PMcrunch

A CEO said, "I’d hate to lose you—you’re one of the few people around here who actually cares."  While highly dedicated people can be rare.  Deliberate effort to find and retain such people is a worthwhile performance enhancement initiative.  Here are 5 key ideas to implement to have more project team members who care!

The question can be expanded a bit to: "What can you as the PM put into place to attract talent that cares, as well as maintain that talent?  Furthermore, what can you do to transform many of those who don’t care into performers who do care?"

Here are 5 ideas:

1. Lay down very carefully and explicitly what the product of the project is, and the process for producing it.  Prepare a special presentation that you could present to candidates for the project team to ’sell’ the project to them.
2. Assess in detail what the core skills, talents, and attitudes that you will need on your team to accomplish what you laid out.  Put together the required job descriptions that will appeal directly to those people who have the requirements you want.
3. Assess individuals in interviews directly on core skills, talents, and attitudes that you have developed.  Weave a presentation of the project, and assess the reaction, questions, enthusiasm, insights, and stories that result on the part of your candidates.
4. Upon completion of interviews, rate can compare individuals, giving extra weight to the "enthusiasm" and "fit" factors for the project.
5. Hire accordingly, and devise a plan to "feed" that enthusiasm, and be aware of how changes might affect it.  Keep your pulse on that enthusiasm.

If you do this with care and enthusiasm yourself, you will find that you have a great proportion of team members who really care and are key members of an effective, enthusiastic team.  You will have more "keepers", and you and they are much more likely to have a successful and pleasant experience on the project.

For more information on the topic of "caring", see Friday Leadership Insight: Do Your People Care?   
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John Reiling, PMP
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