Michelle LaBrosse Blogs

Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM) Tip of the Day:

Surround yourself with people you want inspiring your work. Their attitudes and characters reflect and stimulate similar traits in your own behaviors. Whether it’s for your professional or your personal life, who do you surround yourself with?

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP

Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM) Tip of the Day

“We are all different” and “we are all the same” are both true statements. But it is what makes you different and unique where you can create the most value for other people. When I was going to Harvard Business School (yeah I like to throw that out there every now and again), I learned the more different you can make your product, the more you can charge for it. This is the same for YOU. The more you can develop your uniqueness and make contributions to the world based on your unique strengths the more value you create for yourself and for others. While feeling you fit in can provide a much needed sense of belonging, it is how you show up as your unique self that will help the world the most. How can you develop your unique capabilities to best serve the world? If you’re struggling with this look to where you feel the most “wounded.” These wounds are those things in you that as you heal, you can help others heal as well.

(an excerpt for Cheetah’s PMP Career Builder)

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “change”? For many of us, words like “anxious”, “overwhelmed”, or “unknown” pop into our head. Sometimes change feels like we are heading into a storm of unknown risks and consequences.

To thrive as a PM executive, we must learn to not only embrace change, but to pursue it and learn to capitalize on it. Here are the top five strategies that you can use to help you to let go of your fears and pursue change with abandon:

1. Love Uncertainties – I am a risk-taker, and some even consider me to be a daredevil (while driving around on my Harley, I sometimes feel like one).   And while I love uncertainty, I make sure I’m prepared for the risks that I may encounter. Life is filled with uncertainties. Time and time again, I discover, much to my delight, that the riskier the situation, the more uncertainties there are, and the greater the rewards.
2. Accept your Internal Strength to Weather Change. One of the biggest reasons why people fear change is because they think, “Maybe I can’t handle this new situation.”  The reality is that human beings are pretty darn adaptable.   If you’ve ever jumped into a pool of really cold water, you probably felt a terrible shock at first. Then, as you swam around, the temperature began to feel invigorating and it turned into a great experience – one that proved your internal strength. The pool water did not change – you became accustomed to the temperature. Instead of resisting these types of experiences, try to find every “cold pool” (figuratively speaking) within your reach, and dive in.
3. Tackle Tiny Fears. If you have a strong change-fear connection, here is an easy way to start to reprogram your mind for a different response pattern:  Each day, do something small that frightens you just a bit. By tackling these small fears, you will realize that the thought of the action itself is more fearful and stressful than the actual action.
4. Communicate Through Change. We tend to fear what we don’t understand. If you are the one initiating a change, make sure to communicate the purpose of the change to all stakeholders, and get their buy-in.
5. Stay Positive. When considering whether or not to pursue change and the subsequent unknown outcome, we are faced with a risk that this outcome might be bad. What we often overlook is that the outcome may very well be an improved condition over the previous state from before the change. Being positive will not only help ease your fears, but will also help a positive outcome actually occur as it will free you from “fear paralysis” and will help you to pursue positive change.

Project Management Executives – pursue change in your life today! Whether it is in your personal or professional realm, you can make great waves when you are one of the few people that not only accepts change, but proactively pursues change to create better outcomes for everyone.  “Business as usual” has never produced greatness. Push the boundaries of what is possible, and discover true greatness when you actively pursue change.

Stay tuned next week when will talk about a Senior Project Executive Certificate Program that will distinguish you from your peers.

(this an article excerpt from Cheetah’s Career Builder)

The ability to learn is demonstrated by the ability to change and/or adopt more successful behaviors.    Becoming detached to your behaviors and the way you do things the way you do can significantly help learning.

The five levels of attachments and how they shape your ability to respond, how you behave, the strategies you use to achieve what you desire in life, and the way you will react to life events.

I recently took a course called  Conscious Living by the Hendricks, and learned some fascinating things about how I identify with these persona characters I take on as “me” and then live in what the Hendricks call the fear trance between victim, villain and hero. What I know from my studies of attachment is the more I attach to an idea, or a position, the harder it is for me to remain flexible and open (the harder it is for me to “learn”.)  Ruiz’s attachment model, has “identity” as the third level in a five level of attachment. So this adds more depth to that one level of attachment – what identities am I attached to as my “identity” and how strongly am I willing to hold that attachment? I continue to play with a more creative and conscious approach to life by recognizing and playing with my persona’s as they appear.   This enables a more in the now, authentic response to each moment without the veil of this “identity.”   One of the identities I recently discovered was what I call my sugar loving YOLO (you only live once) persona.   This kept me stuck in behaviors that were no longer serving me.    Based on how I was attached to this identity, by dropping the attachment whenever I’d like, I can  live in a healthier persona for who I want to be right now. This means I don’t have to be stuck in old behavior patterns just because my sugar YOLO identity has to be shelved like my high school yearbook.   And I’m more open to learning new ways of being that help me more successfully navigate my world.

So how can you use this to improve your own learning.   Think about a situation where you behavior created a result you didn’t really enjoy.    Say you had an unfortunate encounter with a co-worker or a friend.   Think about how you responded – were you flexible and open or were you rigid in how you thought the situation should have played out?   If you were more rigid, you are more attached to the something about it.   How did you react?   Did you find your reaction predictable or did you react in a manner that surprised even you?   If your reaction was predictable for that situation, you are more attached to something about that situation.   What were your strategies for the situation – could you let it unfold in new and creative ways or did you want to try to control the outcome?   If you tried to control the outcome – you had a higher level of attachment to some persona you were playing in the situation.   Last – look at your own behavior.   Where you able to accept whatever the other person was doing or were you judging them?   Did you find yourself saying – hmmm I wonder what is going on for them or saying “WTF” – how dare they?   If you said the latter – you are more attached to some idea of what you thought was supposed to go down.   Study the image associated with this article and contemplate how you can be less attached to your ideas of how things are supposed to happen, who you are supposed to be, and you will find a whole new world of learning opening up for you.

Stay tuned next week when I will share my latest finding in my brain research in my quests to improve brains everywhere!

(an article from Cheetah’s Career Builder)

At Cheetah Learning, we think about brains a lot. This is because we specialize in Accelerated Learning, and for anyone to be any good at learning something in an accelerated fashion, they need to have their brain in peak condition. This means that both the brain and the body need to be working together to create an environment that is susceptible to learning and able to assimilate and process informationFAST.

While I typically focus on other people’s brains and helping them achieve their goals fast by developing a peak performing mind, recently I have been focusing on my own brain, and doing much research on how I can improve the way I receive, process, and disseminate information. In this section of Cheetah’s Career Builder I will focus on sharing what I have learned from my extensive research.

Today I wanted to share what I have learned through reading the Buddha Brain book. This mind map is a good refresher of how you can use your mind to make your brain better. The key message of this book was that you should practice unlimited acceptance and kindness towards yourself to increases your happiness and increase your brain activity.

Being an extreme over achiever most of my life, I am my own worst critic, perhaps you are the same. In the Buddha Brain book, one technique is called “being on your own side.”

I am declaring September as “Be On My Own Side Month.” Making a conscious shift away from self-criticism is as easy as stopping myself as soon as I find myself falling into this all too familiar trap, and immediately finding something about myself to sincerely appreciate in the moment. Join me in my “Be On My Own Side Month” by being on YOUR side every day of September. What do you have to lose?

Stay tuned next week when I will share my latest finding in my brain research in my quests to improve brains everywhere!

(A featured article from Cheetah’s PMP Career Builder. Click Here to see entire Newsletter)

Many people make the mistake of thinking that success is out of reach for them, either because it’s based on some magic mojo, or because they just aren’t as lucky as successful people. As an executive, you know that success relies on defining and following through on your standards for success. Let me share with you what has worked for me and how I applied these standards of success to create more successful people and projects.

Levels of Learning: Move from awareness to mastery

Your time is invaluable. You want to spend it where it matters most. That’s why when you learn, you want to make sure you move beyond the basics and transform your skills to mastery. This has been the driving principle behind our course development and delivery at Cheetah Learning, and it has been my personal mantra when I look at my own development.

Where success happens

If your learning stays at the awareness and knowledge levels, your career and your opportunities for success are limited. To help create successful people and projects, you need to increase each person’s potential and desire to achieve mastery within the skills that are aligned with your organizations strategic objective, and within their own inherent strengths. Success happens at the top of the pyramid with skill – the application of knowledge and mastery – the ability to consistently get results with your skills.

Use your time wisely

Another standard for success is making the best use of your time. When you learn, you want to make sure every moment counts. Accelerated learning is a proven way to teach people new skills because it:

· Improves your retention and your ability to apply the new knowledge.

· Helps you quickly use what you’ve learned.

· Benefits every project you tackle – personally and professionally.

In a world that is moving full speed ahead, why leave any learning experience to chance? Experience accelerated learning in any of our Cheetah courses, and see why it is one of our standards of success at Cheetah Learning.

Stay tuned next week when we will teach you how to communicate the value proposition of PM to fellow executives who may need a refresher!

(A featured article from Cheetah’s PMP Career Builder. Click Here to see entire Newsletter)

Last week we discussed communication approaches to use with people of differentpersonality types (read more here!). This week we will discuss how to set the stage for negotiation success. From identifying your objectives and priorities, to knowing when you will walk away, here are seven steps to prepare for a negotiation.

Seven Steps to Prepare for a Negotiation

1. Establish the context. Know what you’re going after and why. Stay focused on the objective and don’t get drawn into an ego-match.
2. Identify needs and wants. The needs are necessary for success. The wants are improvements that build upon your needs.
3. Understand what will happen if you don’t reach an agreement. Brainstorming these outcomes could lead you to solutions that you had not even considered.
4. Establish the importance of the negotiation outcome. Are you negotiating with a critical vendor whose service greatly impacts the outcome of a project? Or are you in a position where the outcome of the negotiation has little strategic impact?
5. Understand the importance of the relationship with the other party. Will you have a long-term relationship with the person that you are negotiating with, or is it likely to be a short-term interaction?
6. Determine the Zone of Possible Agreement (ZOPA). This is the place in which you are in agreement. You should think about this prior to your negotiation and then try to quickly clarify it, early in your meeting.
7. Be clear on where you won’t compromise and when you will Get Up And Leave (GUAL) a negotiation. What are issues that would make you GUAL? Often it is illegal or unethical behavior, or it can be a proposal that is preposterous to your team. Think about what would make you Get Up and Leave before you enter the negotiation.

Now, all you need to do is relax and breathe, and you’re ready to take on your next negotiation challenge. Eat some protein, avoid the caffeine and carbs and you’re on your way to negotiating your success, Cheetah style!

Stay tuned next week when we will discuss how to activate your natural genius to create career success.

(A featured article for Cheetah’s PMP Career Builder. Click here to the entire newsletter)

Last week we explored how you can use Project Management as a key competitive strategy.  This week we are going to show you how you can create a decision making process to pick the projects that could best help you achieve your competitive strategy.   This is a process we call the “Opscan” process.   Cheetah students learn how to do this technique in the course we call Project Turnaround where they learn how to turn around a floundering career or organization.

Below is the list of competitive strategies discussed in last week’s newsletter with the ranking criteria you can use to evaluate possible projects.   With this criteria, you then rank how well each project fits the criteria.

Click here to see larger image

So lets say you have five possible projects that you can pursue to achieve your competitive strategy  – you would evaluate how well each of these projects meets the above criteria and rank them based on how you can answer the questions for each project.   The project with the highest score will give you the most competitive advantage.

Stay tuned next week where we look at how executives can inspire better project performance.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Boston

Hope, Love, & Courage

Michelle LaBrosse, PMP

Everything in life has a cycle. The more in tune I am to those cycles, the easier life seems to be. One of my businesses is a cattle ranch. I got into this 9 years ago based on two different magazines I had with me on a trip to kick off a Project Management conference in Mexico City. One of the magazines had a cover story on the growing obesity epidemic in America. The other magazine was about Belgian Blue Cows – a breed of cattle that had a naturally occurring genetic mutation for not having any fat, but producing beef that is lean, tender and full of flavor. A big part of our obesity problem is in how we were producing our food. Corn fed beef is as bad for you as white flour and corn syrup. You might as well take this type of “food” and strap it to the outside of your belly as that is where it will likely end up anyhow.

One of my colleagues raised grass fed beef and I asked her if she could raise one of these cows for me. Nine years later, I have one of the largest herds of these cattle on the west coast. As we got into it, the whole business became more and more interesting. We discovered early on the big reason this breed does not do well in the open range cattle ranching practiced in the Western US was because they have a difficult time giving birth naturally. We set out on a program to develop a breed of this cattle that can give birth naturally. This is not a fast internet turn on a dime type of business. We have a one year cycle every year to see how we are doing. We have lost a number of cattle as we made a choice not to continue breeding bad genetics that caused the difficult birthing characteristics. Last season we had ten live births. We now have a breed of this cattle that can give birth naturally.

We have started selling beef. Next we are going to figure out how to sell the genetic material – primarily the embryos. Nine years ago, we got our first ten calves from a rancher in Texas who started his herd with embryo’s implanted in large daily cattle. It took nine months for those zygotes to turn into calves as well. Some things in life you just can’t rush. In the book “Patience: A Little Book of Inner Strength” by Eknath Easwaran – I was reminded: “You can achieve any goal you want when you are patient.” We are on our ninth gestation cycle and we are realizing our goal.