The Socially Intelligent Project Manager

Book excerpt: This no-nonsense guide to social intelligence for project managers gives you a step-by-step process for building a bulletproof project team—no matter what gaps exist in personality, geography, culture, or communication style. High-performing teams don't happen by magic. You need processes that are designed in a socially intelligent way if your team is going to overcome the modern world's tough challenges with coordination. To be a star project manager, you have to communicate with people in their individual learning styles, provide accountability in ways that won't be demotivating, and run meetings and minutes that people won't tune out. Your processes must be constructed in ways that respect the complex realities of social dynamics step by step. You have to know your team before you can motivate them, and you have to motivate them before you can manage them. In this book are foolproof techniques to make sure your team connects with you, each other, and everyone they need to get the job done. After all, a team should be more than the sum of its parts—and it's up to the project manager to provide the glue that holds it all together.