Co-Regulation And Emotional Intelligence In Project Management

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Galen Low: Hey folks, thanks for tuning in. My name is Galen Low with the Digital Project Manager. We are a community of digital professionals on a mission to help each other get skilled, get confident, and get connected, so that we can amplify the value of project management in a digital world. If you want to hear more about that, head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership.

All right, today we are getting into the practical nitty-gritty of why people working on projects — including project managers — behave the way they do, and how understanding the concepts of psychological safety, emotional intelligence, and co-regulation can be used in real world project scenarios to achieve high-performance nirvana.

Joining me today is Carole Osterweil — a project problem solver, executive coach, and author of the groundbreaking book Neuroscience for Project Success: Why People Behave as They Do. Known for bringing an understanding of how the human brain works to the worlds of project management and business transformation, Carole's on a mission to make the invisible dynamics that get in the way of project delivery more visible – so that we can do something about them and stop sacrificing project value.

Carole, thanks so much for joining me today. 

Carole Osterweil: Galen, it's an absolute pleasure to be here with you and your audience. Thanks for the invite. 

Galen Low: I've been enjoying our conversation so much, so for our listeners, this is not the first time I've talked to Carole. We've been jibber jabbering about neuroscience and project management and human behavior and the human brain, and she's been educating me along the way. So I won't claim to be an expert, but I am excited to just dive in, because I think the way that you approach neuroscience and project management is really interesting. 

And actually, I was going to start with a neuroscience question, because that's often how your work is described to me. But instead, I'm going to get your hot take on something that really hits home for our listeners. So, here goes. 

The most common complaint I hear from project managers is that someone on their team or some stakeholder on their project is behaving unreasonably, and it's impacting their project. And I guess my question is, does the PM really have any control over other people's behavior? And if so, is it even their responsibility?

Carole Osterweil: Wow. I love that question. And my answer, Galen, is to say, people always behave the way they do for really good reasons. Even if nobody else, sometimes even themselves, can fathom out what that reason is. So you asked me, can a PM control behavior? And the answer is absolutely no, but, and it's a very big BUT, they can influence it and influence it hugely.

There's masses that project managers can do to create an environment where they're more likely to succeed and less likely to create or encounter problematic behavior. And creating that environment is the project manager's responsibility, and that's where I like to say the neuroscience comes in. 

Galen Low: It's interesting because as project managers, we're always talking about managing through influence and usually what we mean is that we are not the boss of the people working on the project.

We have no sort of formal authority as their managers. We are sort of like tangential to their reporting line and therefore we need to, use our project management bag of tricks. It's funny you mentioned that because when I hear people complain about, stakeholders and team members that are behaving unreasonably, usually, they haven't even begun to try to influence that.

It's almost that sort of knee jerk reaction. Someone acting unreasonably, being a perceived blocker, and everyone just throwing up their hands. But there are a lot of things that can be done to influence and problem solve and sort of get beyond that. Sometimes PMs don't really think to do first, and maybe it's because it is a visceral reaction, a bit of an emotional reaction when things don't go to plan. 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah, I'd agree with that. And I think there's something else which is really important that I'm sure will come up again as a theme in our conversation. And this doesn't only go for project managers, I think it goes for all of us though.

When you understand the neuroscience, it suddenly becomes very clear that how you are and how you're behaving has an impact on everyone else. So the problem is not only out there, other people. 

Galen Low: I love that. Yeah, I hope we dig into that as well because it's such an interesting sort of concept that seems logical once you think about it. But I know I'm guilty of absolutely thinking of, these external forces out there pushing on me and less of this sort of dynamic, I guess, of how the interplay is going between humans doing something pretty difficult under stress, right? Projects. 

Carole Osterweil: I think that's a very fair description. Under increasing stress.

Galen Low: Exactly. 

Let's zoom out a bit and get our bearings. Because neuroscience and behavioral psychology are big words that can be intimidating, and frankly, sometimes too academic for a lot of project managers. But for you, I think it actually boils down to something much less intimidating, which is, why do people working on projects behave the way they do? Would you agree with that?

Carole Osterweil: I think that's a perfect summary. And I always think it's funny, how long has the world of project management even existed? 50 years? And it's not a question that's been asked really seriously for very long. 

Galen Low: It's true, like not in a productive sense. Usually I'm there, clenching my fists going, why do people on projects behave the way they do?

That's more of an existential angst than it is a real question. 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah, that's right. And I think that's the beauty of the neuroscience research and it coming into organizations over the last 10, 20 years. In the book, one of the things I talk about is historically, there's never been a model to explain it, which has been a really robust model.

And you wouldn't ask a doctor to do a diagnosis without understanding physiology or a translate without basic grammar, but loads of projects, loads of change stuff, all influencing people. And we haven't got a clue how people work. 

Galen Low: And it's funny because project managers love frameworks. I mean, at least the circles I travel in, right?

Carole Osterweil: Yeah. But I don't think there has been one in the world of project management. 

Galen Low: Maybe that's a great time to just dive in. I've pored through some of your material and I love the way you frame it. I was just wondering if you could just explain some of the core concepts of neuroscience and human behavior for our listeners, because I'm already an expert. I just want our listeners to get up to speed. 

Carole Osterweil: And I'm putting a big disclaimer on it. I'm not a neuroscientist and I don't pretend to be. Okay. I've read a lot though. And this seems to make sense to people that I discuss it with and the people that I'm coaching. So, there we go. 

I think the starting point is to say that we are wired as all humans are wired for survival. And that really means that our brain and nervous system are working together all of the time below our level of consciousness. And what they're essentially doing is trying to keep us safe. So they're looking out.

We don't notice it happening. We're taking in information externally through our five senses, but also through our physical reactions. So I bet you can think of a time when your stomach got in a knot, and I can think of the 30 seconds before we got online to do this recording when I couldn't get the delightful studio to work and my kind of pulse rate had gone up, and you were laughing.

It was not so funny at this stage. I was flashing red. I was like, Oh, my heart rate's gone up. Will it happen? Won't it happen? Now that's the stress response in action. And that's what drives our behavior. And I think we're really schooled to recognize a stress and survival response can be evoked if a car comes towards us or if the building's on fire.

But the curious thing about humans is we are not only wired to avoid stress and threats, but we're also wired to be social creatures and want to get close to other people. And the human brain does not distinguish between physical threat and social threat. So if things are going on in your organization, if somebody bulls you out in a meeting or they did last time you were there, someone, you've made a promise to someone where you can't deliver on it, all that kind of stuff is all the stuff that winds us up and evokes a stress response.

And in the book, I talk about a very neat little framework, which is a framework from a chap called Dan Siegel. And Dan Siegel, if you look him up, is really well-known in the world that knows about him. Many of you Google listeners will have heard of Daniel Goleman, though, who does the Emotional Intelligence and I like to say they're best mates. They do work together. 

And essentially, what Dan Siegel says is there's times when we're really relaxed and calm and we think really clearly and we behave really well. And he would say that's when our thinking brain is really online. Once we start to evoke a stress response in ourselves, or something happens that evokes a stress response, then it starts to take our thinking brain offline.

So the thinking brain can be online or offline, and varying degrees in between, depending how big that threat is. The kind of behaviors that which go with your thinking brain being offline is things like when people get really defensive. They get really angry, they go on the attack, they get frozen and paralyzed, or they absolutely want to withdraw or do withdraw from the situation.

We've never seen any of that happening on projects, of course. The other side of it is when our thinking brain is completely online, the kind of behaviors which go with that, we can be really creative, learn really well, collaborate really well, be inspired, inspiring, motivated, and do all those things we're meant to do all day long on project work.

So there's an underlying assumption that in the world of work, everybody's thinking brain is online 100% of the time. And you laugh. 

Galen Low: I'm laughing because in my head I'm thinking some listeners are like, I don't think my thinking brain has been online on any project. 

Well, it's just that stress, right? I mean, I'm of thinking brain offline. Could we equate it to like fight or flight? 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah, absolutely. I'm talking about your fight or flight response, the varying degrees of it. So that fight or flight response, and essentially that actually starts with a physical response, bit like me before this recording.

Yeah. Your body goes into overdrive about something and that evokes a kind of emotional response and those emotions, whether that's fear or anger or shame or disgust, if it's an avoidance or threat response or any combination of those and other emotions. We're really complicated, but we don't have to worry about that too much.

We'll start, lead to behaviors, which would be those fight and flight behaviors, the ones I described before. Yeah. 

Galen Low: Let me ask you a question. You're a thinking brain, sort of signing on to this podcast, a thinking brain kind of offline, but you got here. Did you feel like your thinking brain offline actually helped push you?

Carole Osterweil: No, not at all. Well, I thought I would say is what happens is if we go into a very strong avoidance response, we get a really tunnel vision, very narrow vision and everything becomes about survival. And that stops us seeing the bigger picture of what's actually happening around us. Now I suppose I have the language because I've been studying it for years and learning to regulate myself a bit.

So I, at least I knew what was happening. And I knew I had to do various things to pacify myself and hopefully to pacify you way across the ocean there. 

Galen Low: I like the word narrow focused because, in a way, we're thinking of, getting the task at hand done, to survive that project task, I guess, to survive that deadline.

But, a lot of the time when we're complaining about our projects, we're complaining that people aren't seeing the bigger picture, like people don't understand why we're doing this. People aren't, looking broad and wide, they're sort of looking narrowly in their silo.

I'm thinking about what you're saying about sort of psychological safety and this sort of fight or flight response. And I'd hazard to say that some project managers that are listening to this would say that they work very hard to create psychological safety in their projects. But secretly, they know that they are sometimes that wild animal that instills fear, and that triggers that fight or flight response from their team.

Sometimes accidentally, and sometimes not. And maybe I'm actually one of those people. So, like, the folks who are doing that, like, are we terrible and flawed people for doing that? For triggering that response in our projects? 

Carole Osterweil: There's a bit of me that wants to go yes, but actually the answer is no.

I want to say, no, you're human. I don't believe it's realistic to expect anyone to have their thinking brain online 100% of the time. I just, I don't think it happens. But I think there's a lot we can do to learn how to judge how we're feeling, what's going on for us at any one time. And then when our thinking brain is not online, well, not as long line as it could be to actually do something about that.

Galen Low: I like that sort of expectations management of like, this is not 100% one way and 100% the other way. It's not necessarily good or bad. It is more of a reality of just how we're wired as humans. I mean, survival instinct, a very good thing, right? It's a very good thing to have versus the alternative.

Carole Osterweil: Absolutely. And, but I think what's very interesting is the world that we operate in today has so much more uncertainty than it did 10 years ago, I would say. And the expectations in terms of delivery and the pace of delivery are so, I wouldn't say higher, but I want to say higher. There's something about, we're less and less realistic about the expectations we put on people.

And that in itself creates too much stress for people to be able to perform really well. And so that thing about knowing as a project manager that you need to create the psychological safety and help people find an environment where we're containing the stress to keep it to the level where we perform well.

And I'm not saying we don't need any stress to perform because we need some. But when there's too much of it around, we go into overwhelm and overdrive and then our performance drops off. 

Galen Low: That's actually really interesting that, the stress floor starts higher these days. And I guess arguably different projects have a higher stress floor.

And as you're saying about that ambiguity and uncertainty, I'm thinking of, those projects that we've probably all been on where there is like a high degree of ambiguity and uncertainty, and it starts off being more stressful and your team's already like, Oh, we don't even know, this or that, or we don't even know what we're building.

We don't even, and that stress level, the floor of the stress is already high. And then, yeah, to add on to that, it can have, varying effects versus a project that started quite calm and certain. And then, you could stack on a little bit of stress a little bit more. 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah, I'd absolutely agree.

And I talk a lot about that in the book. And there's something about knowing what kind of project we're working on. Because I think often what happens is we work on very ambiguous ones, but people are pretending because they're more comfortable that they're not ambiguous. Does that make sense? And that itself is stress inducing and has a very difficult kind of language associated with it.

Whereas if you know at the outset, yeah, this is going to be difficult. In the book, I talk about this is a project where we're walking in fog here that requires a completely different approach to one where you know exactly what's going to be happening and just sorting stuff in. 

Galen Low: And it's funny because even just the art of project management is in some ways, crystal balling your way into the future.

Like, you're expected to have a map because of folks who want certainty. You're usually the one who has created a map, even though you know it's wrong. But you needed to sort of answer the mail on creating some predictability and certainty, even though, yeah, it's all fog walking. 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah. That's right. And it comes back.

I think what's really interesting with that is there is something about when you understand the neuroscience, coming back to that idea and the notion of if I can keep my thinking brain online here and I can acknowledge the reality that we're dealing with, we are walking in fog. Which means it will be uncertain, but I know enough about how to be navigating this and how to be containing that kind of anxiety and the worries of everyone else and the stress levels that we can do it constructively, that it can be very reassuring.

If you get caught the other way and succumb to people who are in bigger and bigger panics, then it creates a bigger and bigger mess, if that makes sense. 

Galen Low: Yes. No, absolutely. It's one of those sort of je ne sais quoi leadership qualities that, we recognize but, I mean, I've never received any formal training on it in terms of, yeah, just managing the sort of panic around you and not catching it and letting it spread even further.

Carole Osterweil: Yeah, I would venture to guess there's very few people who have received formal training on it because I think it's quite a new idea. 

Galen Low: Fair. 

Carole Osterweil: I've been, I know it's stuff that I've been talking about probably for about five years. Maybe I need to give you a training program. I'll design one for you, Galen.

Galen Low: Wow, I would love that. 

You know, maybe we can give our listeners a treat and start some of that right now and just shift this into some practical stuff. And, as a sort of teaser for our listeners, we're going to go through some practical stuff. And then I've got a little fun bits that Carole put a fun twist on, where we're just going to go through some actual scenarios and talk them through.

So, if you're like me and you've never received any formal training on not panicking, not spreading panic, reading Douglas Adams books then well, we're going to dive in. Because you were talking, Carole, about the sort of thinking brain coming offline and sort of what we can do to bring it back online.

And I was wondering, like, could you give a few examples of real world project scenarios that can take a project manager's thinking brain offline? And maybe also what are some strategies that they could use to get their thinking brain back online so that they're able to make better decisions again?

Carole Osterweil: I'm not going to give you examples. I'm resisting this one. Teach you to read your brief better. No, I'm guilty. I'm joking. 

What I will say though, is for you Galen and everybody listening, just think back to the most recent time when you felt that you were put on the spot by anyone related to your project. Or when you know you were not being as rational as you could have been, or when you suspect your behavior was not quite what you'd have liked or your decision making not as clear. I'm guessing you're nodding your heads then. 

Galen Low: I certainly am. 

Carole Osterweil: Okay. So give us some examples then. What comes to mind for you? 

Galen Low: I remember I was on a project, this is some time ago and I was presenting it to our leadership and I knew I was going to get questioned about this particular stream of project activities that were sort of not deemed as high value and I sort of saw it as being strategic for, the overall stakeholder and client relationship.

And I think I was already on edge because I knew that I would get called out on it, and I did. Our CEO kind of called me out on it, and it was related to something that another team member who was in the room was the owner of, and I knew in my head that the thinking brain, I think, that was sort of coming offline at the time was like let her answer.

She has the answer. And the answer that's going to come out of my mouth is probably just going to come off as, defensive, right? That sort of fight or flight. And, against my better judgment, I blurted it out. I was like, I need to defend myself here. I'm under attack. My judgment is being questioned.

I'm in a room with my peers, a leadership team, I need to, and this is like my, like sort of upbringing through the eighties. Like I need to like, take out my weapon and wave it around, you know what I mean? I need to be, like, this force to be reckoned with. And it didn't land well, actually.

And, and when I think back, and I got the feedback on it later from my colleague, it was like, you should have just let me answer that. Like, it would have been fine. And it did. It took me a while to, like, get myself back online because, I was sort of, just vibrating with that tension, and my muscles are all tight, and, my brain is thinking a mile a minute, but only about that thing, right?

Only about, defend, and yeah, when I look back on that's always my example of like, I felt the switch, and I probably could have controlled it. And then I probably could have gotten back online a little bit faster if I had sort of, maybe just sort of relaxed, let something sort of take over and understand that, yeah, I did have someone, even from a survival standpoint, I was not alone in the woods, getting attacked by something.

I was with people I trust who could step in. I wasn't fighting this battle alone. That's what eventually got me back online, but it took me a while. 

Carole Osterweil: That's absolutely beautiful example. And I think you say some really interesting stuff there. So you said it over one level, looking back on it, you realized you felt the switch.

The other thing I'd say to you is I will bet you as you're talking to me about it now, there's an echo of it for you because as we remember these things, it transports us back in time. 

Galen Low: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. 

Carole Osterweil: So those muscles tension and your voice probably went a bit tighter as you were talking to me because of it.

And so what I want to say to you is the strategies for learning to get your thinking brain back online. Learning to spot the physical data, the physical information. I've got tense here, my palms are sweating, or my voice has gone very sharp, or whatever it is, that is the moment that's like gold dust.

It's like a signal. Oh, my thinking brain is not as online as it could be. And the secret then is to do several things. The first one is the actually naming it. Oh, I'm not as online as I could be. That's just my mind doing what it's doing. The next thing is to become very momentarily interested and curious about your physical responses.

So it's like, Oh, I've just noticed, I don't know what's happened to my voice or my sweaty palms. And then to do something which is based on being more aware of your physical self. So some people will say, take three deep breaths. You'll have heard that one before. Yeah, I literally, as you take those breaths, the exhalations quieten the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the kind of quietening system.

So that helps bring your thinking brain online. Other things you can do is I'm sitting here with a glass of water. If I reach out and actually touch the glass and to allow myself just to notice. Oh, wow, that's really cold. So I'm my, it stops me being in my head. I can feel the cold of the glass.

We'll take a sip of water and feel the cold water in your mouth. Or another one you can do is to, and I'm doing it now as I'm talking to you, adjust how you're sitting on your seat and just put your feet very firmly on the floor and try wiggling your middle toes. Cause you can't be thinking if you, does that make sense?

So there's all kinds of techniques, which I talk about in the book, which are ways of becoming aware of your physical self. And that tends to slow everything down, and it might feel to you as if it's taking 15 minutes, but it's probably only a second or two, any of those things. 

Galen Low: I like that. It's one of those things where, like, three deep breaths, we hear it a lot, but in a way, it lands like a cure for hiccups, right?

Like, I'll drink a glass of water upside down, ha, yeah, like, but when you explain it from a sort of physiological standpoint, like, it makes loads of sense that, these are things that from a sensory perspective, or, even just from a respiratory perspective, like are regulating and calming sort of mechanisms, like through, millions of years of evolution, right? Like it's, 

Carole Osterweil: that's right. And I think the other thing, we were speaking earlier about stress and stress is a physiological thing as well as a mental thing. And one thing I don't think I said earlier, which is really interesting to me is actually when I was at the school, I was taught to believe, I think, that the brain is like the command center for our bodies and I love being a human. It's top down from the brain, but the evidence goes, no, about 80 to 90 percent goes from the body up to the brain, which is fascinating.

Galen Low: Yeah. 

Carole Osterweil: And so if we tune into that. It's like, oh, what are we opening up as possible? 

Galen Low: Actually, that's very interesting. We do very much think that way of like, brains in control, but it is ultimately an interpreter, right? And we have all these things. We're seeing things, we're hearing things, we're touching things and all the other things. It's sensory and then it gets interpreted by our brains. That's actually a really interesting way. 

Carole Osterweil: Kind of assessed, is it safe or is it hostile all of the time? And then if, of course, if we feel safe, that other pull for ourselves, which is being social connection with people will take us towards people. Yeah. Which is when we can do all that really good work, which kind of relates to when we're feeling psychologically safe, for example. And acting with emotional intelligence, so they all link up. 

Galen Low: I wonder if we can sort of extend, I know maybe we don't go through some examples of scenarios. I've got some later on that we can go through together.

But, I'm thinking from my colleague's perspective in that scenario, or even like a different scenario where, a project manager is sort of witnessing somebody's thinking brain just going offline and, you know, what we can do to try and, help them get their thinking brains back online.

Yeah. I remember a scenario where, we were doing a big website rebuild. It was a government website. It was very high stakes, high visibility. And it was like the day before go live. I can't even remember exactly what happened, but a third party vendor that we were working with, flipped a switch that we didn't think they were going to flip and it lost a whole bunch of work and I remember my technical architect fuming, understandably so. 

But it became very quickly this sort of fuming blame thing where, we're like, well, they made this problem, like, we're just going to sit on our hands until they fix it. It's their problem to fix. And, in some ways, I don't know if that totally counts as a thinking brain going offline but the emotional response that I was witnessing was very much, get stuck in, fight more than flight really in that scenario.

And I was like, okay, well, how do we keep moving forward rather than, digging in? 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah. And I think the first thing in that situation is to acknowledge just how difficult it is. Cause I think what we often do in the world of projects is, address the task. Let's get on. What's the next thing we can do?

And actually the thing to go is, wow, that is really thrown a spanner in the works. Like it was, I don't know how you're feeling about it, but I'm really cross. So there's something about legitimizing that is okay to feel like that is part of the framing. And I think the next thing I'd be going is and we need a bit of space before we even think about what we do with that.

Does that make sense? So it's a really press the pause button. What do we need to do? And it might be, let's, take 10 minutes, take an hour, go out and have a run, go for a walk, go and do whatever you need to do, which is not focused on the job at hand because while you're raging, you're not going to do anything that's constructive, but you might create a whole load more mess.

Galen Low: No, I like that. I like that sort of legitimizing it. And I think a lot of project managers I know, and myself included, our instinct is to be like, don't feel the emotions now. You can feel them later. We've got to do this, and this, like take action, stiff upper lip and off we go.

Whereas like, think the like, I don't know take five, go for a run. It's probably not the first card in the deck for a lot of project managers. 

Carole Osterweil: That's right. But I think what is so curious is exactly what you said. We have been taught not to notice how we're feeling. That's irrelevant.

Let's just suppress that and get on with the job. Where in fact, how we're feeling dictates absolutely everything else. And you don't necessarily, just because you're feeling really angry, doesn't mean you then have to throw all your toys out the pram, but at the actual engaging with it and going, actually, I am feeling angry.

What do I need to do to feel a bit better and to be curious and how do I know I'm feeling angry? How can I reverse that? Or how can I make myself feel better? I mean, feel better at a physical level. Okay, I am physically better than that. So actually engaging with difficult feelings makes them subside a whole lot quicker than suppressing them does.

Galen Low: It's actually interesting, I mean, you think about, young children, infants even, right, where we talk about the sort of, I don't know, emotional regulation of sort of not just, yeah, digging into the emotion, but thinking about sort of getting out of it if it's, not being productive.

And then we forget it all because we become adults. 

Carole Osterweil: That's right. But I think, you mentioned young children, I think that's the other thing is we are born into this world, totally unable to regulate our emotions. And it's only through our relationships with our caregivers that we develop the physiology to be able to regulate ourselves.

And that need for other people to help us regulate at different times in our lives is there all of the time. And so, so I, my view is learning to regulate ourselves in order to regulate other people is a key role of any leader and really important in the world of projects.

Galen Low: I know that some folks listening are thinking there are some scenarios and projects where there isn't 5, 10 minutes. First, you're a technical architect to go have a run and then come back. What happens when the project manager doesn't have the luxury of time? The project team doesn't have the luxury of time, we need to press on. 

Carole Osterweil: Well, yeah. And your technical architect doesn't have the luxury of time.

And he's really is thinking brain's not really online at all. So a lot of what he's doing will not be very good quality. And then the question is, what is he producing? And what's the impacts that going to have down the line? 

Galen Low: That's fair. And then it becomes a risk, right? And we look at it as like a, I'm willing to hazard that there may be some projects where that is, the best option to have someone press through, do lower quality work, knowing that they're thinking brain is offline and then dealing with it later.

And then the other thing that strikes me is that like, these are the other reasons why, we talk about a bit of overlap or redundancy on a project team, probably don't need two technical architects, billing full time, throughout your project. But it may be good to have some cross training, it's like these moments where you're like, okay, yeah, could somebody, step in and, operate the train for a little bit. 

And have we built that in because, in a way that's what I have as a risk on my risk register, technical architect, maybe fuming if somebody pulls the wrong switch, who doesn't work for our organization, I probably wouldn't have a plan for that, but I might have a plan for like just staffing, right?

What happens if somebody is sick on the day of the launch, who would step in and that would create some coverage for me. 

Carole Osterweil: There's that one. And then I think the other one is over, we're talking about a single incidence, but I think if we're in a situation and there's been quite a fair bit of research done where we're in high stress environments for a really long time, and we've got project leaders who are unable to press the pause button and all they keep on doing is, cracking the whip harder and harder.

They create an even more stressful and often actually toxic and brutal culture. And I know that happens big time on mega projects. 

Galen Low: Yeah. Just such depth of pressure too, right? High visibility, lots of dollars involved. Yeah. 

Carole Osterweil: Exactly. And so there's, I mean, huge questions around it. 

Galen Low: I remember talking to a former colleague about some of the work he did for the government during the pandemic response, where, it was very much, can't take your foot off the gas. But I think he was explaining how his team and their leadership, like, did a wonderful job of understanding that, that, like, the stress floor is already high, it is mission critical.

And, you he had used the words, I think, people weren't able to keep up, but not as in like they were deemed inadequate. It was that no one could keep up. It wasn't a realistic expectation to think that, everyone could be working, 20 hour days for six months, nine months.

And they sort of factored that in. They're like, we know we need to keep our foot on the gas. It's lives at stake, but we need to plan for that. We can't just burn people out and think that it's going to be fine because low quality work there, probably. Yeah. It's too big of a risk. 

Carole Osterweil: Absolutely. And in the book I talk about also learning to manage what's called your body budget. And so there's something about absolutely being aware, how much gas is there? If you like. 

Galen Low: I like that. 

Carole Osterweil: How much energy have I really got when I look at myself in the round, if I'm running on too hard? And that's not an advert for being lazy, but I think there used to be a view that this is a really hard job I'm doing.

I'll relax at the weekend or go and do something there to unburden myself. And I think the evidence is now saying, no, don't save it all up during the day, check in with yourself several times. How am I doing? How long, how online is my thinking brain? What do I need to do to get myself into better balance now at this point so I can continue?

So there's this kind of keeping yourself in budget rather than getting vastly overdrawn, if you like. 

Galen Low: That's very cool. Body budget. 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah, that's the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett. She says getting academic. 

Galen Low: There you go. 

I'm wondering if we could shift gears and have a bit of fun. I know we resisted examples earlier. I gave a couple of my own sort of scenarios. But I have a couple of scenarios for our community and I was wondering if we could play a game called Why people behave the way they do Orama? So basically I've got like three scenarios here and I was hoping we could just unpack it together using some of the concepts that we've been talking about just in terms of why that person may be behaving that way and how a project manager could approach it. So I don't know, we'll give it a go and we'll see where it takes us. 

Alright, scenario one is when a team member says yes to something in a group setting, but then is very resistant or defensive when you follow up with them in like a private one-to-one context. 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah. Do you remember earlier on I said that humans are really social beings and that means often belonging is really important.

So if you think about the group scenario, if everyone else is saying everything's going really well, it takes a huge amount of courage to be the one person that can say no, it's not. And then the kind of threat where people might feel quite ashamed of themselves, a threat response or an avoidance response.

And shame is a really difficult emotion to be handling. So that way, so it wouldn't surprise me in the least. I think that happens quite frequently in groups. And then when you get them to the side, all of a sudden it's a completely different story. But when you do get them to decide, Galen, what's going on for you when they've said to you, I guess I can do it in a group and all of a sudden they go, no.

Galen Low: I'm looking at the scenario and I'm like, I feel like the framing is, team member agreed to do it in a group setting and then time has elapsed and it's probably almost, due. And then, a project manager like myself is following up when it's should be ready soon, right?

And I know that sort of resistance or defensiveness about it, like, well, this is really hard. It's not something that I can do and definitely not for this due date. And then it triggers my fight or flight. Now I'm going, okay, now my sort of body is telling me I'm tense. My first sort of reaction is like, why did you say yes to it if you knew that it wasn't something that you could really tackle? 

And then I guess like, two things for me, I'd be like, okay, well, A) like you said, using the concepts we've been talking about, I need to be aware of, sort of, my thinking brain and my emotional state, as well as theirs, and when you think empathetically about it, where yeah, I mean, actually, it would be sort of this sort of shame that they're avoiding in that context. 

And arguably in any sort of social context where, it probably is something, you could understand why that individual might have said yes. And then you can work forward from there, it might not be easy, but, I think that would sort of help me sort of level the conversation and not let it escalate because if I, if I shout back, and then it's just going to be an escalation of emotions, and that will be even less productive.

Carole Osterweil: And you use a really interesting word there, level the conversation. And I think there's kind of two ways of thinking of that. Level in terms of the emotional level, which you've spoken about. But I think there's another piece, which is, as the project manager, in some ways, even when you're not a direct line manager, there's something about status there.

Yeah. And we are, as humans, acutely aware of status too. So if you ask him, where is it? Why is it not there? It's like pulling rank, being a bit parental. Yeah. And that of course will also evoke a response from them. So there's something about how do I keep it level in terms of we're on the same side here?

Yeah. It's disappointing for me. Yes. It's probably embarrassing for you. And what are we going to do about it? 

Galen Low: Yeah, I like how you framed that, and it reminds me of something as well, because this exact scenario, I've seen it happen a lot, especially with, like, folks who are not necessarily part of the core team, either they're a bit tangential to the team, they might be a near short team, and they might say yes because they literally feel like their sort of job would be at risk if they said, no, I can't do this.

That's, our organization would be like, okay, well, we're going to end your contract and get someone who can do it or it's actually a legitimate survival threat. And I see it happen a lot to sort of, this fear of, client or boss where it's the policy almost, right? Is say yes, we'll figure it out later. 

Carole Osterweil: But I think you also say that another thing in that scenario, which is so interesting.

And that is, if we can go into it with our thinking brain more online, I think we also listen better. And then we probably are better able to spot, well, they seem to be saying yes, but they don't seem to be very sure. And then that leads to a, can lead to a whole load of things, which is about asking questions.

So which bit of this are you not quite so sure about, for example, or what would it take for you to be sure about that? So that you're jointly coaching and building each other's understanding, but it's all about being able to, I would say, inquire, ask good quality questions because there was something about the interaction that indicated maybe it wasn't quite as straightforward as you hoped it was, or that you would not have picked up if you're going too fast.

Does that make sense? 

Galen Low: I like that because some folks will approach it with sort of a more cynical lens, right, like, I'm gonna ask these cynical, skeptic questions to try and get to the bottom of something, but I like the framing that it's like, let me ask and sort of probe, almost from an empathetic perspective, to understand some of the cues that we're picking out.

We're like, okay, I don't know. It doesn't sound like a sure thing. They're saying yes, but like, let me ask more questions, not to interrogate them, not to put them, into the stress state. But frankly, to just avoid that conversation later on when you're like, well, you said you'd do it when we were in that group setting.

And they're like, Oh, well, I was afraid. 

Carole Osterweil: If they're brave enough to tell you that. 

Galen Low: Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. 

Carole Osterweil: Or if they even knew it. 

Galen Low: That's fair. 

I wonder if we can shift on to the second scenario, this is a common one. I think it has a lot of parallels too, but, it's when a team member reports that work is progressing as planned until the day before it's due, and then suddenly they start bringing up all the problems to the surface.

And I think a lot of project managers, bring this to me, I've experienced it as well. There's always that like, everything is 70% done, you from day one until it hits 70% and then it stalls. Yeah. Maybe we can unpack that a little bit. 

Carole Osterweil: Well, I, yeah, I'm interested because on the one hand you're saying there's a pattern there.

It's always like this and yet we know it's always like this and we take it at face value and then get disappointed. And again, so there's something I think about learning to not necessarily take things exactly as they're presented to you. So allowing yourself enough space to go, what is my gut telling me ahead of time?

Do I believe it or am I so desperate to hear that it's 70% or 90% done that I'm going to go with it? So, and I think learning to ask that question, what do I really think here? And then giving yourself space to listen to yourself answer, what do I really think? Do I really believe that can be really helpful?

Galen Low: I think it's really interesting that, sort of, the reasons why you might take it at face value might have a lot more to do with your own stress levels than it does about project management. There's almost this thing where it's like, okay, well, 50% of the time has elapsed. 50% of the progress should be made.

They're saying 50% of the progress is made because, they want to look on track. And you don't want to ask any more questions because what if it's not, right? But I think that's a sort of running towards a difficult conversation that, I think is a great skill for a project manager.

And again, coming back to what you said in the first scenario, it's like, it's probably just, asking a few of the right questions and creating that context and leveling the conversation so that it's not like 50%, are you sure? 

Carole Osterweil: But I think in different ways. Is the percentage helpful at all?

Galen Low: Fair. Yes. 

Carole Osterweil: And actually, maybe the bigger thing to be asking is, you said you're going to do this. So what are the showstoppers? What's going to stop you? And I think you had that conversation with Josh Ramirez a bit when you spoke with him on a previous podcast. So there's sharper questions to be asking than the shortcut one percent, which doesn't give you much information at all often.

Galen Low: And even just the nature of work, right? Like, I mean, for a lot of things, home renovations, building IKEA furniture, right? Like the first few steps are hard and then the middle bit is somewhat easy, probably. And then all the problems actually are at the end. You're like, wait a minute, I bolted this in upside down or, like it doesn't actually fit because I didn't measure it.

And it's actually natural for problems to happen at the end. And I think, yeah, the only way we can sort of address that is to recognize it and ask smarter questions than, percent complete. 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah, but I think another very smart question for every project manager to be asking themselves is where am I feeling most exposed here? Because that's the thing you need the answer to. What will now reassure me? Does that make sense? 

Galen Low: Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's funny because, we keep bringing it back to risk management, and like, risk management, in the circles I travel in is such a like, I don't know, it's this technical, almost like, it's a very unsexy thing to do, and it's hard, and nobody wants to talk about things that are going to go wrong. But when you frame it like that, it's like, where are we feeling the most exposed and, to have a sort of emotional maturity and the relationship and the psychological safety to have that conversation like that with the team?

I think is much more productive than, rank this risk and then we're going to do qualitative and quantitative analysis on it. We can do those things, but ultimately it comes down to, yeah, what are those things where we feel that risk of being exposed? 

Carole Osterweil: That's right. And those things move. The world moves around us so that what I was most exposed about last week will not necessarily be the same next week. 

Galen Low: Yes. Yeah. Fair. Coming back to that crystal balling for the future, right? 

Carole Osterweil: I hate to tell you.

Galen Low: It's hard to have a plan. Everything is in fog. We live in an uncertain and volatile world. 

All right, last scenario. And I think it draws on the same concepts. But the scenario is this. A team member shuts down ideas right away, saying that they're impossible, or that they don't have enough information to possibly agree to something, even when they know it's possible, and maybe so do we.

Carole Osterweil: And in that scenario, is it the pattern of this happening again and again, which is really disturbing? 

Galen Low: It's funny you say that, because like, when I'm thinking about some of the things that map to my experiences, it's like, not a pattern of this individual shutting down ideas, but a pattern of the trauma that they've probably felt over and over again, that this is their initial response.

Not that, like, this is not a sort of repeat offender, so much as it is a repeat victim. 

Carole Osterweil: Wow. And what does that tell you? 

Galen Low: I mean, for me, it's okay, well, either if it's someone I'm working with often, well then I really haven't created, that sort of level of safety in projects and I've probably should be more aware that I've probably burned them in the past in terms of, triggering stress and taking their thinking brain offline.

But if it's beyond that, and and I say this all the time, there's a lot of bad project managers out there. And there's a lot of, team members who've worked on projects who will have, trauma about working with project managers who stood there and cracked the whip and asked them why isn't it 95% done, you when we're 90% of the way there, like, I think there's this sort of defensive mechanism that gets built that, isn't permanent, but it might take some time to sort of take those walls down.

Carole Osterweil: Yeah, that's so interesting. You used the trauma word. And I want to say, be careful about using it. It's a big word. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but it's a big word and I think that we tend to use it a bit loosely. What I would say for all of us is a very human response is our brain is a predicting machine.

And so we tend to take our past experiences and assume that's what's about to play out in front of us and that dictates our response. And therefore to think this is a kind of repeating pattern of unsatisfactory conversation, or you anticipate it. The question is, how do I signal that this is going to be a different conversation?

So maybe it's not through having it through the routine team school, or we go out for, I don't know, to the cafe if you meet on, if you're not online all the time. How can you set it up to signal that this is different? And how can you frame the conversation to say, look, I don't want to be getting into that pattern.

Before you even start the converse, does that make sense? So it becomes a framing. It's very different, I think. 

Galen Low: I love that so much because, when we're, like, thinking about it, like, biologically, like, it makes sense, like, the survival instinct or, our survival mechanisms are based on recognizing patterns and having, strategies to deal with those patterns.

I love that it's like, this is not that pattern, right? Like that's immediately sort of, indicating to that person's brain that this is different. And yeah, finding a way to say that out loud too, and being clear about it, changing the context and being the difference. 

Carole Osterweil: Yeah. And sometimes saying, we've still not managed to have this as a successful conversation. So how can we do it differently? What will work for you and what will work for me and how are we going to have the conversation? So taking some time to decide that jointly, I think can be really useful rather than trying to be the mind reader. I always caution project managers about being mind readers.

You can't possibly know what's going on in everyone else's mind because you haven't got their life experiences. So just ask them. And if they know what's going on for them, they'll tell you, and sometimes they won't. But it's like, how can we do this helpfully for both of us? 

Galen Low: Yeah. And mind reading doesn't build relationships. Well, at least not as quickly as just having a conversation. 

Carole Osterweil: No. It takes an awful lot of work. Too much work, I think. It's like, why subject yourself to all that trouble? You were awake for three hours last night trying to work out what they really think. It's like, no, just ask them, will you?

Galen Low: You could have solved it in five. 

Carole Osterweil: Don't torment yourself. I don't know the answer. 

Galen Low: I love that. That was awesome. Thank you for humoring me on that part with a little scenario orama. I think this has been great. I was really excited to be talking about this with you. And I just love your approach on it because it's so pragmatic.

And I think we've proven that throughout because, we spent a lot of time in, real world scenarios. And I think a lot of folks who think of these words as, being a bit too abstract and maybe a bit too theoretical to actually use in the real world. I think we've kind of proven that it's not.

It just might take a different approach and it's a bit of a different ROI on the time invested, whereas your instinct might be just to push through and keep going straight. Sometimes it is more productive to sort of get that thinking brain back online so that the quality of work is better.

The team dynamic is better, the collaboration effort is better, rather than just trying to cut corners and just, hit that deadline even if everything we deliver is terrible. 

Carole Osterweil: We've all been there and done that, I suspect. How many dead bodies do we need before we realize we can slow down?

Galen Low: I mean, it's like a, yeah, tagline for humanity. Sometimes we just don't know when to stop pushing. 

No, it is great. I really appreciate the work that you're doing because, I think it is productive. I think it is taking it back to, and not something fluffy and flowery, but something that is who we are and how we've gotten this far.

And, there are many examples in this world today of humans pushing themselves too far, too hard, expanding too quickly, being a bit too cutthroat, in the interest of whatever winning or success looks like. And sometimes at the great detriment to just what that fabric of humanity is as social creatures, so.

Carole Osterweil: And to themselves, I think that's the other way as well. I suppose I'd add into that. We've touched on a few frameworks. There's some really accessible stuff which we'll talk about things like, I don't know, I'm thinking immediately of the kind of domains of social threats, so things like status autonomy, relationships, and so on.

And then a few mnemonics which go with it, which can help people really ground it into very doable things to practice with. 

Galen Low: I like that. I'm going to ask you for some links and I'll pop them in the show notes. 

Carole Osterweil: I can do that. 

Galen Low: Carole, thanks so much for spending time with me today. This has been a lot of fun. I had a blast and every conversation I have with you, just so insightful. 

Carole Osterweil: Well, thank you for that. And thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be exploring this area with you, Galen, and just to hear your take as well. The world of digital project management, which is one that I know something of, but not nearly as much as you. So I've learned a lot too. Thanks.

Galen Low: It's a good exchange. I would love to have you back and maybe we can do something in our community as well because I think some of this stuff is very much top of mind for the folks in our community too. 

Carole Osterweil: Cool. That would be fun. Thank you. 

Galen Low: All right folks, there you have it. As always, if you'd like to join the conversation with over a thousand like minded project management champions, come join our collective. Head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership to learn more. And if you like what you heard today, please subscribe and stay in touch on thedigitalprojectmanager.com.

Until next time, thanks for listening.