Play Now: For Project Management Professional (PMP)® Students: PMP Exam Prep : Niraj Kumar and Cornelius Fichtner This interview with Niraj Kumar (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the lively Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. We share insights gained from leading teams in the aftermath of the 2016 flood, called the worst Louisiana disaster since Katrina. Learn how our guest led teams through devastation around them and reacted to a life-altering situation, yet stayed true to the mission to serve the community. You will hear how the team leaders collaborated to ensure that the critical tasks get done, operations keep humming, and the affected customers continue to receive service. Episode Transcript Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Podcast Introduction Niraj Kumar: In this episode of The Project Management Podcast™, we look into specific leadership behaviors you can practice to adapt to a chaotic and challenging situation. Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to The Project Management Podcast™ at www.pm-podcast.com. I am Cornelius Fichtner. Podcast Interview Cornelius Fichtner: We are coming to you live from the lively 2017 PMI Global Conference in Chicago. With me right now is Niraj Kumar. Hello, Niraj! Niraj Kumar: Thank you, Cornelius! It’s nice to be able to talk to you again! Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah and we finally meet in person, aren’t we? Niraj Kumar: Absolutely! It’s so good to see you. Cornelius Fichtner: How is the conference going for you so far? Niraj Kumar: The conference has been fun. A lot of activities and things that people can take back to their work. It’s definitely very helpful for anybody who is a project practitioner, not just for a project manager but anybody who works with projects. Even for stakeholders, this conference can be very helpful. Cornelius Fichtner: You have just finished your presentation a few minutes ago. How was it for you? Niraj Kumar: It was great! People participated and I was glad to see the audience’s interests and how they all resonated with the topic and how they can use some of the things we discussed. Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! We’ll look into all of that as well. Niraj Kumar: Great! Cornelius Fichtner: The topic is “Leading During a Disaster: Lessons Learned from the 2016 Louisiana Flood”. What’s the story behind it? What interested you in discussing, presenting this topic here at the Congress? Niraj Kumar: I decided to present this topic because when we are in a situation that’s chaotic and disastrous like this event was for our work situation, we go through events, we work with other people, we use some skills, we also learn the limitations of what do we read in books and how we really end up practicing when it comes to leading people, influencing people. And what I do is I put a leadership lens on what took place in this context at work. And I give out some tips and ideas that project practitioners and leaders can use to be more effective in a chaotic situation. Cornelius Fichtner: How were you personally affected during this situation? Niraj Kumar: I was affected very deeply because as I said before, it’s one thing to read about a flood. It’s one thing to read about a difficult situation or a war situation. It’s one thing to live through a disaster and work through that. I was in the midst of it and I wanted to share what happens when you were in the middle of it. How does it unfold? And how difficult it is to keep people motivated, how difficult it is to get the work done, what should we focus on? And also how some of the things that you read in the news media are very different when you were in the middle of it when you are trying to get your work done? At the end of the day, we are professionals. We get paid to hit a target. We get our accolades from working through people and that’s my focus. That’s what we come to work for everyday. I fel