How Tae Kwon Do can be applied to Project and Program Management, part 2

Hello there. It's Saturday at 6:05am, and I have been awake since 5:10am, therefore it must be time for me to pen my latest blog.

This week, we will cover part 2 of the 5 parts series 'How Tae Kwon Do can be applied to Project and Program Management. In part 1, you will - hopefully - recall - that we covered the first tenet of TKD - namely Etiquette. Today, we cover the second one - Modesty.

So what is Modesty? Obviously we will all have our own take on this, but let's turn to the dictionary definition:

modestyˈmɒdɪsti/noun

1.  
   the quality or state of being unassuming in the estimation of one's abilities."with typical modesty he insisted on sharing the credit with others"
2.  
   the quality of being relatively moderate, limited, or small in amount, rate, or level."the modesty of his political aspirations"

It's the first definition that we're going to go with, and what an interesting one it is, when considering project and program management. But first, let me tell you about modesty in the context of TKD. As I mentioned in part 1, TKD involves lots of gradings. Each grading necessitates the practice and virtually flawless execution of that pattern in an examination or grading session. What does the examiner look out for? Well, lots of obvious things, such as stances etc., but they also look for the way the candidate conducts themselves, based on the 5 tenets of TKD, including - of course - modesty. On a more basic level, the Master for the club that the candidate belongs to would have been observing the candidate, and likely would not put them forward if they were not satisfied of, not only their competency, but also their understanding of the 5 tenets. A martial artist who displays a distinct lack of humility in their interactions with their fellow martial artists and displays some sort of bragging rights would clearly not be displaying the traits of humility.

I'm hoping by now that you're maybe already starting to relate this to the PPM profession. Let's consider the first synonym from the definition above: 'self-effacement', which could be defined as being inconspicuous, or not drawing attention to oneself. This is very much tied in with being part of a greater whole, and so lends itself nicely to the concept of a community or PPM profession. How many truly effective people have you come across in your career who have quietly exceeded expectations in the background without any kind of fanfare? Conversely, how many do you know who have taken the credit for what their direct reports or peers have contributed most to? Let's focus on the 'lack of vanity' synonym now. I'm guessing that, like me, you know of at least one person who really likes to talk about themselves. Yep - this person, when in full swing, will be sat with their 'vanity hostages', eyes closed, extolling their own virtues. The sad thing is, that, where types of people are concerned, we usually go away shaking our heads and maybe even laughing about it, but here's the thing: it's not funny. On a deeper level, it's actually quite irritating, and most importantly, it's not in any way, shape or form a positive contribution to the PPM profession. So my advice to you, if you get caught in this kind of cycle, is to make your excuses; and we're all busy people, of course, so you can always legitimately back off with the best of reasons.

So 'lack of vanity' was irritating, but 'Lack of pretension' - our next synonym - is just downright dangerous. These days, most organisations simply cannot afford to carry any 'dead weights', so having anyone around who is overselling themselves in terms of knowledge is really putting teams in jeopardy. What do I mean by that? Well, on a basic level, you either have deep knowledge on something or you have superficial knowledge. For someone with the latter to pretend that they have the former is not going to benefit anybody, and just leads to a 'blind leading the blind' scenario. Not pleasant and this could prove to be extremely costly to an organisation. Not only that, but it will undermine the dynamics of the team, which can lead to top performers becoming unsettled. This is clearly a bad thing.

Now, all of this is good in theory, but how difficult is it to practice? Well, like anything that's worth doing, it needs working on. I have always felt humility to be the polar opposite of an inflated ago. Let me give you just one example from my own career. In a previous company, I encouraged a colleague who didn't seem to have considered that they would have a chance of promotion to actually 'go for it' and raise the subject with their manager. For my part, this meant investing just a little bit of time in that person to persuade them. Happily, that person received the promotion they were seeking. What was the benefit for me? I got to see someone who deserved promotion and compensation receive those things. Now, where is the humility in this? Well, it's in the fact that, at that moment my thought process switched from my own needs to helping another person: in other words, I had gone from thinking about myself to thinking about one of the peers in my profession. Is it better to give then receive? I'm going to say 'Yes!' Did that person follow-up with me afterwards to thank me. 'No' - but that's not the point. For me, the benefit was that I got to practice just a little humility that day, and that contributes to the shape of my overall personality and career going forward.

So, whether it's TKD or project and program management, modesty is really about being part of a greater whole and respecting your fellow peers, taking every opportunity to support a peer, but not seeking any kind of reward for it. The reward you receive is that you get to see that person grow and achieve. Their achievement is your achievement: it's perpetuating, and it's what the profession needs. It's about treating your peer with the same regard that you treat yourself. Modesty is also about being prepared to admit that, sometimes, you don't know it all. You can always learn something from somebody every day. So my advice to you is, seriously consider incorporating modesty into your practice. Maybe you could find just a little time to invest as a mentor to someone who is new to the profession or at the beginning of their journey [this is an ideal opportunity to practice humility], or if you are new yourself, you could make the ideal start by not overselling your existing knowledge.

There are lots of ways to practice modesty. I'm not saying it's easy, but it is worth it: for you, for your peers and for the whole profession.

Please join me again next time, when we'll cover Perseverance.