In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome share insightful stories that highlight the impact of applying common sense in both professional and everyday settings. From delegation strategies to practical tips on organization and emotional intelligence, listeners will learn how to leverage common sense to improve project outcomes. This engaging discussion emphasizes the importance of empathy, adaptability, and practical solutions in navigating the challenges of project management.

Main Take-Aways

Stories are powerful teachers. In this podcast your hosts provide life lessons from personal experiences to illustrate the criticality of applying common sense in our personal and professional lives:

• mentor through practical application
• apply common sense to all aspects of your life
• be creative in seeking common sense solutions to work challenges
• in some situations, check with others before taking action
• venture away from the status quo
• do the right thing always
• be authentic
• be careful when posting on social media
• don’t assume that others have the same level of knowledge (or common sense) that you do

Show Notes

Today’s Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leadership Lessons from the Trenches – It’s Common Sense!

01:11 Tim begins this episode with an experience of a manager who mentored through action. Tim learned delegation and innovation from his manager’s hands-on application.

02:59 Merv ventures away from career to practical everyday examples of using (and not using) common sense. Practice common sense in all aspects of your life.

04:57 Tim tells of a time as a consultant when he applied common sense to retain a member of the team who was about to leave the project.

06:38 Tim follows this up with a common-sense lesson learned from an experienced person when his car would not start.

07:58 Merv recounts a time that was embarrassing for his company when one of his team – not using common sense – implemented a software change the day before the system was to go live.

09:34 Tim continues with an example from consulting where using the status quo dampened the team’s using common sense to problem solve more creatively. He learned over time to listen for what his customer was not telling him, rather than follow his team’s normal process of templates and scripts.

12:21 Merv tells of an incident whereby a young person arriving for a job interview was rude to a person outside of the office building, only to soon discover that the person he was rude to was his interviewer. Tim expands on that hard lesson by bringing it back to always doing the right thing.

14:19 Tim and a colleague observed that people often are not authentic in the analysis of their work situations, and that it is only through being authentic that true solutions can be arrived at.

17:41 Merv describes his organization’s policies regarding the use of social media when working in client situations.

19:31 Merv then wraps up with a story from his boyhood when working with his father on the family farm. His father had a wealth of common sense knowledge regarding farming, but less common sense when dealing with his son in that he made the mistake of assuming that Merv had similar knowledge.