My friend Joe Launi has been in the project management business for 35 years. He's been a team member, project manager, and trainer. And if you ask him the secret to project management success he'll tell you it revolves around communication. He'll tell you there's more to it than that. But he'll also tell you every project challenge can be worsened by poor communication or managed by good communication.

In this episode, Joe talks about getting on the same project page from the trenches, not the textbooks. Yes PMs need to know how to build a work breakdown structure and a dependency laden schedule. But there will be no getting on any project management same page without skills such as listening, asking good questions, being humble, and growing your team. Skills not unique to project management. Here are a few of my favorite ahh-ha! moments:  

3:11 - Did you make the bed? Getting on the same page as a communication challenge.

8:20 - I'm not vaccinated: COVID, subcontractors and seeking to understand, then to be understood.

20:48 - Team rules rule... if the team writes them.

30:09 - The Project Management Body of Knowledge v7: Is your PM a servant-leader?

41:06 - Leaders are responsible for results, not for knowing everything. As a leader, can you get out of your own way to let people work?

49:31 - The story of the client who loved that his software ran faster without having to ask - but did have to ask why the other $10M of software he bought didn't run faster, too.