Tài liệu The ZEN Approach™ to Project Management Working from your Center to Balance Expectations and Performance docx

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Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction: Managing Your Projects Wisely 9
Stepping back, without disengaging, in order to see the big picture;
going beyond intellect; how objective factors like uncertainty and risk,
and subjective factors like our intentions, beliefs, and actions affect
projects.
Chapter 2. Wisdom Perspective: Zen and
the Art of Project Management. 24
How Zen applies to projects. Working simultaneously on the inner
and outer project.
Chapter 3. Managing Expectations: Goals,
Objectives and Project Success 38
Why goals and objectives are important, how they are identified, their
relation to project success, and how, by confronting us with our emo-
tions, unfounded beliefs, impatience and attachments, they provide
opportunity for inner work.
Chapter 4. Estimating: Pushing Back to Negotiate
Realistic Estimates and Schedules 52
e consequences of pushing back or not pushing back when clients
and others in power make “unreasonable” demands.
Chapter 5. Avoiding Risk Management Avoidance 76
Working with the desire for certainty and the consequences of our ten-
dency to avoid looking at “the dark side.”
Chapter 6. Delivering Quality Results 90
Making quality objectively measurable while acknowledging the need
to work with the subjective factors that underlie client satisfaction.
Chapter 7. Quality Performance and People 118
e difference between mediocre and excellent performance; defining,
valuing and leveraging excellent performers, while accepting that not
everyone will be or even seek to be excellent.
Chapter 8. To Perfect the Outcome, Perfect the Process 132
Analysis of past performance using a systems perspective: blaming
vs. critical analysis, people and process, cause and effect, and the
inner work of being simultaneously in the system and outside of it
looking in.
Chapter 9. e Balance between Structure and Flexibility 161
Finding the point where needs are satisfied with the minimal amount
of overhead; exploration of personal issues like resistance to external
control.
Chapter 10. Workings in Teams 178
How teams maximize the effectiveness of their members while creating
a stimulating, joyful, supportive environment; relationships as a prime
arena for doing inner work; the challenge of being responsive rather
than reactive.
Chapter 11. Managing from Your Center 209
Finding a presence that is calm, stable, open, fluid, objective, and ac-
tively engaged—the foundation for continuously improving yourself,
your projects and the way you work.
Appendix I: How to Manage Projects 232
e underlying principles, concepts, and techniques of project man-
agement.
Appendix II: What is Zen? Historical Perspective 259
A brief history of Zen with an exploration of the way it evolved.
Notes 262
Index 267
The ZEN Approach
™
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Chapter 1
Managing Your Projects Wisely
A
re you awake?
“What a question.” You might be thinking, “Of course I’m awake.
I’m reading and thinking, am I not?” But what does it mean to be
awake in the way that a Buddha is awake?
“Buddha” literally means awakened one, and this book is about
what it means to be awake in the way that a Buddha is awake. Of
course, it is also about project management and how to do it as well as
it can be done. But from the point of view of Zen, managing projects
is both a quest in and of itself and a vehicle for awakening. Essentially,
we are going to reveal how project management can be used as a Zen
art. In Zen there is a tradition of taking apparently mundane daily
activities and elevating them into art forms that create paths to spiri-
tual awakening. What makes an activity like project management an
art or “Way” is to practice it both for the immediate result and with a
view to purifying, calming, and focusing the psycho-physical appara-
tus—the body-mind complex. e Zen approach will not only benefit
your project work tremendously, but it will allow you to extract more
personal value from it.
e Zen activity becomes a focal point for concentration as well
as a vehicle for addressing all the personal and relationship issues that
arise when we are actively trying to accomplish something with a high
10 \ The ZEN Approach
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to Project Management
degree of excellence under challenging circumstances. While perfecting
the outer work, important inner work is done, and awakening takes
place. is is a book, then, written for people interested in both man-
aging projects and finding a way to reach their highest potential.
Have you ever acted out reactively in response to a wave of
emotional feelings? Have you done complex things like driv-
ing a car, riding a bike, running on the treadmill or managing a
project while spaced out to the extent that you have no recollec-
tion of how you got to where you are? What did it feel like to wake
up and find that you have run a mile on auto-pilot? On the other
hand, how does it feel to be completely engaged in an activity while
being completely relaxed and aware of everything that is going on in
and around you?
Zen is an expression of perennial wisdom. It is a life strategy for
managing in an unbounded, unstructured, and groundless field of ex-
perience. Are you confused yet?
“What is the Way?”
“e Way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. Knowing
is illusion. Not knowing is lack of discrimination. When you get to
this unperplexed Way, it is like the vastness of space, an unfathom-
able void, so how can it be this or that, yes or no?”
1
Going Beyond the Intellect
Zen is about “blowing the mind” out of its normal view. It uses tech-
niques like koans, Zen arts, dialectical argument, self inquiry, and
meditation to help the practitioner go beyond his intellect to experi-
ence things in an unfiltered way.
All of the methods of Zen attempt to tease you past the confines
of the rational, logical mind, past the level of thought, to a much more
direct experience of reality. us, to understand Zen, it is necessary to
abandon all ideology, all presuppositions as to what reality is. In other
words, we cannot understand these nonverbal levels by thinking about
The ZEN Approach
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to Project Management / 11
them; we must simply experience them. As Wendell Johnson points
out: “When we have said all we can in describing something, … if
asked to go further, we can only point to, or demonstrate, or act out,
or somehow exhibit tangibly what we ‘mean.’”
2
“What is the sound of one hand clapping?” is a well known koan.
Like all koans there is no intellectual answer. e method is to concen-
trate on the koan and let go of every attempt at contriving the answer.
e answer comes experientially. e process helps to unveil experience
from behind the words we use to explain it.
Here is a Zen of project management koan: “When is a project that
has no set requirements and no resources complete?”
Another interesting method for going beyond the intellect used in
some spiritual traditions is the repetition of the question “Who am I?”
Each time you arrive at an answer (“I am Joe, I am Sue’s father, I am
a manager, I am an American,” you ask the question again, and each
time an answer is reached, the answerer is confronted with the ques-
tion: “Who am I?”, “Who’s asking?” Don’t look for the answer intellec-
tually. Just ask, and observe your experience as it goes to deeper levels
(“I am a human being,” “I am an organism composed of molecules and
atoms,” “I am Consciousness….”)
Of course the power of the intellect as a tool for skillfully living
in the world has to be acknowledged. Going beyond the intellect isn’t
about becoming irrational; it’s about getting out of the limited view
caused by relying solely on our intellect. It is only when we recognize
the limitations of the intellect that the intellect can be used most
effectively. is is a particularly difficult area for people with strong
intellects!
No Ground
Some decades ago it became clear to me that something had removed
the ground I was used to standing on from under my feet, and that the
structures that I once relied on to guide my life through a neat progres-
sion of stages were no longer operating.
12 \ The ZEN Approach
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How often do you feel, in the midst of your projects, that you are
in free fall? e ground is gone. ere are no rules. Change is coming
so fast that it seems almost impossible to handle it.
Some people just freak out. Others construct elaborate belief sys
-
tems and structures to create the illusion of stability and protect them-
selves from the chaos. Others get good at operating joyfully in free fall.
We are in in a time in which our beliefs and the structures we have built
to protect us from the chaos seem to be breaking down under an on-
slaught of changing values, conditions, and rational thinking. It seems
that the most effective strategy is to get good at feeling comfortable in
the free fall state. After all, since there is no ground, we can’t really get
hurt, so why not enjoy the trip?
Over the centuries, perhaps since the beginning of human con
-
sciousness, the greatest, wisest beings have sought to operate effec-
tively and joyously, day to day, in a chaotic world while exploring the
underlying reason for being and the essential nature of our existence.
Wisdom traditions are found in all cultures and are compatible with
any religion. Many believe that these wisdom teachings are really the
foundation and source of the world’s religions and philosophies.
Seeing Things as They Are
“Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for
the truth.”
Abraham Maslow
3
e Zen approach is founded on the ability to see things as they are.
Moment to moment mindfulness, coupled with an inquiry into the
nature of how and why things work, are the principle tools. A Zen ap-
proach blends a systems-oriented view with the need for dynamic bal-
ance and complete accountability and responsibility for one’s actions.
Zen works to overcome static either-or thinking.
e approach uses the right degrees of analysis and intuition; hard
The ZEN Approach
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to Project Management / 13
and soft skills. It insists that the individual be “centered,” skillful, re-
alistic, and sensitive to the needs and behaviors of self and others. It
addresses the experiential and behavioral aspects of performing. And
it is founded on the understanding that all effective action stems from
compassion and lovingkindness based on the realization that everyone
is in the same boat.
In this book, the term
Zen is used to roll together all of these con-
cepts. is is not an orthodox treatment of Zen. e book could have
been called the Yoga, Tao, or Way of Managing Projects. In the end all
of these terms are pointing to the same basic strategy—regard every-
thing as a part of a holistic, integrated system, set your intention to
include all of your personal and nonpersonal goals, apply objectivity
and subjectivity in dynamic balance, seek to perfect yourself and your
performance while not being hung up about your imperfections, and
recognize that a balance between doing and not doing is essential for
healthy living in the world.
e message is: Be mindful, consciously aware, critically analytical,
kind and compassionate, focused like a laser, open like the sky, fear-
less in the face of reality, self-confident, and humble.
Paradox and Balance
Paradox is the norm when it comes to working with complex con-
cepts and relationships. ere are no absolutely right answers. We
seek the answers that are right for the situation.
Many people want certainty. Clients, project sponsors, project manag-
ers, and others all want to know when what they want will be done,
how much it will cost, exactly what they have to do, and how to do
it. But life is filled with paradox and uncertainty. For those who desire
consistent repetition of a well-articulated script, this is disconcerting.
For them, deviation from the plan creates discomfort.
14 \ The ZEN Approach
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Others want no structure. ey like to let the future unfold as
it will and to creatively adapt to its conditions. ey feel that struc-
ture gets in the way of creativity and it is unrealistic to tie themselves
down.
is division between the structured and unstructured schools of
thought is one of many such dichotomies. e knee-jerk reaction to
dichotomy is conflict; however, in the wisdom way, we apply the prin-
ciple of balance, that dynamic state of ease that occurs when all oppos-
ing forces are present to the right degree. ere is nothing in excess and
no insufficiency. As conditions change, the balance is maintained by
adjusting the forces—just like balancing on a tight rope. Too rigid or
too loose, you fall. Too far to the right or left, you fall. ink too much
about it and you fall.
Paradox and dichotomy are words that imply two. In the Zen way
there is one; within the one there are many. Balance is among many
interacting forces and many possible ideas within that singular whole.
e wise think in continuums, not polarities. What is the right point
to be at in the continuum at this moment? at is the question we
subtly ask to help maintain balance and avoid unnecessary conflict.
Letting Go
e wisdom approach goes beyond thinking. It is about experiencing.
It is about simply “letting things happen.” Letting things happen is
pretty unconventional in the context of project management. After all,
projects are about making things happen, not letting them happen.
How do we let making things happen, happen?
How can we initiate plan, execute, control, and close projects with
the highest degree of excellence while letting go into the flow that oc-
curs when intention, effort, concentration, mindfulness, and skill are
all in proper balance? How can we be dispassionately objective and still
address our goals and objectives with the passion required for excel-
lence?