Top Traits of High-Performing Project Managers & How to Cultivate Them

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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.

Okay, today we are talking about what differentiates high performing project managers from the rest of the pack and what factors need to be in place from an organization and its leadership to cultivate high performance from their PM teams. With me today is Ben Willmott, a celebrated project management champion, a seasoned agency project delivery leader, and the founder of The PPM Academy.

Ben, thank you so much for being here today.

Ben Willmott: Hey, Galen. Thank you. Looking forward to this conversation. Thanks for having me.

Galen Low: Yeah, no, it was such an honor. I follow everything you do on LinkedIn, and it was so cool that we were able to connect. I loved our conversations so far. I cannot wait to extract some insights from you because I love what you do.

High performance is such a like loaded word in a way, you know, we've been talking about it and cultivating high performance. It's now in the PMBOK, you know, it's part of the sort of project management sphere. Not a lot of people unpack it the way that you do. So I'm excited to dive in.

I thought maybe, can I just start with like one big question? My big question is this. What, in your opinion, makes a project manager high performing? And, am I a bad project manager if I don't have these qualities?

Ben Willmott: Well, maybe we can come back to that question at the end and see what you think when I've described what I'm going to go through. But I don't, I'm sure you're not.

So, it's not about metrics. Because too often, project managers can be judged on metrics. Like, the classic is obsolete within scope, within time, within budget, etc. But the problem with those metrics is there's so many outside influences that can, in some cases, make it impossible to actually hit them successfully.

So high performance, the way I talk about it, is very much focused on the individual and also what high performance means for them in their environment and their situation, their level in terms of where they are in their career as well, because it can mean different things if you're a junior project manager or a delivery lead.

So it's not about metrics, but it is more about first and foremost, like your behaviors and your traits that you have, because they're all things that then link to certain skill sets that you can develop and again, change over your career as well. And high performance is about understanding what those traits are.

And obviously I have different ones that I describe that I feel really do help with high performance, but they may differ slightly depending on, you know, your environment, your situation, where you work, and as I said, where you are in your career as well. And I wouldn't say you would be a bad project manager if you weren't like excelling in all of these different behaviors.

But I probably would say if you disagree completely with them in terms of if you perform well in these different areas and you practice them and you review and you reflect on them and improve again. And if you disagree, as I said, with any of those, then I'd probably say you're probably moving towards a bad project manager because as I'll describe, they touch on all sorts of different aspects of project management, which as we know.

Isn't one thing is it's not just about processes and the tools. It's, it's so much more than that.

Galen Low: Cool. Love that. I love that preface. And I also love the idea that it can be different at different points in your career and maybe even, you know, a journey more than a destination, but you can achieve it at each stage and that it's not like this, like lofty Holy grail that you're like, Oh, if only I could achieve high performance, all my problems will be solved. I'd be, you know, project management would be easy. I really do like that. I really do like that.

Do you want to dive into some of the qualities that that you believe in?

Ben Willmott: Yes. Yeah. So as I said, it starts with sort of certain behaviors and certain traits. The, the way that I've come to these and I'll put them into four different areas.

Is through my own learnings of the things that I know have worked really well for me in my career. And then the opposite of that when I've not been doing these behaviors as well. And then I'll see the teams I've looked after and the project managers I talked to all the time. And the first one is adaptability.

Because no projects, no client, no team is ever the same. And in some ways, every day is a little bit different to a certain extent as well. So you've got to have adaptability to understand there's never one way of doing things. No matter how well that last project went, don't assume it's going to go the same way again.

And you need to be adaptable because Even if you've explained something to say a client and it might seem perfectly logical and simple to you, that does not mean that they fully understand it because you don't know their experiences, their backgrounds. So sometimes you have to put extra working in terms of being more adaptable to help them fully understand what they're doing.

And that can be simplifying complexity, for example, even dumbing it right down. It's not about sounding impressive when you're a project manager. You need to get your message across about what you're doing and how you're doing it and things like that. And then that adaptability, this links into mindset, which is one of the behaviors as well, or the traits you need to be able to think of problems as potential opportunities for you, which is something that I came to later in my career where problems, you know, more likely to blame and get angry and fed up with things, but every time there's a problem.

There's something you can learn from it. And if you take that approach, frees your mind massively and gets you to think a lot more clearly as you're working day to day as well. So, that's adaptability. Then, the next one is communication, which does sound a bit obvious. And there's a number of things that you can obviously do in the skills within communication.

But the first one is always relationships. How can you work on improving your relationships? And again, no matter if you're a junior PM through to the You know, head of project management is those relationships better. They are the easier things become because people want to work with you. People trust you more.

People will talk to you more. They'll open up to you more. They will help you when you've got a problem. If you don't have any relationships with somebody and you've got an issue on a project, then everything gets harder because they're more likely just going to be pushed back and say, no, just fix this rather than trying to do it together.

And you need to be proactive in those communications as well, and you need to have different ways of doing it because linked to the adaptability point, one communication might work well between you and I, but then the next person I work with doesn't work well for them because they've got a different setup, lifestyle, role, whatever it might be.

So communications, so being a really good communicator is really, really key. The third one is, it's kind of linked to a couple of things, it's leadership and being a coach. And leadership It's the classic, you know, lead, not follow that again can be many different things. Leadership for a junior PM could be when you go into a meeting room with a load of people are more senior than you, you might be the one to go, I'm going to make sure everybody's got a chair.

So there's no awkwardness. I'm going to make sure the kit is working before we get started. And I'm going to do really simple things, but they can make all the difference that's showing good leadership versus it doesn't necessarily mean you stand up in front of people and do a huge presentation. And then being a coach to your team, as you would be aware of, like the servant leader in Scrum, and it's that type of thing.

What I found is the ones who are performing the highest, the PMs, were the ones who were doing everything for their team, because without your team, You're nothing really as a project manager, it doesn't matter how good you are. If you haven't got a team of people who could do the work, then there's not much that's going to go on.

So if you can show good leadership, you coach your team, you're a servant leader to your team, then your performance is going to elevate because you have less problems. So you can make more improvements, you can improve your relationships, things like that. And ultimately being really empathetic to those that you work with.

No matter how difficult that stakeholder is paying, think in an empathetic way about he might be having a really difficult time at home right now, or his boss might've just come down on a ton of bricks on him for something as well. That's why he's being like this. And even if you don't know the reason, make something up because that makes you feel better and you think more clearly and you can make better decisions because you're in a better, you've got a better mindset.

And yeah, the fourth one is mindset ultimately. So it's being able to, it sort of excel in the chaos or in those challenges. And when you've got a team member like that, a project manager where you're gonna have problems on your projects at some point or another in your career, that they're that one who are going, right, okay, let's do this.

What are we going to do? And they're getting stuff done. Then people lead, they follow them because they know what they're doing. They're showing me confidence. No matter what they're feeling inside, they're getting on with it and they're doing it. And One other trait links to that as well, which is not something I came up with.

It was Trevor Mowat, who was, I think he was like NFL coach or basketball coach, something like that. Neutral thinking. So it links to a lot of these. And it's where, whatever your problem you've got or situation, you just extract the emotion from it as quickly as you possibly can and think, what is the next best thing we can do right now?

Or I can do. And the classic example I always use is when you get that, we've had that horrible email where someone's accused you or something, or they're blaming you or whenever it might be, and you just want to reply in anger, which I've definitely done and regretted it versus going, I know I'm completely in the right, but if I respond in this way right now, all that's going to do is raise the tension, that barrier is going to go up.

They're going to push back even harder. The best thing for me to do is, you know, the classic is I'm just going to leave it for a little while. I'm going to think about this, or actually I'm just going to go and speak to them. Or, at the very least, I'm going to go back to them and just acknowledge what they've said.

I'll listen to them, I'll feedback what they're saying, and then I'll come up with a plan. No matter who's right or who's wrong, I'm not going to say that. I'm just going to work on what's the next best thing. So, mutual thinking is massive. They're in the fall, in terms of how I break it down, because they cover a lot, and they're all really good things to help when it comes to self development as well, because there's so many things you can learn and improve upon in all those different areas, all the time, no matter how experienced you are, or how well you're doing.

Galen Low: Just, you know, when you were saying about, like, how it applies in each sort of stage of your career. And what I really like is that, yes, they are just good foundational skills as a professional human, you know, working at a workplace. And also, so much of what we get taught as project managers is like this rigidity, right?

So like, I love like the adaptability bit, I think that's so strong, and the relationships, I think it, it all sort of ties together to be a bit more dynamic, I guess? And like accepting of the fact that problems will need to be solved along the way. And I'm thinking back on my career, right? I'm like, Oh yeah, no, there were definitely times I was not a good PM.

Hey, like I think now I think I'm taking most of those boxes, but I think, you know, there were definitely times where I ebbed and flowed through there. Getting too hung up on my stake and ownership or my emotions that I've invested into a project. Whereas, you know, the answer is how can we just kind of like be solutions oriented, like get on with it, make it still pleasant, think about all the people that we're dealing with and, you know, not be this cold, sterile project management robot, even though I bet you, you and I both probably have worked in those organizations where that might be the expectation, right?

It's like, why aren't you just managing it like a PM robot? Wouldn't that be easier? Just say no, right? The note I took was opportunities mindset versus computer says no, right? Like instead of just being that person going like, nope, doesn't say it. Nope. Can't do that. Nope. It was like looking at it as an opportunity.

Okay. There's a problem. There's like a disagreement on scope. Okay. What can we turn this into? How can we work together to make this into something? That's a solution, not just dwell on the problem. And I think that's like, it's just massive. And it is the kind of person, like you said, that you'd want to like, kind of like rally behind, right?

And you're nothing without your team. But if your team is rallying behind you, because they see that you're going to be motivated to solve problems rather than whinge about them, then that is something that kind of propels them forward. The one thing I'm thinking about is, you know, yes, these are all very good skills to have in general.

You know, we're talking about relationship building. We're talking about adaptability. We're talking about problem solving. But I know there's some folks out there who are like, you know what, Ben? Like that just sounds like a lot of extra work. Why can't I just, you know, have my rigid approach? Why can't I just not focus on relationships necessarily?

I can just broadcast communicate. Like it's been working fine for me. Why do I have to do all these extra steps? And so I'm thinking, I'm like, okay, well, what in your opinion are the benefits of having a project led by a high performing project manager who exhibits these behaviors and traits? Versus what are the drawbacks of a project where someone leading the project maybe doesn't exhibit these traits and is kind of thinking in this sort of more mechanical form, like, you know, they may think they are getting the same output from it, maybe even being more efficient about it, but what is the underlying sort of drawback of that approach?

Ben Willmott: The first thing to say is if your project's working really well, then great. Don't change too much, but ask yourself some questions about what could go wrong with that, with your projects. It depends on the type of work and the type of product you're creating. If it's very, very predictable, then you can be more process driven.

If you like, versus if you're working in a project, that's. There's certain things you just don't know about at this stage and it's a brand new client or brand new team, all these things where it can create misunderstandings when you work together, then you will be an advantage if you practice and exhibit more of these behaviors.

Certainly adaptability is absolutely key, but they all are communication as well. Because if you don't and you just stick to your guns, this is how I'm going to work when you do have problems, it's going to get really hard because you might not be the one. It's very good chance. You're the project manager.

You're not making the decisions for the business, and you might be being told to adapt and improve. Or we need to find a solution for this. And if all you can do is go back with process, then yeah. You're going to be hitting a brick wall pretty quickly, and you're going to be in a really difficult situation.

So, you have to think about, well, it's going okay now, but what if it isn't? What should I do at that moment? And be prepared to make some, potentially some big changes if you're doing What you've just described a moment ago.

Galen Low: It's actually really funny because like when I interview PMs you know, when I was a hiring manager and if there was a candidate that kind of made it seem like every project went perfectly and smoothly, I would almost never hire them because I was like, that sounds like either a you're lying or B you just haven't encountered a problem yet.

And won't necessarily know what to do with it because you're like, my job is to make sure everything goes perfectly and I go, yeah, right, no project is perfect, but you raise a really good point that like some folks, you know, and at any stage in their career might be working on projects that go very smoothly and that might be fine.

It's that resilience that you're talking about when things go wrong. And usually with things that we don't control and, you know, every organization is shifting, like you and I both come from agency world. Like we're pivoting all the time. You know, we're sort of addressing clients requests demands is what I was going to say, but, you know, like, and we're kind of zigging and zagging and we, you know, we, we kind of, you, you need that muscle to be able to, to pivot quickly enough and still deliver.

But I think it's a fair call out that like, yeah, it might seem like things are going well. And I go switch over to the organization. Lens in a little bit as well, but like everything could on the surface look like they're going fine. You said something to me in the green room that really resonated. You said you could still be building the wrong thing, right?

It could look like a successful project. It could be on time. It could be within scope. It could be like within budget, maybe, you know, to the penny, but it might be the wrong thing and it might not create great long lasting relationships. And maybe that next project won't go to you. Actually, maybe not you, maybe not that organization, period.

Because, it got done. But it didn't perform, you know, and then when we're talking about high performance, it's easy to think, Oh, someone who just like is high capacity can, can do a lot of different projects at the same time, does things the same way every time, you know, they're the perfect PM robot, high performing robot.

But that's not actually what you mean. What you mean is someone who has the mindset to be able to react to problems on a project. That's high performance, not necessarily the like, linear follow a really rigid approach kind of PM, I guess.

Ben Willmott: Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes that type of PM, they need all the answers before they can do anything as well, which just frustrates people that we don't know.

We just need to get to this next stage and you have to have a level of acceptance as a PM. If you want to know everything, you're going to fall down pretty quick and get overwhelmed. And I've been there as well. You have to be able to just go have acceptance as well as being a high performing PM, just go, this is it.

This is all we've got right now. So this is like neutral thinking. I was saying, this is the best things we can do. And this is what we can answer. But if we can do X, Y, and Z by this point, then we can move on to this stage and do this. So it's all about a bit of acceptance. And just being a bit more realistic sometimes as well, which is never easy because you kind of want to know everything really so you can give like the perfect plan and the perfect estimate, but it's never going to be.

Galen Low: Right. Yeah, and it's like, you know, the bar gets set very high for project managers, you know, right from the get go, even before you're a project manager, you're kind of told that, like, yes, you know, you have to make your project go perfectly. And yet the perfect project is rare, at least in my books. And the real art is kind of making it look like it went really well, even if it zigged and zagged and had all these problems, you know, within it.

That didn't matter by the end because you still got there and you did that by adapting. And yes, maybe from the outside.

Ben Willmott: Yeah, exactly. If you've done it in the right way. And then quite often project managers are great for winning organic new business because. So performing really well and your team and your clients are happy, then why would your clients want to go anywhere else?

But if you're rigid and you stuck to what was in that contract and it was ultimately, you know, you were right, but you made everything difficult, then they're not going to come back. So it's not your role to win new business, but you can do it and really help your company work for, for those reasons.

Galen Low: I actually did work for an agency where we were AM/PMs. And it was kind of like, not fully incentivized, but maybe a bit expected that as you lead the project, you are building a relationship with that account person or with the person who's whatever, leading the client account. And sort of nurturing them into the sort of next phase or next opportunity because you're there and you're talking with them all the time and you're solving problems and you're helping them succeed.

That should be the thing that begets more business, not stop in the middle of the project and give a sales pitch. It was more just like, do your job well, and actually that will create a relationship that's strong.

I wonder if I could kind of flip it around. Not to the organization side just yet, but like thinking of like the personal branding side, you know, because I think it's easy. Like folks listening to like, yeah, okay. I have those traits, man. Maybe I'm not known as a high performing project manager for whatever reason. And you know, I when I was working agency side, Yeah, there were definitely the ones, like the PMs that had that reputation. They're like, Oh yeah, that person's a high performing PM.

And we, we never really could put a finger on it, but they had this ethos and brand, whether they, you know, were trying to or not of like, Oh, that person's one of our highest performing PMs. I'm just trying to think through, like, the sort of, not all of us are extroverts. Some of us, you know, we take a lot of pride in our projects, but we don't all necessarily want to play the game or understand the art of, like, building our own personal brand.

What kind of skills might a project manager need to focus on to, like, build their brand as a high performing PM, to, like, be recognized as a high performing PM?

Ben Willmott: Yeah, it's a tricky one because personal brand can I think for a lot of people when you say those words that probably think about visually how does their, their LinkedIn profile look, for example, the banner on there, their portfolio, all that type of thing.

But I like to think about personal branding, Obviously, just doing what everything we've been talking about, and again, going back to sort of help the more junior PMs, personal brand starts with, and it definitely doesn't end here either. Again, doing the really simple things like, Oh, Ben always holds the door open for me every time we come into the office.

Always offers a chair up. It always says, please. And thank you. He always smiling, you know, that type of thing. He'll do what he said he's going to do, which is easier said than done. Cause he obviously it's easy to say yes to too many things. I feel like personal branding starts there. And that is something you sort of build up over your career because people remember you for things like that.

You know, just doing the right thing at the right time, just being a good person. That's always for me, like the foundations of a personal brand at a more personal level that it goes. Yeah. I really like Ben. Does this he does that I remember him for these, you know, just good reasons, the right reasons and then helping them build on top of that when it comes to being a bit more visual about your own personal brand.

I would always just be trying to ask for like snippets of feedback throughout your career. Because nothing beats scaring a few, you know, you don't. I try to think if I ever seen it in a number once. In fact, no, I did just recently. That's something that's why it's in my head. On a CV, and it had some many testimonials from some people that they work with, and I thought that's nice because it just immediately enhances how people think about you because it's real people talking about this person, not them just saying what they do and how they do it.

So think about how you can gather feedback over time, because then you can learn from that feedback, obviously, but you can then utilize it over time as well. And build up how you approach and run your projects as well, which again, links in to all the things we've spoken about today. But the more approaches you can build up, the more confidence you then put into other people about how you work, because you get faster when you have more approaches to do things, you're not starting from scratch every time.

You might have a kickoff meeting, things like that. And also think about what do you do that's a bit different from everybody else? Because, again, that's the sort of thing someone's going to remember you for. And it could be anything. It could be an approach. It could be the t shirt you always wear in a client meeting.

I don't know, like the Tiger Woods thing with the red top on the final day. Could be that you have a YouTube channel and you're only 22 years old and you're junior PM. Could be anything, really. Yeah, I think personal brand is so much more than just a bit of the visual stuff that you see online. You need to be consistent with your messaging and stuff like that.

It's, it goes much, much further than that.

Galen Low: I like the memorability piece. I hadn't really thought of it that way. And I like that you kind of brought it to like the, you know, you might be starting your career, but if you're a person who kind of does the right thing at the right time, is friendly, maybe is thoughtful, You don't have to be sort of in the senior PM chair to be recognized as somebody who is, you know, good at what they are doing and achieving high performance at each stage of your career, not just like having it as the final destination.

And I also really do like though, that like, Leveraging your learnings along the way so that you have these approaches so that you are a more efficient and be like, that is part of the brand, right? Your way of working is that you're sort of building project over project learning, like accruing knowledge of what works and what doesn't.

And then you've got it right. So that when problems do happen, you kind of have more in your toolbox than just the one tool or just the one textbook and can actually put that into practice. And of course, you know, like we've been talking about the whole time, right? It's like impact on people, because if you're already exhibiting these traits, then you're probably much more likely to have people who are going to say something nice about you for your CV or your LinkedIn, or, or even just to your boss.

And those are some of the, the sort of messages that people need to hear to be like, Oh yeah, that's absolutely right. I do remember now that this person is always doing this thing correctly, or, you know, has a pretty good instinct of like how to make things keep going. I think it's really neat, actually.

Ben Willmott: It's a long story, but it's a long career as well over the years.

Galen Low: Well, yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.

I wonder if we now flip the lens, actually, maybe over to the organization side, because, you know, we've been talking about these traits and they're, they're quite individualistic, right? There's, there's something that you can kind of grow on your own sort of personal path.

I wonder if we could flip it to the organization. Because I think there's a lot of businesses that are being told, Oh, you need a high performing PM, like don't settle for anything less, right? Get a high performing PM. And they're like, okay. But I'm wondering, you know, they probably have project managers working in an organization and high performance, right?

As you highlighted earlier, can yield better results for a project beyond even just getting the project done. It's like good for business in general. What can an organization or like a people manager do to guide their project management team towards high performance? And what are the incentives when there isn't really a clear ladder to climb as a PM?

And what I mean by that is great. We want you to be high performing, but like, you'll go from project manager to senior project manager and that's basically it, but we still want you to be high performing. Like how can they cultivate high performance and how can they, I guess, incentivize high performance?

Ben Willmott: Yeah, I would say. As a sort of a manager of a team or the line manager or department head in terms of what you want from your team when it comes to performance, you've got to simplify the expectations as much as you possibly can, because if you try and dictate too much about what you want, then ultimately it's just you telling them how you want to work and this is how you would do it.

And an example that I give is if you're talking about how are we going to track finances on our project? Now you could go down some sort of deep, detailed paths of tracking and analysis and all these different reports and meetings to talk about this and that. But if you just break it down to say, well, what's the most important thing we need to know on our project?

I'm not saying this is the only thing you would do. But if you start there and go, right, we just need to know if we're profitable or not. That's it. Everything else doesn't matter. Are we making money on this project now? And are we going to make money based on our forecast, by the time we finish, based on what we know, et cetera, et cetera.

And then to say, that's all I care about, as long as you can tell me that information at pretty much any point of the project, then we're good, because we know if it's certain profitability level, we're happy if it gets to this point, we need to do something about it, we can take actions, but how you want to present that and track it is up to you.

The date is available here, except you can create five page PowerPoint. If you want, you could do it in an email and say, we're on track. That's it. But let them find their ways of doing things, their own personalities and approaches to come out. And then they're happy because they're more empowered to do what they need to do.

You're happy because you're getting the information you need to get as an organization point of view. And then you move on to the next thing. What's the most important thing on how we want to track? I don't know. Client happiness or in terms of how the project is going. It could be absolutely anything, but just don't overcomplicate it.

Cause I've in the past, try to implement really detailed processes and delivery methodologies. And I kind of know what to do, but the problem is you do it and it takes ages. And then by the time you implemented it, it's not really, does it make sense? Or does it, it works for this project, but not this project, but this individual, that's not how they work.

And then it just means that things just don't get done. And everyone's working differently and got different goals and expectations on what success looks like. So just massively simplify things. And then you look at sort of the flow and the information that PMs have to be able to do that. And sometimes that's probably the thing that holds them back the most is, is that the tools and the data they have available, they just can't, they can't provide that information.

So yeah, does that make sense?

Galen Low: Oh yeah, I love the tie back to like, you know, this idea of, you know, rigidity versus adaptability. And I've been in that situation as well, right? Director of client services, we're trying to unify what our project status reports look like. Everyone has to use the same status report, change management, push back.

You know, I came to realize later, not in that moment, but later that like being a project manager is quite an individualistic creative role. It was hard to get a team of 12 to like adopt the same status report because some of them had a status report that like really spoke their language was their brand is sort of the way that they approach things.

And then we were trying to cram them back into a box for the sake of consistency, whereas in actual fact, we only needed the one metric. We didn't need everyone to use the same status report. We needed the one metric to be unified and measured consistently, you know, profitability and client satisfaction.

We didn't have to prescribe how they work. We just needed to say, to your point, okay, as long as we're getting this thing, do whatever, right? And like fostering that individuality so that you are nurturing project managers that can develop those traits that are high performing traits, right? Like in terms of like the relationship building and the sort of adaptability and the opportunities mindset.

Like, I think that's, you know, Yeah. In other words, I came to the same conclusion years later, because we did an acquisition. We acquired another company and I opened up their project status reports. And I was like, ah, this is like, it's so ugly. And like, it's like, it's garbage. And I'm like, okay, we need to like do this.

And I'm like, no, wait a minute. All the answers are here. Every answer is right here. And the worst thing I could do right now is probably say, Hey, great that we merged now and you have to do things my way. Like, I think that's probably the worst thing I could have done. They probably would have all quit.

So I feel that, I think that's really cool.

Ben Willmott: Yeah, it's easy said than done though. If you know, massive company who's got very rigorous reporting and things like that. It's tricky, but there's still, it's still a good starting point. If you're at least having a conversation about how should we work as a team, as project managers, just start with something really, really simple and just sort of build out from there that works.

You can add to it and do a bit more, but don't go full on and just create this. Five page status report that you need to do every week because it won't happen.

Galen Low: Yeah.

Ben Willmott: No one wins.

Galen Low: I wonder if I could take it into some sort of more challenging, well, maybe juicier areas, I guess, in my book, because I've worked with a lot of high performing project managers.

I've had some on my team. Some of them are like, it's an excellent experience working with them, but sometimes it begs this question, right? Like, could a high performing project manager mask some of the symptoms of having a low performing project team? And like, maybe could that happen, like in reverse, like vice versa, I'm just kind of wanted to explore this notion of like, when might, you know, high performance become toxic.

Ben Willmott: Yeah, I think it, it can go both ways for a certain period of time, the high performing team and I'm not a very good project manager and then the other way around as well. But it always comes out, you know, that saying it always comes out of the wash at some point that the team will get frustrated with that project manager.

Because if they haven't got the right behaviors, they're asking them to do certain things. They're going to hang on a minute, like the status report. We're talking about why are we doing this? There's no value. It's taken up lots of my time. If it's a high performing team, they're going to be showing a bit of empathy.

There'll be a bit of kindness, all that good stuff, but it only goes so far. And that will ultimately come back to that PM. And I think it goes the other way as well, probably even, even harder the other way, because as I said earlier, without your team as a project manager, you're really going to struggle.

And if you've got a team who aren't experienced enough or they're not very good at what they do or whatever the reasons are, there's only so, so much a project manager can do until ultimately if the work's not getting done, then you've got a problem. You might have some great techniques and approaches to try and get it out of them and improve, but if they're not improving or they don't want to improve.

Then you're going to hit a wall at some point. So you could mask it for a little while, how long, depending on the project, I guess, and how visible they are with their stakeholders and their client teams and things like that. But it will come out eventually.

Galen Low: I like that sort of roles and responsibilities collision, right?

Because I actually, I have seen that. I've seen project managers who are packaging their design teams work and creating the presentation to be presented. You know, because they're like, I want it to come out really well, maybe to an unhealthy level of micromanagement. And I've also seen the reverse where it's kind of like, okay, this project manager isn't updating the tasks or the timelines or anything.

So I'm, I'll do that. I'll volunteer to like, you know, let me fill out the status report. And then you're right. It does come out in the wash and it isn't the goal. The goal is not to be so high performing that you're doing somebody else's job to make sure everything gets done. Right. That actually falls back into this non adaptability.

It will still come out, but it's funny that you mentioned it and I've seen it right where you can walk down a path without anyone noticing that anything's wrong. Not very far though, but like it is possible to kind of get high performance wrong from both sides, right? To be like, yeah, I'm a high performing PM. I just have my project team do all my work.

Ben Willmott: Yeah, it'll come out. And I remember being quite a few conversations with other capabilities, other team members, and then saying something, I'm like, Oh, why are you doing that? Oh, why are they hushies do that? And like the alarm bells start going. So yeah, always, it always comes out at some point.

Galen Low: I love that.

I thought maybe I can round out and just circle back to where we started. I asked the question, you know, what are the qualities of a high performing PM? What are the traits? What are the behaviors? And if I'm not doing it, am I a terrible PM? I thought I'd actually spin it back into, you know, I said it in jest, but if I were to spin it back into a serious question, like, what if you're someone who's kind of struggling throughout your journey towards high performance?

Like, are you dead in the water? Does every project manager on the team need to be high performing in this day and age? Like, is that an expectation or is there some grace? And as long as you're kind of moving towards there, could that be good enough?

Ben Willmott: Well, for some people, not everybody really wants to push themselves and improve.

And that's fine. You know, if you want to just stick along, do your job, and you're happy with that, and, you know, your company and your project works okay because of that, then fine. You know, you don't have to be doing all of these things. If you want to improve and progress in your career, then you've always got to be looking back.

How can I improve as a project manager? And as I said at the start, I've described quite a few different things across those different traits. And I'm not saying, right, just focus on all of these right now, all together tomorrow. This takes time. You build up, you think, well, where do I need to focus? It's the communications.

That's, I think, looking at the issues that I've got. And that's a good place to start. Look back at the issues you had on a project and go, well, where. What's the root cause of that? Was it the communication aspect of it, or did I not listen when that individual was telling me this? So try and find where the root causes are, those issues, and then start to think about what could I do to improve.

It isn't about getting from the start to the finish in a few days. It really is a continuous process of always improving, like all of these things as well. I'm always looking at different ways to improve myself because it'd be a bit boring otherwise, personally, if I just stuck doing the same thing all the time.

Yeah. It's up to you. If you're happy and you're performing okay, and there's no problems. And your client is happy with you, whatever it might be, then fine. But I feel that these types of behaviors, if you work on and improve on them, it also gives you more opportunities as you progress. And it might not even be in project management, because if you've got good relationships, good communication, it just means you're in front of more people.

More people know you, you're renowned for more things. So people are more likely to go, Oh, Galen, yeah, actually, you might be good at that. You should speak to, you know, just because they're aware of you going back to the branding for you. But it all depends on personal preference, ultimately, at the day.

Galen Low: No, that's fair. And I like that lens on growth, right? In terms of career growth and opportunities. And if, even if you weren't planning to sort of climb the ladder or, you know, whatever the, whatever the term is, and just wanted to stay put as a project manager. I like your point about the fact that, yeah, you still want it to be kind of, it gives you, it keeps it exciting, right?

It gives you something to do. If neither, probably fine too, right? Delivering projects, all good. But I think like, that's like just gosh, what a great way to sort of tie it up with a ribbon. These traits are not specific to project managers. You're not trying to become the highest performing status report machine or like the highest performing Gantt chart maker, or you're starting to develop and give yourself, you know, pave the path towards like being a high performing professional.

And arguably, you know, as you said at the beginning, like just kind of a good human being, I guess, right? Like you're being empathetic, you're being adaptable, you're helping solve problems. You're, you know, you're working together with other humans to try and achieve a goal and then hopefully get a chance to do it again the next time.

And that can take you pretty much anywhere, whether you stay in project management or you could go almost anywhere else. And all of those things will still be high performing traits in some other craft or profession.

Ben Willmott: Yeah, ultimately a lot of life skills in there and you never know when that opportunity is coming your way. Literally could be tomorrow. Someone comes to you with something or you see something and if you're ready for it, and I find quite often a lot of project managers will look at job descriptions and other companies and go, I don't think I could do that. Because they haven't got the confidence in themselves.

But you know, if you're always striving to improve, then you recognize not, not everything is your own responsibility. You can't change everything, but you can always improve everything just a little bit, no matter what's going on. And then that helps with your confidence. Then when you do look at that other job, potentially, then you go, actually, I probably could do that.

Because you're in a better mental state when you look at it.

Galen Low: Boom. Love that. Honestly, maybe a good place to leave it right there.

Ben Willmott: Yeah. Nice.

Galen Low: That was great. Awesome.

Ben, thank you so much for spending the time with me today. This has been loads of fun.

Ben Willmott: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Really good conversation. I'm sure we could keep going as well, but I think that's enough for everyone.

Galen Low: Yeah. We'll have you back. We'll have you back.

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