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I’m a big fan of yours, Wes. You’re an amazing writer and thinker.

I led an executive search firm for many years (not anymore). I agree that project management skills are essential, but it is difficult to be recruited for a more senior role based on one’s PM abilities and experience alone. The reason has to do with perception. Most people in an organization have no idea what a project manager does, or most positions for that matter. They are only concerned with doing their job. You can be known as someone who 'gets shit done,' but that can be said of the mid-level manager. One wants to be known for one's leadership, ability to influence, strategy, ability to work across organizational boundaries, flexibility, and ability to communicate vision. Most senior executives equate PMs with a junior position. Sadly, they don't know everything the PM does, including the strategy and execution aspect of the position. Additionally, many employees with project management skills and jobs are not always called project managers, which may pigeonhole their careers even more. When I saw this lack of growth in a candidate, I advised them to look for another role at another organization. It is difficult to change another person's perception of you once an opinion has been made.

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I think if you change 'project management' to being known as someone who 'get shit done', it's ok to be known for it in the first parts of your career. You put a big emphasis on not underestimating the project management skill, but I still think that people might use parts here to move past it and focus on the higher-level skills. Especially in engineering roles, people see project management as 'beneath' them.

I'll share an example from my career. Right now, I'm a director of engineering at a small startup, under the VP R&D. I'm known exactly for my 'project management' skills, as my team always delivers on time. Recently, I was asked to lead the most critical project in the company, which is not engineering related. It has to do with US government agency (NRSC under USDA - as I'm in an AgTech startup). I'm leading this directly under the CEO, working with all the leadership team. This provides huge visibility and future opportunities for me.

Your main audience is VP+ executives, so it's a different story, but for anyone below that I think you cannot overestimate how critical are project management skills.

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Love that you brought this up Anton. IMO “Getting stuff done” isn’t only about project management. Project management is one part of strong execution, but by no means all of it. I think some folks might conflate “project management” with “execution,” but to me, execution is broader and involves many skills.

Also I wonder if it’s different for technical folks. For example, I doubt you are primarily known for project management. You are probably known for being an engineer (primary identity) who has project management skills (secondary). And you can deliver on time (always a good thing!) without being primarily known for your project management skills.

The folks I’m talking about are heads of marketing, community, growth, etc who are functional leaders but are “complimented” for being great at project management. They want to be complimented on their strategic contributions and outcomes: driving growth initiatives, creating new products, acquiring customers, etc. But are facing the challenge of folks primary seeing their strength as project management.

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What ‘triggered’ me was the quote “They were traditionally the person trusted to get things done”, which I think is a GREAT thing.

I a might have confused the terms, to me a manager of a project is directly related to execution. I even imagined being good at project management as a bigger circle than execution. I guess it depends on the language used in the country/company your work at.

It might be different for engineering, but I’m not so sure. Using my interpretation of the term, I do think that my manager at least sees me as a ‘getting things done’ person first, engineer second.

In the examples you mentioned, if that person was compliment as a ‘great at executing’, would you still think they should change that?

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Getting things done is great. In my post, I said, “I actually hate operators and leaders who think they’re above being in the weeds. I want to tell them to GTFO. I believe real leaders can be in the weeds and are great at their functional craft (beyond the role of managing people).”

All I’m saying is if you want to advance, you need to be seen as someone who gets things done AND thinks strategically (picks what to get done, prioritizes, inspires others, etc). It’s not either/or. It’s and.

To be clear, not everyone who gets things done is labeled in a way that’s holding them back. This post is ONLY for people who feel like their contributions are being diminished because their efforts are being unfairly labeled with lower-value positioning than what they actually do. If you aren’t dealing with that, that’s great! If that’s the case, most of this post probably wouldn’t apply to your situation because it’s solving a problem you don’t have.

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify and discuss, Anton. I always appreciate how thoughtfully you engage.

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Thanks for the clarification and being patient with me 🙃

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Oct 30Liked by Wes Kao

Boy, does this hit home. In my experience, being an effective project manager requires the ability to think strategically and have a deep understanding of where a company is trying to go and why they want to go there. You have to know where you're going in order to create the right roadmap that you then expect people to follow. And yet, so many in leadership seem to discount the relationship between strategy and PM which, IMO, handicaps project managers and diminishes their importance. Helping senior leaders to see the necessity of that relationship (let alone that you're capable of marrying the two) can be tough.

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This gem Wes dropped is one of the best article I have read in a while. “Do a PR campaign for yourself” is exactly what I was looking for. I do a lot of impactful work for executive but others in my R&D organization don’t know what I do and what I am capable of doing. I shared this with my manager and she loved it and we know what to do. Thanks Wes. I signed up for the executive communication & influence course!!!

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In marketing, we have to convert features to benefits. One exercise for this is to answer the questions "which means that ..." to take a feature into a benefits. In other words, what's in it for the buyer?

Example for a product:

Feature: Made of stainless steel

Which means that... it's long-lasting, eliminate worries, significant savings over the life of the product, etc.

Benefit: The last one you will buy

In this case the product buyer is not interested in the materials, but the benefit of it being long-lasting to the point that they will not have buy another one ever again.

A project management role example:

Feature: Created workflows and SOPs

Which means that...

Benefit: Business operations are now standardized and productivity can be tracked and measured quarter by quarter.

The organization is looking for business benefits, not localized/departmental, to server growth/revenue/cost-reductions/etc.

All projects are there to serve a business purpose, express your results in terms of the business benefit they support/enable.

My 2 cents.

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Some good ideas here.

The essence of the post is the suggestion for more people to become proficient at the art of self-promotion (without looking like an a-hole) because, even if - amongst other qualities - you are a good PM, the right people should think you are more than that.

Only you can control that narrative, and I believe your suggestions are pretty accurate there.

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I'm a biz ops generalist (director level) and working on my portfolio. I'm moving into a CoS role and am proud of my project management skills--to the extent that I was going to list it as one of my top 3 skills. Now I'm wondering how I should present these skills instead.

What do you suggest as a better term for senior operators who are great at all of the "phrases that sound very project management-forward" but doesn't have the stigma that PM has?

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And idea Carly, to replace 'project management' in your portfolio: Strategic planning and execution.

I think that is more in line with what Wes says because project management is more than just getting tasks does or getting people to deliver.

And all projects are there to serve a business strategy, thus, 'strategic planning and execution' is more/all encompassing in this context.

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So funny that you say that, strat planning was listed as my other skill. I think there is something there with execution though, I’m going to keep working it. Thanks Ramon, I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

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