Page 278 - The Power to Change Anything

Become an Influencer 267

Search for Vital Behaviors

To discover what it would take to turn around this culture of
fear and failure, we asked if there were any project managers
or team leaders who consistently hit their deadlines, and if so,
if we could watch them in action. It turned out there were. So
we and the executive team studied these positive deviants.
While studying these accomplished project managers, we
began to see why they hit their goals when others didn’t. For
instance, in one key meeting we watched a positive deviant
deal with Fact-Free Planning. A senior executive had commit-
ted to a deadline without ensuring that the organization could
deliver. When confronted with her misstep, the executive
became very defensive. She threatened to outsource the proj-
ect if the internal team “didn’t have the commitment required.”
That was when the magic happened. We watched this skill-
ful project manager deal with the defensive executive, refuse
to respond in kind, and calmly create a sense of shared purpose
between the project team and the executive. The manager left
the room with the backing of the executive for a far more real-
istic plan and, more importantly, with an agreement on how
future project commitments would be made.
Watching this woman along with other positive deviants
showed us that the vital behaviors for project success involved
dealing with what we later called “crucial conversations.” In fact,
we’ve found that being able to successfully hold crucial conver-
sations is frequently the vital behavior behind change. (Our book
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when Stakes are High
teaches a very common set of vital behaviors—the ability to speak
and be heard and encourage others to do the same, no matter
how controversial, political, or unpopular one’s views.)
Having found our vital behaviors in this particular organi-
zation (the ability to hold crucial conversations about Fact-Free
Planning, Project Chicken, and AWOL Sponsors), it was our
job to use every means within our control to ensure the results