Where Is the Butter?
We are happy to welcome a new voice to the blog! Riley Horan is an experienced IT project manager that specializes in Agile and appreciates its focus on the team as the central building block. Riley and others of similar mindset have been writing about building better teams at http://buildbetterteams.blogspot.com.
Reprinted from: http://buildbetterteams.blogspot.com/2009/08/where-is-butter.html
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My daughters love butter. They can’t get enough of it. When we have pancakes they love it even more. The problem is though, if they can’t see it they don’t believe it is there.
When you put butter on a hot pancake it melts to the point that you can’t see it. If I bring the pancake to them, without viewable butter, they say “Where is the butter?”. I tell them it is there, but they don’t believe me. So I need to go back and put more butter on it to satisfy their need to “see it to believe it”.
The same thing is true when you are working with someone who doesn’t necessarily behave in a way you would expect or want.
Twice in the last few years I’ve come across circumstances where people I’ve worked with have been steady and even keeled and not subject to excitement or panic. But a perception has been that this person is not driving their team. Not building excitement and momentum.
When this is brought to my attention and I’m told they are not a driver, I ask “why”? What are you seeing or hearing that is making you think that? Because it seems like they are working well and getting their projects done. The response has been that this person is not a driver because they are not pushing their teams.
Ah…..”Where is the butter?”
It took me a while to figure this out when I was working with one person a few years back. We changed one thing. When he was talking in front of people who like action I told him to use stronger words and stronger tone. Result? First time he did this he received a voice mail from someone who thanked him how he was driving on the project and moving things forward.
Did he change any of his other behaviors? No. We did talk about using a slightly stronger choice of words and tone in certain circumstances, but overall his behaviors were the same.
Don’t get confused if at first you don’t see the butter. It may really may be there, you just can’t see it. If you are making a pancake, sometimes you just need to give people what they want to hear or see, and that will keep them satisfied.
I’ve seen what you describe a couple of times myself, and your observation that it is partially personality but that they can be coached on how to behave to overcome it is spot on.
I can’t help but observe that even our president got into this bind – there is a certain part of the population that thinks that a leaders job is to kick @$$ and take names when there is a problem, and they want their leader to provide a public display of the frustration they feel. I have a similar personality, and I’ve been asked more than once why I don’t get mad when things do not go to plan – my usual response is “What good would that do?”
Technical project managers often face this issue – it can seem to others that they spend more time defending the technical team for not meeting its objectives than trying to drive the team to the outcome that is needed by the business. Business people want project managers that are leaders, not accountants. One aspect of agile that I like is that the process rhythm pushes the team of its own accord – the scrummaster still needs to bring drive and energy to the team but the team pushes itself.