This post is part three in a series of five covering the Straightforward Consulting approach to strategic planning.

The second post revealed “Heart First” as the first big difference between the MBA and PMI approaches to strategic planning and project management.  This post covers the second big difference.

According to PMI’s own statistics, 77% of high performing companies understand the value of project management. And 40% of low-performing companies understand the value of project management.

TeamGantt.com

Look at the other side of those numbers.  Nearly one quarter (23%) of high performing companies don’t give a dead rat’s rear end about project management.  And nearly half (40%) of the companies that suck are low-performing DO care! 

From my perspective, it’s pretty clear that “understanding the value of (today’s approach to) project management” isn’t the determining factor.  PMI’s own stats just don’t support the claim.

Here’s another perspective.  The “high performing companies” – can we call them “A” students?  What grade did those “A” students give to “understanding the value of project management?” 

They gave it a 77%.  That’s a “C!” 

If an “A” student rates something as worthy of a “C”…is that a resoundingly positive endorsement? To me, if the PMI approach really worked, those all-star “A” performers would rate it at an A, 90% or better.

All-star performers know that the key is not “understanding the value or project management,” and it’s not “having mature policies and practices in place.”  They know the key is not a 200 word, entirely other language.

The key is engagement and commitment. 

Entrepreneurial business leaders instinctively know they key is engagement and commitment.  It’s how they got to where they are.

Entrepreneurial business leaders keep themselves engaged and committed because that’s who they are. 

But not everyone else is.  Not everyone will just do it.  Everyone else – they need some support.  But the MBA and PMI approaches don’t give them helpful support.

So what does “helpful support” look like?

Helpful support looks like a cheerleader being effortlessly vaulted into the air. It looks like a method, an approach that

• Engages a broad audience in the planning process
• Takes a Heart First approach to envisioning the corporate destiny
• Creates beautiful, engaging visuals and dashboards to track progress
• Delivers tools to onboard people into the journey BEFORE you onboard them into the organization
• Celebrates achievement
• Prepares you to do it all again

If only there were such a method…. 

There is! And it’s unveiled in part four of the series.