at decisions, think about the evidence. And then remember, 70% of decisions never get implemented. Make sure you're in the 30%. Thank you for coming. Thank you.