j e s r u s h . c o m

As traffic and sprawl continue to sicken suburbia, more and more suburbanites are throwing in the towel and moving into neighborhoods which are highly walkable.  A highly walkable neighborhood is one where groceries, parks, schools, restaurants, and shopping are within a mile or two.  According to WalkScore, the benefits are tremendous:

Better health: A study in Washington State found that the average resident of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood weighs 7 pounds less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood.¹ Residents of walkable neighborhoods drive less and suffer fewer car accidents, a leading cause of death between the ages of 15–45.

Reduction in greenhouse gas: Cars are a leading cause of global warming. Your feet are zero-pollution transportation machines.

More transportation options: Compact neighborhoods tend to have higher population density, which leads to more public transportation options and bicycle infrastructure. Not only is taking the bus cheaper than driving, but riding a bus is ten times safer than driving a car!²

Increased social capital: Walking increases social capital by promoting face-to-face interaction with your neighbors. Studies have shown that for every 10 minutes a person spends in a daily car commute, time spent in community activities falls by 10%.³

Stronger local businesses: Dense, walkable neighborhoods provide local businesses with the foot traffic they need to thrive. It’s easier for pedestrians to shop at many stores on one trip, since they don’t need to drive between destinations.

As the National Association of Realtors pointed out, “Buyers want it all within walking distance. The next hot market could be homes in walkable neighborhoods.”

Enter walkscore.com, this brilliant website allows you to enter an address, and the system will evaluate its walkability by measuring its proximity to grocers, libraries, etc.  It’s not perfect of course.  It can’t tell for example, that although that grocery is .3 miles away, you would have to cross a six lane highway with no sidewalks to get there.  It doesn’t measure church proximity either.  But nonetheless it is a fantastic tool for gauging the general walkability of an area. And NAR is spot on, this will be the next hot market.

Project managers are usually thought of as analytical types and as people who execute things.  In their analytical moments, they survey a field of options, risks, and opportunities, determining the optimum path through the landscape.  When they execute, they move mountains to get things done.

But there is a third archetype which ought to describe the project manager.  Project managers ought to be creative.  Not creative in the sense of managing their projects (e.g. finding a better way to crash a schedule), but rather creative in the sense of  strategic product and service innovation.  Let me explain.

In today’s cutthroat business world, organizations must constantly improve.  They are in  an endless cycle of cost cutting, value adding, and creating new products. No matter how well your business is doing now, it is just a matter of time until a competitor catches up and duplicates–or even improves on–your success.  Your profits shrink.  As Robert Reich has explained, at the end of the day there are essentially three strategies to stay in the game:

1) You can figure out how to cut your costs and offer your X for less than competitor’s Y.
2) You can figure out how to produce a much better X for the same cost.
3) You can use whatever expertise gained along the way to be first out with entirely new product Z.

What does this have to do with project managers?  Simply put: Everything.  Project managers are in the incredibly unique position of having one foot in their supplying organization, and one foot in the customer’s organization.  They can gather customer needs and match those up to the supplier’s offerings.  But more than that they can  identify unstated customer needs and find innovative solutions which haven’t even been built yet (but which the supplier has the capability to build).

The key of course is creative thinking and relentless focus on the three strategies.  When is the last time you asked yourself and your project team, “How can we cut costs?” “How can we add more value?”  “Is there an opportunity for a new product here?”

COMING SOON:  Part 2 — Tools for Creative Product Innovation

I’ve slowly been eating my way through Bon Appetit’s list of the best barbecue joints in the US.  Last stop was at Stamey’s in Greensboro, NC.  Stamey’s — like most good BBQ outfits — doesn’t look like much on the outside, but it doesn’t matter:  The food was incredible.  Everything was hickory smoked, easy on the sauce, and they had hush puppies!  The peach cobbler was to die for as well.  Stamey’s has jumped to the top of my Carolina’s list.  If you’re in the area — don’t miss it!

I finally got around to reading another one of Patrick Lencioni’s business “fables”:   The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  This one involves an elaborate fictional scenario in which a new CEO rescues a splintering senior leadership team.  Presumably, the lessons are just as applicable down the org chart.  The format gives Five Dysfunctions two major advantages over like-minded ‘team building’ texts:  It makes it eminently readable (no dry theory here) and it makes it memorable.  No doubt readers will be able to recall the umm — confrontation — with Mikey for years to come.

After Lencioni has you hook, line, and sinker on the story, he spends the last portion of the book breaking down what happened according to the five dysfunctions, and explaining how to avoid and/or fix these pitfalls.

Dysfunction 1:  Absence of Trust

Dysfuntion 2:  Fear of Conflict

Dysfunction 3:  Lack of Commitment

Dysfunction 4:  Avoidance of Accountability

Dysfunction 5:  Inattention to Results

This is a winner.  Yes it occasionally steps into pop-business-psychology territory, but most of the time it is on point as a basic team building primer.  There is nothing groundbreaking here, but there never is with Lencioni.  He has built a nice little niche gathering assorted insights on some business subject and embedding them into something which is actually readable.  He succeeds once again here and you’ll learn a few tricks in the process.

Recommended.