Influencing, Motivating, and Persuading In 2015

One New Year's resolution that engineering project managers should focus on in 2015 are the "soft" skill sets of management.  One of my goals this year is to cover more of the recent research from social psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience.  Project managers and engineers need a greater understanding of how influencing, motivating, and persuading skill sets impact their projects.

In the case of influencing, the research is clear that managers and organizations stand to benefit by actively seeking out opportunities to provide explicit thanks.  The principle of reciprocation is important for project managers - the act of giving first is an especially great tool when seeking to develop new relationships, create engagement across teams, and develop long-term partnerships and opportunities with others.  The power of a simple e-mail, "I am very grateful for your hard work.  We sincerely appreciate your contribution to the project team.", should not be underestimated by a project manager.

The small act of communicating your appreciation for efforts made on your project  has huge positive impacts.  Keep in mind that the mechanical "Thanks" via e-mail it not truly showing how really grateful you are.  Going with just "Thanks" is a missed opportunity - engineers need to get much better at communicating genuine appreciation.  In terms of influence - those project managers that can create a heighten culture of communicating explicit thanks will have greater influence and more successful project teams.