How to play in this field

In the first two articles, we discussed the theory in some detail. We explained the different Archetypes that influenced the Turnings. In this third article of the series, we consider how Generations Theory has influenced the way we manage projects, and is likely to do so even more in the near future.

Humans are first and foremost social creatures. We need each other if we are going to survive; and the better we interact with each other, the more pleasant that survival will be.

It may be that nature was the major force that has shaped history – but for as long as humans have been around, how we have responded to nature has created that history.

Judging by the research, just as there are four seasons in nature, so there are four archetypal personal temperaments, four Generational Archetypes and four Turnings. As we go, we create history.

This history informs us how to approach the future: if we choose to ignore the bad stuff and believe it will not happen again – just because – the chances are, it will.

Some people believe in a sort of social evolution: that things get better and better due to some sort of social ‘natural selection’. And yet, there is simply no evidence of that.

Today, I can write about despots and other upsetters of the apple cart, such as Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot or Stalin. In 1300AD, I could have been writing about the exploits of Genghis Khan. In 100AD, I could have been writing about Nero or Caligula. In 200BC, I could have been writing about the exploits of Alexander or Antiochus. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

In time, someone will find reasons to write a book called, The Management Secrets of... – ...of Adolf Hitler? Surely not!

Actually, it is simply a matter of distance: the further away, the better something can look. (As the Afrikaans saying goes, “Mooi van ver, maar ver van mooi”; or “Beautiful from far, but far from beautiful”.)

Strauss and Howe’s research suggests the chances are that all these despots came into their own during an Unravelling, and did most of their work in the following Crisis.

I wonder who it is now? I guess we will find out soon enough.

Generations Theory suggests that toward the end of a Third Turning (Unravelling), which is what we recently passed through, the Nomads and Prophets make up the bulk of the workforce (see Figure 1 opposite).

To a great extent, the former ‘loose living’ of Prophets turns into guilt and a desire to rectify. Unfortunately, without clear anchors, the Nomads “doing what feels right” in a cynical and diversified society results in maximum individualism (compared to any other Turning.) It is everyone for himself, as the war cry of the 1980s WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) has changed from idea to reality.

And as all this is happening, a younger group of Heroes is arriving on the scene, questioning this nihilistic and narcissistic approach to life.

Since, according to the Theory, we are currently in the transition into a Crisis, many of the changes are not pleasant nor do most people expect them – it is a time of Black Swans (à la Nassim Nicholas Taleb), about which we have written in a previous edition of The Project Manager. That is in the nature of a Fourth Turning.

As well as the obvious unpleasantness, there are also many good things that come about. The best, of course, is the Reset that takes place in society, which then gives rise to a new High, and that in turn to the creative energy of an Awakening.

In the last Crisis, from 1929 to 1946, many project management techniques were developed or refined as massive armies were moved around far away from home, presenting enormous logistical challenges that had to be solved in double-quick time.

Could we have gone to the moon in 1969 if the work on rocket propulsion had not been done? How about the jumbo jet? Nuclear energy? It is quite likely that all these would have come about in time, but the events of the last Crisis ratcheted up progress by quite a few notches.

The previous Unravelling or Crisis (starting around 1844) saw the cracks starting to form in the British Empire, new technologies had to be developed, as the need became more and more urgent to move massive numbers of troops around the world to quell rising rebellion.

Ranging from China to South Africa, from the Napoleonic wars until the second South African war, the British army increased from an administered force of around 40 000 men to some 750 000 in South Africa alone!

It was the same during a former Western Unravelling (1746/73) or Crisis (1773/1794). Consider how the improvements in textile manufacture, steam engines, iron-making, the rediscovery of how to make concrete, revolutionised the world that followed.

The current flood of superhero movies is symptomatic of a new mood in the young, that a change is required (driven by a new batch of Heroes). Old ideas need to be revised, replaced with new and ‘better’ ones (which will be the concern of the next Awakening, the future Peter Druckers, Abraham Maslows and others. For us, this will take start around 2025 – well, perhaps not for most of us. From now, the focus will be on survival and then on rebuilding.)

Right now, there are increasingly vocal cries for a rebuilding of the financial system; the legal system; the economic system (by becoming more “green”); the political system (in spite of the utopian views of people such as Francis Fukuyama, that we had “reached the end of history”).

There is increasing concern that democracy needs to be rethought, given the failures of the American and British models, which for long have been the bastions of modern democracy.

There are even concerns about something as positive as the advances in health maintenance, given the costs of maintaining this – that it not become something that only the rich can afford.

This, then, is the terroire in which project managers find they need to do their work. Projects are first and foremost about change. Moving from one reality to a new reality, managing a period of disruption (which can be as simple as moving to a new house, or as complex as moving a production plan to a different continent). In other words, projects are all about the disruption of routine.

We can see the evolution of our profession in the concerns that were recorded in its publications.

In 1985, the Project Management Institute (PMI) established an advisory position of director of certification.

In the March 1985 Project Management Journal (PMJ), the PMI director of certification reports that 43 out of 56 people passed and were awarded the designation of PMP – Project Management Professional. The exam tested knowledge in time, scope, human resources communication, cost, and quality management – and was first sat in 1984.

This was based on the work to create a Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) presented in a 1983 Ethics, Standards and Accreditation Report.

The so-called areas of concentration were expanded to eight in 1985, with the inclusion of a project management framework; and contract or procurement management. In addition, a Standards Board was created to be the custodian of the PMBOK®.

When the work of the Standards Board culminated in the first edition of the PMBOK®, it was published in the August 1986 edition of the PMJ.

There were then 82 PMPs out of an approximate PMI membership of 5 000. (Interestingly, the South African Chapter was the second largest international chapter, after Canada.)

The concept of standards for project management was first introduced at a symposium in 1976 (slap-bang in the middle of the Awakening). Certification was proposed in 1977, but rejected (because people were still considered as responsible and unlikely to misrepresent themselves?)

It took concerted action of a few concerned leaders to get a project launched in 1981 (just before the start of the Unravelling) to develop a process for certification (PMP). A “baseline” was first presented in 1982 to the PMI Board, and then made generally public in a special issue of the Project Management Quarterly in August 1983.

The first edition of the PMBOK® was published in the PMJ in August 1986.

Here we are now, just into a Crisis fifth Turning, with the 5th edition currently in the regular review process.

There are now just under 400 000 PMPs.

And ethics? Special organisations have had to be set up to verify the educational claims made by job applicants on their CVs. Our newspapers are full of the latest on the problems in contract management (part of the procurement knowledge area).

One of the first South African projects to receive the PMI Project of the Year Award was Sasol’s New Propylene/Polypropylene Factory, awarded in 1991.

I remember attending a presentation on the project. The presenter told a fascinating story about the window of opportunity and the quick action that needed to be taken to gain competitive advantage over three similar projects elsewhere.

If memory serves me correctly, a group of senior managers were sent off with mandates and limits to secure contracts for various aspects – to build the plant, the process and so on. All this was done on the basis of little more than handshakes.

Would anyone attempt to do that today? In spite of all the legislation that has been passed to improve governance, it would be a very risky prospect.

So, what does this mean for the project manager?

Project teams

Let us consider, firstly, the makeup of project teams.

It is interesting how that the generation gap is often more of a problem between parents and their children, and that it works much better between the grandparents and grandchildren.

In mythology, we often see this same pattern: the wise older mentor and young protégé. Merlin and Arthur; Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker; Gandalf and Frodo; Rafiki and Simba; Moses and Joshua.

By now, most Prophets will have traded the rebellious psyche of the ‘60s for more conventional ‘captain of industry’ status.

These days, they will be as comfortable in a tuxedo as they were in a T-shirt and jeans.

Take the case of Michael Sifris. Here is a thumbnail sketch from a brochure about University of the Witwatersrand alumni: “Sifris the Witsie was a long-haired, fashionably dressed A-grade tennis player. He played bass player in a band called ‘The Sounds of Darkness’.

His foray into the role of lead guitarist, however, took place decades later, when Sifris SC entertained clients in a trivia evening. Resplendent in a silver glitter hat, Sifris regaled his audience with… his own Deep Purple favourite, ‘Smoke on the Water’… [A]lthough… he owns a Gibson Les Paul guitar, he more often features in his synagogue’s choir than in a rock ‘n’ roll band.”

His job today? He is a Supreme Court judge in Victoria, Australia.

The current Prophet captains of industry, political leaders and university professors were the students who protested and burnt university buildings in the ‘60s and ‘70s. No doubt this now-turned-moralistic Boomer Prophet is able to regale his protected Millennial Hero grandchildren with the derring-do of what may have been a somewhat misspent youth.

But it is equally likely that his alienated Gen-X Nomad children view him with a degree of suspicion. The Boomer will be wearing out his Gen-X children with lectures on how not to do things, and in all likelihood be coming across more as a hypocrite than mentor. After all, they say actions speak louder than words, and this is clearly a case of “Do as I say, don’t do as I did.”

It is clear that not only Boomer programme managers will struggle with their Gen-X colleagues and team members; but so will the Gen-Xer project manager, with the rising Millennials.

The Pew Research website has a useful tool to measure where you fit in and how close you are to Millennials (http://pewresearch.org/millennials).

Stakeholders

Next, consider the key stakeholders.

As the project manager roles will be filled increasingly by Gen-Xers, the purse strings are held by Boomer senior management.

The pragmatic and results-focused Gen-Xers will get frustrated by the Boomer newborn obsession to do the right thing and the Millennial corresponding cry to do it in the right way.

The Gen-Xers were the engine that propelled the profit-at-all-costs and resulting bonuses of recent times.

Governance

In spite of best attempts – consider Sarbanes-Oxley, King II and III, the new Companies Act – it seems the flood of corruption, risky investment practices, and bad management simply does not want to be stemmed. This will result in the requirement for ever tighter controls, more detailed reporting, and less freedom in the hands of the project manager. Unless he is trusted.

Trust is earned through the development and maintenance of effective relationships (up and down); integrity; effective controls; efficient, regular and consistent reporting; and, of course, consistent results.

And there is no generation in history that knows more about what the right things are and how they can be achieved, even if they have been limited mainly to the books so far.

It is time to dust off those books and start reading again.

Risk management

The most significant threats we face today are cyber warfare: Telecommunications systems are the most important, given the reliance on cellphones and e-mail for communication.

What will the average company do if it cannot get invoices out by these methods any longer?

Computer systems are becoming more and more complex, requiring more and more competent staff to run them and interpret the information provided.

The amount of information itself is another problem, and has resulted in it being possible(?) for every person to be an expert.

One can expect increasing legal challenges as managers start saying, “Enough is enough”.

Expect the frequency and impact of economic crashes to increase as the previously mentioned factors take hold.

Already, there are very large, extremely successful companies that report massive losses due to failed or constrained global ventures.

It is further likely that contracting will decrease in favour of full employment, according to the old models. But this will still take some time.

Lifestyles will have to change as well, as ‘easy money’ becomes harder and harder to come by, and we may have to give up this demand for instant gratification.

This is similar to what Strauss and Howe predicted in 1997. They included a list of national and private actions to reduce the impact of the Crisis. Sadly, as one reads through that part of the book, it is now scary how many opportunities have been missed.

Since it is too late for meaningful change to be effected at a national or global level, it would be useful to end on what they had recommended at the personal level (which they gleaned from their studies of previous Crises):

• Rectify – return to the classic virtues;
• Converge – heed emerging community norms;
• Bond – build personal relationships of all kinds;
• Gather – prepare yourself (and your children) for teamwork;
• Root – look to your family for support;
• Brace – gird yourself for the weakening or collapse of public support mechanisms; and
• Hedge – diversify everything you do. ☑

References

Dave Sohigian, www.thegenxfiles.com

Graeme Codrington, Sue Grant-Marshall. Mind the Gap. Penguin Books. 2004. (for a South African perspective)

John J. Xenakis. Generational Dynamics for Historians. eBook. www.generationaldynamics.com

John J. Xenakis. Generational Dynamics: Forecasting America’s Destiny. eBook.

William Strauss, Neil Howe. The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy. Broadway Books. 1997.

Project Management Institute. Project Management Journal. Vol. XVI. No. 1. March 1985.

Project Management Institute. Project Management Journal. Vol. XVII. No. 3. August 1986.

Elmar Roberg

Roberg has almost 40 years’ experience in managing projects, programmes and portfolios in a variety of industries.

He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .