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Be a Project Motivator: Unlock the Secrets of Strengths-Based Project Management
How do project managers achieve spectacular results when they have no direct authority over their team members? Here's a foolproof process for engaging your team: one that begins with engaging yourself.
Ruth Pearce knows project management from the inside out. She knows the best project managers use their influence to engage their teams--and with that engagement comes motivation and commitment to the projects and to each other. Read Be a Project Motivator and watch your project teams thrive."
--Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager® and Servant Leadership in Action
Successful project managers must engage and motivate others to achieve complex goals. Ruth Pearce shows how behavior, language, and attitudes affect engagement and how leveraging character strengths can help improve relationships, increase innovation, and build higher-functioning teams. This focus on character strengths--such as bravery, curiosity, fairness, gratitude, and humor--can help project managers recognize and cultivate the things that are best in themselves and others.
Many project managers do not have the authority to direct the activities of people on their teams--they can only influence them. The most influential people succeed by focusing less on themselves and their message and more on others. They pay attention, they are brave, they are vulnerable, they are curious, and they look for and acknowledge the things that are important about and to the other person. And they model the behavior that they want to see. This book tells you how.
Pearce provides tools and frameworks for building a culture of appreciation, understanding character strengths, mapping leadership qualities, understanding learning styles, identifying team roles, and executing plans. She also explores the factors that contribute to conflict and tensions, as well as strategies for getting through difficult times. We see these tools and techniques in action through "Maggie," a project manager who is struggling to motivate her team. Each chapter concludes with reflective questions to make the ideas stick and with key strategies for success.
Ruth Pearce knows project management from the inside out. She knows the best project managers use their influence to engage their teams--and with that engagement comes motivation and commitment to the projects and to each other. Read Be a Project Motivator and watch your project teams thrive."
--Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager® and Servant Leadership in Action
Successful project managers must engage and motivate others to achieve complex goals. Ruth Pearce shows how behavior, language, and attitudes affect engagement and how leveraging character strengths can help improve relationships, increase innovation, and build higher-functioning teams. This focus on character strengths--such as bravery, curiosity, fairness, gratitude, and humor--can help project managers recognize and cultivate the things that are best in themselves and others.
Many project managers do not have the authority to direct the activities of people on their teams--they can only influence them. The most influential people succeed by focusing less on themselves and their message and more on others. They pay attention, they are brave, they are vulnerable, they are curious, and they look for and acknowledge the things that are important about and to the other person. And they model the behavior that they want to see. This book tells you how.
Pearce provides tools and frameworks for building a culture of appreciation, understanding character strengths, mapping leadership qualities, understanding learning styles, identifying team roles, and executing plans. She also explores the factors that contribute to conflict and tensions, as well as strategies for getting through difficult times. We see these tools and techniques in action through "Maggie," a project manager who is struggling to motivate her team. Each chapter concludes with reflective questions to make the ideas stick and with key strategies for success.
- GenresPsychology
248 pages, Paperback
Published November 27, 2018
16 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 18, 2020
I really liked the ideas and will definetely try some of the techniques in my practice.
One thing though was a bit too much and at times unnecessary in my opinion - the fictional characters, I couldn't follow them and most of the time they distracted me.
One thing though was a bit too much and at times unnecessary in my opinion - the fictional characters, I couldn't follow them and most of the time they distracted me.
February 8, 2022
The book touches various aspects in project manager's life. The introduction of character strengths in the context of project team motivation is a bright and insightful point for managers and it broadens out perspective in the domain of positive psychology. Author brings in front essential signature character strengths for a project manager and occasionally differentiates their application based on the applied national/organizational Anglo-Saxon culture.
Fictional situations and characters are well utilized to explain how important understanding and developing character strengths is, however the narrated workshop get tiring and from my point of view not easily applied. Personas seem to belong in a performing team which is willing to get into constructive conflict, understand its pitfalls and evolve. The real challenge would be to describe the effect of using the power of character strengths in a dysfunctional team. At the end of the book, other PMs' aspects are examined i.e. planning persona types, meeting issues, etc. which are useful as good handbook.
In my opinion author should have dedicated a part of the book analyzing facets of positive psychology to help readers comprehend why all mentioned signature character strengths are important for PMs. A big part of the book is dedicated in attempting passing the message using conversations between fictional characters, while it should have dug more into other viewpoints and cases that real PMs face in everyday work-life.
Fictional situations and characters are well utilized to explain how important understanding and developing character strengths is, however the narrated workshop get tiring and from my point of view not easily applied. Personas seem to belong in a performing team which is willing to get into constructive conflict, understand its pitfalls and evolve. The real challenge would be to describe the effect of using the power of character strengths in a dysfunctional team. At the end of the book, other PMs' aspects are examined i.e. planning persona types, meeting issues, etc. which are useful as good handbook.
In my opinion author should have dedicated a part of the book analyzing facets of positive psychology to help readers comprehend why all mentioned signature character strengths are important for PMs. A big part of the book is dedicated in attempting passing the message using conversations between fictional characters, while it should have dug more into other viewpoints and cases that real PMs face in everyday work-life.
March 10, 2023
The book started well with an intro what is project management, motivation, and talks mainly about positive psychology and character strengths. But overall the book presents the ideas via (I presume) fictional situations and characters but it sounds too good to be true, like a fairytale. Very rarely things work out the way presented in the book. What would have been beneficial is to present cases of how to use character strengths in problematic situations, dysfunctional teams and people not willing to improve or accept the feedback given. It was hard for me to comprehend how in real practice the character strengths and positive psychology would help. But the main takeaways for me are:
In the list of project management communication there is a list with 11 components of interpersonal skills: leadership, team building, motivation, communication, influencing, decision making, political and cultural awareness, negotiation, trust building, conflict management, coaching.
Try to integrate yourself in the bigger team, meet with everyone as far as possible on 1on1 for 30m discussions and anyone not comfortable with 1on1 was welcomed to team up with with 1-2 others, it’s their choice. The meetings would follow the same pattern of questions: 1) What works now? 2) If the program and team are as good as they can be, what would you be doing? 3) What steps can we take to move toward that ideal state? 4) What would you like to contribute to make things happen?
6 pillars of persuasion by Robert Chialdini: liking (being well liked from others), social proof (having enough people modeling behavior you are looking for that others want to join in), commitment and consistency, scarcity (not being much of something), reciprocation (I will do something for you because you did something for me), authority (people who are more powerful than I am are telling me to do it so I should do it) and one more from the author - modeling (act and show to those around us how engaging a project can be).
In the list of project management communication there is a list with 11 components of interpersonal skills: leadership, team building, motivation, communication, influencing, decision making, political and cultural awareness, negotiation, trust building, conflict management, coaching.
Try to integrate yourself in the bigger team, meet with everyone as far as possible on 1on1 for 30m discussions and anyone not comfortable with 1on1 was welcomed to team up with with 1-2 others, it’s their choice. The meetings would follow the same pattern of questions: 1) What works now? 2) If the program and team are as good as they can be, what would you be doing? 3) What steps can we take to move toward that ideal state? 4) What would you like to contribute to make things happen?
6 pillars of persuasion by Robert Chialdini: liking (being well liked from others), social proof (having enough people modeling behavior you are looking for that others want to join in), commitment and consistency, scarcity (not being much of something), reciprocation (I will do something for you because you did something for me), authority (people who are more powerful than I am are telling me to do it so I should do it) and one more from the author - modeling (act and show to those around us how engaging a project can be).
May 17, 2023
It's been a minute since we read a book specifically for project managers as part of my project management book club, so it was a little hard getting into this one. Then it was a little hard to keep going, partly because the author repeats themselves quite a bit and also uses an anecdotal style to illustrate her points which felt a bit corny and overwrought. I did however find some takeaways I found useful, particularly in how I personally can model a positive outlook and use my strengths to my advantage. Two quotes that put these takeways into words are "To survive, we need an awareness of negative circumstances, but to thrive, we need to build on the positive" and "Find the right balance of *your* ingredients to be *your* best." There was also good discussion of different planning and learning styles, character strengths, and influence methods, so not an altogether unworthy read.
May 14, 2025
I have decided to pick up this book to get new impulses for my work. It is really a great read and it helps to identiy ones strengths but also strengths in other people. We all are different and have or different strengths. It is very important to be able to recognize it and use it to our advantage.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews