Published
In our most recent podcast episode on Systems Thinking, Systems Leading, Mark Wild emphasised the need for major project leaders to be able to generate a sense of higher purpose, and he cited the experience of those running the Towns Fund and delivering Hynet North West as examples of projects with a higher purpose. Michèle Dix explained that a leader ‘doesn’t have to be an expert. A leader just has to be someone who can engage everyone within that programme.’
Complex systems are at the heart of major projects. And the complexity in Major Projects means that sometimes we know what we want to achieve but we don’t know how exactly to get there. At other times, we are aware of the urgent need for change but we don’t know in which direction to go or understand what it is we actually need to deliver. (And in some cases, we understand the need for something without having a clear sense of the what and the how.)
All of which clearly makes the need to communicate purpose and to engage all of your stakeholders (and keep them engaged) as fundamental skills for a major project leader.
I think it is highly appropriate that a podcast is the medium by which we share Mark and Michèle’s ideas because a podcast is essentially a form of conversation; both an obvious conversation between the interviewer, in this case, Andy Murray and the interviewees, Mark and Michèle. It’s also a conversation with the you the listener and those involved in the recording.
Conversation, as opposed to polemic or verbal instruction, is the simplest and the most powerful tool we have both for communicating higher purpose and for engagement. David Gurteen, in his work on Conversational Leadership cites the wonderful teacher, author and consultant, Meg Wheatley
In all of our design of meetings, engagement, planning or whatever, if you aren’t building conversation into the process, you will not benefit from the collective power and wisdom of humans thinking together. These are not ‘soft’ processes. This is how wars get started and how wars end. It’s how money is made, lives started, freedom realized. It is the core human organizing competency. Meg Wheatley
Which brings me back to the title of this post and the value of Mark and Michèle’s conversation. In order for a major project to make sense to us, either in our role of delivering the project or simply in our role as citizen stakeholder, we need to appreciate the higher purpose and it needs to engage us. If the project doesn’t matter to us, then it will never make sense.
Jonathan Norman,
Knowledge Manager