EMA-I #2 - the "Alpha" Change Manager - Posted 4/1/11

The term “Alpha” seems to be something of a buzzword these days. While not always seen in a positive context, e.g. the term “Alpha male” can be associated with unwanted excesses, it is usually related to superior and consistent performance.

An example is my current industry of investment management where many managers seek to generate “alpha performance.” In this context it relates to absolute returns irrespective of whether markets are going up down or sideways; beta performance is about matching the market. As an illustration, in a market that goes down by say 8%, a beta manager who only goes down by 7% has beaten his target, but an alpha manager with a target of plus 5% has to achieve that or better. I know which I would prefer.

In project management there has been a search for the “alpha PM”, the person who consistently delivers better than average results. The chances are you have one or two people in mind who could qualify, but do you know why this is so and how you would have to develop others to the same level?
When you consider the reported statistics of how many projects fail or don’t deliver their expected benefits – I won’t go over that ground again - you can see the advantage of recognising these individuals and using them on strategic change.

I would like to bring two pieces of work to the table for consideration in this blog. These are the work of others and I will do my best to attribute them properly. If you are interested then, please look deeper and make your own assessment.

The first piece I want to bring out is work by a UK consultancy called PierceMayfield, a specialist in project management training and development. In 2008 they reported at a conference in London on the conclusions of an exercise they had coordinated and analysed. In this they had asked a significant group of project managers to keep diaries over something like a 10 week period. In these they tracked how their time was apportioned, what challenges they faced, and the outcomes of their work.

Although possibly not the most scientific piece of work they did come up with some interesting conclusions, ones which resonated with me and the audience. If I can do them justice after this time, the findings were:-

• All high performing PM’s had an inbuilt dashboard in their head that contained the four or five things they needed to concentrate ¬now. This is independent of any formal structured reporting tools or templates and differed from PM to PM, from project to project and indeed from week to week. The key thing was that had a keen sense of what was important and deserved their time, being able to give less attention to the rest. The question of importance itself varied by time too, ranging from stakeholder interest through to risks and issues. This brings out a question of judgement, which is something I will return to.

• The next differentiator they identified was that “alpha’s” had time to deal with the unplanned demands on their time, because as we all know, the unexpected always happens. This came from two behaviours, those being an ability to prioritise and the practise of good diary management. While the first is self-explanatory and links with the earlier point about an understanding of what is important, the second is different.

• The diary management item related to them always leaving space in their diary in order to accommodate the unexpected. They did not book out more than 60-70% of their time to committed activities, filling the remaining time as best suited their needs at the time. This is somewhat at odds with many modern practices where PM’s die under a burden of meetings aka “death by meeting”, and people feel obliged to be seen to be “busy” in order to justify one’s seat in the office. Who raises the boss’ eyebrow most, the person who mentions that are having to work 10 hours a day to fit all the meetings in and do their work or the person who, while still doing their work, is seen to have time for coffee and chat with team members, or is always ready to pick up the baton in a crisis? You decide. But then who is the most effective?

• The last item was about the context the PM was operating in. They concluded that while an alpha PM would remain an alpha PM his/her performance could vary as they moved roles and organisations. The reason cited was that much of their skill was in knowing how “to get things done”. To do this well they needed to understand their environment and have effective relationships with stakeholders and suppliers. If these changed then it would take a short, but real period of time while new relationships were built. In that phase, it is not that an alpha ceased to perform, just their level of performance dropped. In time an alpha could be expected to rebuild their superior performance, but it would be wrong to expect the immediate transfer into a new environment.

To me the learning points here were about awareness, judgement, self-management and the importance of relationships and that while these were transferable there would always be a temporary dip in performance as the alpha PM learnt and adapted to a new environment.

I know this blog entry is all about project managers and not more generally about change agents, but I feel the learning points are very relevant.

The second piece is some work with the Major Projects Association (MPA ) in the UK. A study was performed on a nominated group of 29 “elite” project managers from 17 organisations to look for key judgement attributes.

The tool used was one called the Judgement Index. This is built upon the work of a Nobel Prize nominee and looks to assess an individual against a reference model, bringing out the meaning of the measured variations. It looks at the how the individual sees themselves, sees the world and sees them self in the world. It can also look at the balance between components.

This is much more of a “living”, contextual tool as it is easy to see that how one might respond differently if one has just nursed a loved one through cancer rather than having witnessed the birth of a child. This assessment has, in my experience, proved very insightful.

The findings were presented at a conference in mid-2009, and many of the findings resonated with the earlier work. Key strengths/indicators were, not surprisingly:-

• Strong people skills, tolerance and empathy
• Excellent problem solving skills, both personal and work
• An informed decision making style
• Good trainability and a strong work ethic
• Strong systemic (big picture) judgement i.e. dealing with abstract problems
• Good ability to follow directions with accuracy
• A positive attitude and stress coping skills in both work and self-life
• A balanced approach to people, work, and systemic (big picture) issues.

What was more interesting was that the group also showed:-

• High levels of self criticism
• Low levels of self care
• Relatively low levels of qualitative judgement; quantitative judgement was much higher

The first two can have detrimental impacts on performance if found in excess. This is something for colleagues and managers to be aware of and mitigate.

Now no-one would claim that either of these was a perfect, scientific study, but I do think that each gives us an opportunity to learn and reflect on the make up of an alpha change manager.

Personally, I don’t doubt that there are those who are better suited to leading change, but I note that they tend just to emerge rather than be consciously nurtured. More work such as the studies mentioned here could help increase our conscious competence in identifying and developing the alpha’s of the future.