PMcrunch

Loyalty has always been a big topic in organizations of all types. Back in the middle ages, kings spoke of their loyal subjects and gave severe penalties to those who were not loyal. For many years, in the post-World War II era, people were rewarded for loyal service with lifetime employment. However, in today’s fast-paced world the question in my mind is "What are the limits of loyalty?"

I think that most people know very well that loyalty is not everything. However, the value of loyalty surely varies from person to person. In my own experience, I have found that it really pays to have a team of, say, 5 or 10 people, to have one or two people who have a high degree of loyalty. These are people who could be helpful as eyes and ears, they can provide honest insights as to what is going on, and they can be people who we can simply count on to be there in good times and bad.

On the other hand, I have found that while there really is never a place for a "disloyal" person, for most people on my projects the loyalty factor has not been a big one. What I find the most important is that there are people who can get things done and who I can count on. It is important to have people who are honest and upfront, but who also have the skills to get the job done and the work ethic to apply them. They must have the dogged determination to stick with the job to meet the goals of the project or program. They are people who truly care about what they are doing, want to do the job, and refuse to lower their standards.

I have been fortunate enough to find people on many of my projects who are both loyal and highly competent. To some extent the two come together as a pair; but not always. I think the difference is that some people may use loyalty as a screen for lesser performance. Again I have had few, if any, people who I can describe like that, but I have seen people who use loyalty as their best foot forward. The problem with this is that it does not survive in both good times and bad. It is something that seems to sustain itself relatively easily in good times, but is detrimental in bad times. Often, the benefits of loyalty in bad times are lower than in good times because in good times you may require a little more loyalty to keep things together. In bad times, top performance and the desire for survival are what keep teams and organizations together; and loyalty falls a distance behind. The problem is that, often, in these bad times people who lean too heavily on loyalty emphasize it that much more during the bad times.

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John Reiling, PMP
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