Episode 331: Add Compassion to Your Project Manager Skill Set (Free)
This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for the PMI-ACP® Exam:
When you think of your project manager skills, then “compassion” is probably not the first word that comes to mind. You would probably first list some other hard project management tools and techniques like your scheduling abilities or completing your projects on scope and on budget.
And only if you keep adding words to this project management skills list will you eventually come to terms like conflict management, team building, empathy and compassion.
Margaret Meloni says that we project managers should value compassion much more than we do.
If we are supposed to use compassion as one of our project management soft skills then we have to first define what it is, how it relates to project management and hear examples of how to use it on our projects. And that’s exactly what you are going to get from Margaret’s interview.
But the most important question that I have asked margaret is this: If compassion is truly so important for me as a project manager, how can I see quantifiable results on my projects?
Episode Transcript
Podcast Introduction
Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to Episode #331. This is the Project Management Podcast™ at www.pm-podcast.com and I'm Cornelius Fichtner.
Wilkommen, bienvenue, benvenuto and welcome.
When you think of your project manager skills then compassion is probably not the first word that comes to mind. You would probably first list some other hard project management tools and techniques like your scheduling abilities or completing your projects on scope and on budget, and only if you keep adding words to this project management skills list will you eventually come to terms like conflict management, team building, empathy and compassion.
Well, Margaret Meloni says that we project managers should value compassion much more than we do.
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But back to compassion so if we are supposed to use compassion as one of our project management soft skills then we have to first define what it is. See how it relates to project management and hear examples of how to use it on our projects. And that is exactly what you are going to get from Margaret's interview. But the most important question that I have asked Margaret is this: If compassion is truly so important for me as a project manager, how can I see quantifiable results on my projects?
And since I know that you want to be the best project manager you can possibly be, please enjoy the interview.
Podcast Interview
Female voice: The Project Management Podcast’s feature Interview: Today with Margaret Meloni, community leader at www.elearning4pms.com and www.pmstudent.com.
Cornelius Fichtner: Hello, Margaret and welcome back to The Project Management Podcast™.
Margaret Meloni: Hi, Cornelius. Always, always fun to be here. Thank you!
Cornelius Fichtner: This is what? Interview number 3 million that you and I did?
Margaret Meloni: I'm so glad you are now asking me for the precise number because I don’t know but I know that it's always something enjoyable and I always appreciate the opportunity to do it. So thank you, whether this is 3 million or 5 million or as many hamburgers as McDonald's has sold, whichever.
Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, well thank you for being here. Let's look to the end of this interview here. Tell us what can our listeners expect from our conversation? What will they learn about compassion, what's in it for them?
Margaret Meloni: Well at the end, don’t they just get your music? Just kidding, sorry. Sorry, everybody.
Cornelius Fichtner: Joke at the end and some music, yes.
Margaret Meloni: That's what they expected, yeah. Okay! What you are going to know at the end, what you'll understand at the end of this conversation is why do we care about the difference between things like pity and compassion, empathy and compassion? Why is it important? It's not just something that's touchy, feely. In fact if I can just start a little bit right now…
Cornelius Fichtner: Go, yeah!
Margaret Meloni: I just want everyone to know that business schools are already paying attention to this. So this is not just a woo-woo if I can use that term thing. There are something called a Positive Organizational Scholarship or POS and it's kind of like a cross between positive psychology and anthropology in a sense and it's being tied to situations at work and what a group of people doing. There's somebody in University of Michigan. There are some people in UC Irvine. Some of the universities on the east coast, what they are looking at is what they call positive deviances and a positive deviance is what makes an organization successful and a culture of compassion is beginning to show up.
Cornelius Fichtner: That's very interesting.
Margaret Meloni: So there's a reason. I tend to be that person who will kind of talk about things like you should do this because it's a good thing to do to treat each other well. But when I'm learning more is to talk more in terms of specific of more hard data because that's helpful to a lot of people.
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So let's go back to the beginning here. What exactly do you mean by compassion?
PDUs: Power Skills, Project Manager Soft Skills, Project Manager Interpersonal Skills
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