What is Episode 97 Premium of The Project Management Podcast about?

Jerry Manas returns to discuss how project managers can actively navigate and manage those gray areas.

Who is the guest featured in Episode 97 Premium of The Project Management Podcast?

The episode features Jerry Manas, who shares his practical approach to leading through ambiguity using core leadership principles.

What are common gray areas that challenge project managers?

Balancing big-picture thinking with focus, and vigilance with delegation, while maintaining clarity and trust.

How can project managers strengthen their decision-making in uncertain situations?

By standing on clear ideals, leading through questioning, and applying systems thinking to reveal root causes.

Why is clarity of values essential for navigating gray areas?

Because clear principles act as a compass, helping project managers make consistent and ethical choices even amid uncertainty.

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Episode 097 Overtime: How to Manage the Gray Areas

This episode is reserved for subscribers of the Premium Podcast. Learn how to subscribe to the Premium Podcast to access this interview...

In this episode Jerry Manas gives us additional insights into the gray areas. Because his book is called Managing the Gray Areas, we are concentrating on the actual management process. The tools that Jerry recommends and which we discuss at length are

Ideals - Standing for something
Leading by Questioning
Systems Thinking
Empathy and Cultural Awareness

Since these are mostly tools from the softer end of managing the gray areas we then go ahead and also spend time looking at a number of hard tools.

Cornelius Fichtner

Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM, is the host and the author at The Project Management Podcast. He has welcomed hundreds of guests and project management experts to the podcast and has helped over 60,0000 students prepare for their PMP® Exam. He has authored dozens of articles on projectmanagement.com and PM World 360. He speaks at conferences around the world about project management, agile methodology, PMOs, and Project Business. Follow him on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.

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