Learning Project Management Skills From John Cleese
Weather you call it soccer or football, like it or don’t like it, consider yourself an American football fan or a soccer fan, as a project manager you can learn several tricks from John Cleese’s rant video – tricks to improve upon the effectiveness of key communication skills, and to become a better team builder and motivator.Here is the video.
If watched carefully, you will have noticed John’s use of several key skills in effective communication and negotiation. John also highlights the important relationship between the decision making process and creativity.
Cleese’s demonstration of effective communication
- Notice how he captures your attention with one sentence and a simple change of body posture. The first sentence encapsulates the topic of the video and in just the first 10 seconds of speech – you are compelled to keep watching the video.
- John lays out how the NFL keeps its audience engaged – the delivery of short bursts of action between beer commercials. As PMs we should learn from the NFL and deliver our presentations in short blocks of engrossing action to captivate our audience, so the more important, but less exciting, message delivered in between becomes more bearable. These context switches often result in high rankings for presentations at conferences.
- Notice John’s grand gesticulations – his use of gesture to emphasize his opinion of football vs. soccer. Did he keep you engaged following his hands and body movement? He matched every word he spoke with a posture and gesture. He targets both auditory and visual senses at the same time to let your brain build a complete picture. Remember, only 10% of information communicated is heard. The remaining 90% is processed visually through the observation of body language, motion and posture.
Cleese’s narration of how the decision making process impacts creativity
- John’s second point: if your team always relies on the PM to provide instructions on all matters of what, when and how, creativity is killed. Strict rules and detailed instructions works for the army, it makes good soldiers. But in an industry where creativity is the force that drives the development of innovative products, such as software development, build a culture where the team is free of the constraints of tight rules and instruction from one decision maker. In summary, allow the team to make decisions to spark creativity, most likely to the benefit of the final product.
Cleese’s reminder to actively listen to fully understand the message:
- Toward the end of the video, John reminds us of what sometimes happens in negotiations – often what is said is not what is meant. PMs need to remember to build a strong working relationship with other people, we need to make sure we listen and completely understand what is being communicated. It is a core skill used in successful negotiations – also a point made in a previous post.
I hope I haven’t offended any fans of the NFL/NCAA. I am a big fan of an NFL team myself, though which one will go unnamed for now. I just wanted to point out what project managers can learn from an unexpected source.
Tags: Decision Making, Effective Communication, Negotiating Without Giving In, Program Manager Skills, Project Manager Skills
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I agree and believe that effective communication is one of the key skills a project manager should have for successfully managing and completing any project.