I’ve struggled to find relevant topics for a while now. It was far easier for me to post good stuff while at SAP because it was part of my job. It is far harder to at Mead Johnson because the most interesting material is best left unaired. I’ll try to throw out nuggets where I can, but I’ll need to be discreet.
I hope that I’ve found a better “hook” to keep me posting on leadership and project management — having my New Year’s Resolutions focus on building capabilities. I went through a litany of ideas — weight loss, exercise, savings, etc. — when I realized that these were pretty abstract goals. In fact, most were essentially measures without any reference to the capabilities I should get from them.
Call it a flash of inspiration or a flight of fancy, I decided that my New Year’s Resolution for 2010 would be to build the capability to dunk again by year-end. I’m in the midst of building deliverables and measures to support that goal. I’ll post on my baseline shortly!
Why dunking? As I watched a college hoops game last week, I realized that it had been 20 years (plus) since I had dunked a basketball. In fact, that would be about the last time I had motored around the court with any purpose. Watching that game reminded me why so many of my New Year’s Resolutions had failed. They had been abstract objectives — tied to deliverables or capabilities — that failed to inspire or motivate me.
Filed under: PMO | Tagged: capabilities, capability building, goal-setting, New Year's Resolutions |
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I like this… it reminds me of what I call the “psychology of the absurd.” At 5′ 6″, the goal of dunking a basketball sounds absurd – given any deadline. Goal selection is really important. Yes, it has to inspire and motivate, but absurd goals are ignored. However, in several projects I have seen the leader or stakeholders select a goal that inspires or motivates them yet sounds absurd to the team members. Let me add that it is important to listen for, understand and gauge any potential goals to be sure they work for all the participants.
[…] Week 3 Performance Report — Operation Dunk 2010 Posted on January 27, 2010 by Paul Ritchie Now that I finally have published that promised post on performance reporting, I owe an update on Operation Dunk 2010. […]