CHAPTER 6 Recognizing and Dealing with Professional Immaturity
Professional immaturity is behavior that is disruptive, destructive, or otherwise void of benefit in a business environment. It often manifests itself through behavior such as weak personal initiative, weak accountability, self-absorption, and low awareness of the impact of one’s own behavior.
Achieving professional maturity is not a condition that automatically happens to us as we enter the workforce. It’s something that we must be taught. Unfortunately, most of us were not adequately taught. Moreover, many of us do not realize it for years—and some never get it!
The increasingly handholding, coddling, I’m-not-responsible-for-my-own-actions world in which we live is having a devastating impact on preparing people for the workforce—the real world. While students learn technology skills, they often lack the business skills based on “soft” areas like accountability, resourcefulness, and leadership. We see far too much emphasis on whining, finger-pointing, and effort—and far too little emphasis on solving problems, being accountable, and achieving results.
Most people in the workforce have not been properly prepared and don’t recognize their handicap: They are professionally immature
Professional immaturity undermines projects and organizations. Moreover, many employees do not realize the negative impact that their behavior is having on their own performance and careers. Professionally immature individuals:
Believe that effort is more important than results
Wait to be asked to work overtime
Expect management or others to initiate needed change in areas that affect their own work output
Complain rather than constructively work issues to closure
Avoid escalating issues that are at an apparent impasse
Escalate too hastily or too often
Bring problems to senior management without any recommendations for solutions
Believe that commitments are transient
Wait to be blessed with empowerment and authority by a higher-up rather than take the initiative
Delay in asking for help when needed
Take no accountability for their own actions
Believe that the grass is greener in the next organization or company
Look out for the company at the expense of their own domain of responsibility
Believe that their boss is responsible for their career.
Professional immaturity is strikingly common and widespread.
Do you see beliefs that you support or exhibit? Are you surprised to see behaviors that you thought were acceptable? Perhaps you never gave some of the items a second thought. Professionally immature behavior is often not obvious to a person who has never been taught otherwise. Moreover, you can be professionally immature at any age!
When employees have not learned what it means to be professionally mature, the responsibility lies with the managers—the resource managers—of these employees to teach them. However, all too often, these resource managers either demonstrate similar professional immaturity or place a higher priority on work other than their key assignment: nurturing their employees. (See Chapter 15, Duties of the Effective Resource Manager.)
The result is a tremendous burden on project managers. In addition to planning and executing a successful project, they must spend the time and energy teaching their project members what constitutes proper behavior—professionally mature behavior.
As a project leader, you may bethinking, “It’s not fair for me to perform the job that the resource managers aren’t stepping up to.” Don’t go there! In the real world, it’s not about what’s fair; it’s about results. If you want a winning project, then you need to deal with the people side of issues. By all means, work with resource managers where appropriate—but ineffective resource managers are not an excuse for project failure.
Many companies state, as part of their company core beliefs, that their most important asset is their employees. I contend that a company’s most important asset is its leaders. If a company has mediocre leaders and the best staff, it will be doomed to be a mediocre force in its industry. However, if a company has the best leaders and mediocre staff, that company will be a formidable force in its industry. Why? Because employees rise to the expectations of their leaders: Companies with the best leaders will ultimately have the best employees.
A resource manager’s primary objective is to nurture his or her staff, which includes teaching them professionally mature behaviors.
Project managers must deal constructively with professionally immature project members to ensure consistent project success.
Project managers are leaders and, therefore, teachers. If you are unsure how to proceed with a soft issue, then seek counsel, but avoid doing nothing. Do not allow professionally immature behavior by your project members to negatively impact the success of your project. The professional maturity of project members will improve based on your awareness of this pervasive problem and your willingness to become part of the solution.
A company’s most prized asset is its leaders
Leaders are teachers
Let’s Talk: Questions & Answers
Q6.1 Why do you say that “some never get it,” referring to what it means to be professionally mature?
A6.1 Most of us, as youngsters growing up, are not taught what it means to be professionally mature. Moreover, it is not something that students are likely to pick up in college. We are most likely to learn it in the workplace—if we learn it at all.
As stated, resource managers are the primary persons in a work environment charged with teaching professional maturity. Younger minds appear to be more agile and open to learning these lessons. For many employees who are not sufficiently taught professional maturity traits early in their work experiences, it can be more difficult for them to be open to and accept these ideas later.
For example, if an employee grows more cynical over the years about his or her job, management, compensation, and so on, that employee may dismiss lessons of professional maturity that are targeted at employees as playing into management’s hands and the “political system.” That employee may not be motivated or open to understanding that we have control over how we think and behave—that we are not victims unless we choose to be.
Pity parties, while convenient and self-serving, keep a person detached from learning, growing, and achieving
Q6.2 If a person ever behaves according to any of the examples of professional immaturity, does that make the person professionally immature?
A6.2 If a person behaves according to one of those examples, then that person is demonstrating professional immaturity in that instance. It doesn’t necessarily mean the person is across-the-board professionally immature. However, a frequent pattern of such behaviors does constitute general behavior that is judged to be professionally immature.
Q6.3 Most of us commonly display some types of professionally immature behavior. Are you, therefore, saying that most of us are professionally immature most of the time?
A6.3 My experience is that most employees demonstrate professional immaturity most of the time. I am not saying that these employees are not mature human beings away from work or that they are not good community members. I am saying that they are professionally immature in many of their actions while performing their work.
Q6.4 You appear to be setting the bar too high. It’s not easy to avoid some of the behaviors you consider to be professionally immature.
A6.4 I never said it was easy to be professionally mature. But for a project or organization to work at its optimal effectiveness, its members must strive to achieve behavior that is consistently professionally mature.
Q6.5 Is there ever a time when a person can demonstrate professionally immature behavior and actually be doing the right thing? A6.5 Yes, if you have been directed to behave in a certain way in your work environment.
For example, professionally mature employees typically initiate working overtime if their commitments demand it. However, your boss may have requested that you never work overtime unless it is first approved. Of course, demonstrating professional maturity in this case is to approach your boss when you first realize that overtime will be necessary.
Another specific example is that professionally mature employees should not just be raising problems, but they should also be recommending solutions. However, you may have a hands-on boss who wants to know about problems immediately—even before a solution is found. Professional maturity in this case is being involved constructively in arriving at the appropriate solution.
Be careful here. I can continue to cite exceptions, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your world is full of exceptions and that, therefore, it is acceptable to continue professionally immature behavior. In almost all cases, exceptions don’t hold up.
It is not always easy to consistently demonstrate professionally mature behavior
Ineffective resource managers are not an excuse for project failure
Q6.6 What can employees do when they are not sure of the behavior expected of them as professionally mature employees and project members?
A6.6 Ask. There are a multitude of people to approach, depending on your position and the situation. You can ask your resource manager, team leader, project manager, or even consult with a mentor. (See Chapter 4, What Good Is a PM Mentor?)
Q6.7 What happens when people are professionally immature?
A6.7 Plenty. For example, it can stunt their personal growth, cost them respect, harm their projects and organizations, cut short their careers, and damage the organization and company.
Q6.8 Is there more material that reinforces professionally mature behavior according to your belief system?
A6.8 Yes, this book is loaded with direction on behaving in ways that support professionally mature behavior and thus support achieving consistently successful projects. In fact, many of the chapters in this book focus on how to overcome professionally immature behavior. Here are some examples:
Chapter 1, Mind Your Own Business, addresses the item “Looks out for the company at the expense of their own domain of responsibility.”
Chapter 3, Ask for Help—or Become Part of the Problem, addresses the item “Delays asking for help when needed.”
Chapter 19, Create the Desired Culture for Your Project, addresses the item “Expects management or others to initiate needed change in areas that affect their own work output.”
Chapter 31, Escalate Is Not a Dirty Word, addresses the item “Avoids escalating issues that are at an apparent impasse.”
Q6.9 As a project manager, I didn’t take this job to wipe noses. I resent having to do the job of resource managers by developing their employees. I have enough on my plate. What do you say to that?
A6.9 Stop acting professionally immature yourself! If you have project members who are not pulling their weight or are disruptive, you have every right to request that their resource managers get involved. If they don’t, you can escalate over the resource managers until you get the needed help. However, in some cases, you may have to wait until hell freezes over if you expect the problems to be fully resolved.
Your job as a project manager is to make things happen so that you deliver the promised project successfully. This will, more times than not, require you to deal with bouts of professional immaturity as they arise. As a leader, you also have the responsibility to set an example—to be a role model.