Can 'relationship building' be a cop out?

Question

Everyone is always telling me that to be successful as a project manager you have to build good relationships with your project teams. I see it all over this forum and am told this by other PMs in my company. My problem is, I don't believe this is a real solution to many problems and I'm currently thinking this is just a BS default answer given when the real answer is "I don't know" or "I can't do anything about it".

Real world example - We have, from my perspective, a corporate culture issue where line managers are VERY protective of their teams and extremely hesitant to provide help with things outside the scope of their team's immediate job at a given moment. E-mailed requests go unanswered. In-person conversations often end with "I'll get you that by the end of the day" and the next day I'm in another conversation with the same person - "We were really busy. I'll get it to you tomorrow." and this can continue for months with escalations to their management giving me the exact same response ("They're busy. Tomorrow." and then tomorrow comes and goes with no result). As a PM, a lot of my job is getting these various teams to work together and it's just hell because they don't want to.

I ask my fellow PMs how to handle this and the answer I get is "You have to build a good relationship with them. They have to WANT to do things for you." Huh? That seems like BS to me. Aren't they getting paid to do stuff for the company? I'm just some dude that coordinates things. I'm not even really the one initiating the requests. Someone else asked me to get this information for them and they're going to hold me accountable for getting them that information. If they really are that busy, their line managers need to handle that. I'm running the project, not the individual teams and when you tell me "Person X is your guy" and then person X says they don't have time to do what I need, that's not a problem I can solve because I'm not their manager. However, I just keep getting told to build a better relationship with the teams. Honestly, I'm not even sure what that means I should do. It's not like I get invited out to lunch with these teams or hang out chatting in the halls. I don't even work on the same floor as most of them. Am I supposed to just randomly stop by all of their desks and try to strike up interesting conversations? I would hate if some PM stopped by to chit-chat with me while I was trying to work.

So is this a cop out? When is it ok to say "relationship building is not the problem here" and how do you get that across?

Answer 1

Your interactions with team members are the key part of being a PM. You will always have some sort of relationship with them, good or bad. In the common case where a PM has zero real power in a company, having a good relationship with those who do have power becomes overwhelmingly important because if you don't have someone who is willing to back you up you will never get anything done.

So relationship building is always going to be an important ingredient for project success.

Having a good relationship isn't about being someone's buddy. It is about consistently showing your leadership by being honest, fair and open with everyone on your teams. It is about giving people a heads-up when something is coming down the pipe that can impact them. It is about asking if they have a minute to talk before you take their time. It is about showing real concern when they have issues and going to bat for them with senior management if you have to. It is about being honest with them about their accountabilities and how you want to help them look good. It is about involving the team leaders in your planning efforts and backing up their estimates when the estimated schedule isn't too rosy. And it is about taking the time to do all of these things, over and over again, consistently and persistently with little chance of getting an obvious reward in the short term.

But even though you may have good relationships your corporate culture can hamstring you. If there isn't clear accountability up to and including executive level on your projects you will have great difficulty getting attention. Remember that your team gets paid to do a lot of different things for your company, and if what you want them to do is low on their priority list you will have problems no matter how good your relationships are.

Answer 2

It can be a copout, but in my experience, most of the time when someone says something like "relationship building is a cop-out", the person saying that really does need to put more effort into building relationships. Let's look at some hypothetical scenarios:

1. Al's engineers need some mockups from Beth in graphics department. Al says to Beth, "I need these mockups for this project. Can you do them for me?" Beth says, "I'm busy. I'll get around to it tomorrow." Al asks again the next day and Beth says, "I don't have time right now. I'll do it another day." Al asks the next day and the next day and the next day. Beth still doesn't have time. End result: Al is frustrated that Beth won't cooperate. Beth is annoyed that Al keeps asking her to do something when she's clearly too busy.

2. Al's engineers need some mockups from Beth in graphics department. Al says to Beth, "I need these mockups for this project. Can you do them for me?" Beth says, "I'm busy. I'll get around to it tomorrow." Al says, "Oh, really? What are you working on?" Beth explains that she's been given the task of redoing all the logos on the company's flagship products after a new branding strategy was declared, that she was explicitly told this was her top priority. Al then continues to ask questions like "When do you expect to be finished with this?" and "Is there anyone in the department with a lighter workload that I could maybe hand this task to?" Beth, knowing that Al appreciates how much work she does, tries to help out and give him helpful suggestions. Maybe she even volunteers to skip her lunch break or work on Al's mockups a little each day until they're done. Al's project only falls a little behind schedule, if at all.

That's not to say every instance of unaccountable workers is situation 2, but you'll never know if you don't try. In other words, if nothing else, better relationship building enables you to rule out the possibility that a manager is missing out on something he or she can only learn through informal channels of communication.

Answer 3

Relationship-Building is One Tool Among Many

Relationship building isn't a cop-out. However, in your specific case, it is the wrong tool for the job. In many cases, a project manager has no real power; he or she must perform duties through influence rather than command-and-control techniques.

In your case, you make the point that you can do neither. You have neither command-and-control authority over the project, nor do you have sufficient influence with the line managers or engineers to get things done.

Leverage Your Project Champion

A well-designed project has stakeholders, an executive sponsor, and often a steering committee. It also generally involves someone with direct budgetary authority.

In general, problems with scheduling or accrual of project resources (staff, equipment, or even hair gel if that's needed for your project) ought to be effectively communicated to those folks. It is ultimately their responsibility to see to it that the project is staffed, funded, and provisioned.

More specifically, the executive sponsor or project champion is the person who wants what the project is supposed to deliver. If you build trust with that person, it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to take appropriate action to ensure that the project remains on track, and to ask that person to leverage her relationships to exert C&C or influence where you can't.

Projects Without Accountability

Plenty of projects are run with no real authority or influence by any involved party. As has been noted in other answers here, around 68% of IT projects fail. There is a correlation.

In the end, in a blame culture the project manager will be held responsible for the project's failure anyway. However, the organizational responsibility for its success or failure always rests with senior management.

Make sure that you've assessed your own part in this process. If the project is failing because you aren't upholding your professional responsibilities or communicating status to the right people, take ownership of that. Otherwise, remind people that they own the success or failure of the project, do the best you can with the project you have, and polish your resume in the meantime.

Answer 4

For me, it's somewhat of a cop out. It's like saying 90% of project mgmt is communication. No, 90% of pm is knowing 'how' and 'what' to communicate and why. Simply talking (communicating) about it isn't going to change anything, and it certainly not going to get the project done.

So yes, you have to build relationships. But you have to know 'why' you're building them, and then work on the how. You need these guys to do things for you, so you need to build a relationship where they want to help you, where they're interested in helping you and your team succeed. so work on building interest and support for the project.

You need to get them on board and supporting your project so they want to help. Anything short of that and yes, you're just telling them did something wrong. and non one's going to want to help then.