Risk – lack of “personal” awareness

“The only true source of politeness is consideration.”

I am reviewing the Risk Analysis in the current project. An exercise carried out frequently; however, every time it is a source of new discoveries. Most of them are about me; namely, in my ability to deal with people. In some previous posts, I cited “friction” as a source of big risks. It is time to spend some energy on this concept.

“Friction” from physics to human relationships

(Military) history is a huge mine for digging out “new” ways to understand “current” situations. Insofar, as I know the term “friction” is used for defining scenarios where, for many reasons, the energies of both sides are consumed over a longer period – instead of a shorter and more intense clash. There are infinite causes for this “risk”; thereof the damage to the project’s output is still huge.

The impact of “lack” of politeness

This kind of condition in the projects is usually formed by the lack of the most basic form of politeness. Let me recap some common situations:

1. The project’s plan (resource allocation) does not have a name (see post from Curt Finch).
2. The person allocated to the specific task is unaware or do not endorse (possibly by previous results) the estimations.
3. People (most notably Senior Managers) are not dutifully engaged in their roles (e.g. deserting meetings, avoiding replying messages destined to ask for confirmation – see post from  Ksenia Woodgate). Notably, a common problem is created when producers are thinking of behalf of the customer, thereby making erroneous assumptions (this situation can be labeled in many ways: from “Scope creep” to “misunderstanding of requirements”)
4. Project managers do not pay enough attention to the results of their communications. All their efforts to delivery “nice” documents fall in the oblivion; nevertheless, no change in the use of the tools (from face meetings to templates) can be traced.

The politeness as “soft skills”

Most of the so called soft skills are based on a very basic form of respect of the counterpart as a human being. There is a quite long but interest post from Lisa DiTullio .

In the last decades in the Western world, the word politeness is associated with “unselfish lying”. Everyone shall have the right of express him/herself in the most direct (sometimes resenting the “theatrical”) way; this should tap the capital of our creativity; regardless of the impact on our peers (to be intended as human beings).

Soft skills, as crafty described in Wikipedia, are based on the knowledge of ourselves and then our culture to be confronted with the others. It is seldom required to be cognizant of exotic costumes. Usually, professional people share a lot of behavioral rules (from garments to the voices’ tone).

“People living in glass houses cannot throw bricks”

Therefore, there is “my” interpretation of the Emotional Intelligence tenets:

Self-awareness

“Am I conscious of my usage of the rules? This consciousness implies the ability of gauging the receivers’ acceptance of our “message”.
It could range from hiding behind the role, from bending the rules in order to gain some kudos.

Self-management

“Have I evaluated the required effort/skills for maintaining the promise?” The negotiation is useful for its opportunity to gauge the counterpart’s interest on the topic. With no metric to measure the goal, it is almost impossible to have a shared evaluation of results.

Relationship-management

Once my part of the deal has been assessed, “am I able to involve the other people? This needs that everyone accepts – at least – the previous rule.

Social-awareness

“Do I know the written and unwritten rules before to start any other activity?” The power of the “fait-accompli” (already done things) exists only if the others can reckon our done. This means to share the same set of metrics.

Conclusion

One of the most difficult tasks in Risk Management is the measurement of “likelihood”. I am working for offering a homogeneous viewpoint. It has to include math (from Bayes to Spearman rho) to the leadership. It is a long, fantastic trip that involves a big chunk of self-awareness, both “professional” and human.

More references