Exceptional Projects

The importance of Frame of Mind on Projects

Organisations invest heavily in skills, training, systems, and other programmes to develop project leaders, teams and individuals.  Often lost in these training programmes is one of a project managers and their team’s most essential tasks: expanding people’s capacity for high-quality thinking.  Training rarely considers the importance of frame of mind or quality of thinking that is the essential key to gaining huge leverage from skills and experience.  By becoming aware of our mental frames – how we see things rather than what we see – we can have fresh thought almost at will and with profound results: exceptional projects.  And this ability is innate in all.  Our role at Headstuff™ is simply to uncover it in you and your people.

Results

Generally from our work in the UK the top four results that companies gain from an understanding of the impact of frame of mind on individual and business performance are:

1. Increased confidence and well-being on the part of leaders, teams, and employees –  suffering from stress and burnout, regain inspiration and creative edge
2. Increased creativity and innovation at all levels – staff who looked to their managers for solutions become innovators
3. Decrease in employee turnover saving £’000s in recruitment and training and lost time
4. Improved productivity and delivery of projects

And as a result this approach we usually achieve performance outcomes 300 – 600% greater than expected and achieved by others doing similar work.  For example:

•  Increasing Business Start-up rates of women from 1 out of 10, to 6 out of 10.  Approach adopted by UK-wide by Business Link
• Creating a 10-fold increase in young unemployed people gaining permanent employment, compared to current approaches
• Ecological restoration of major infrastructure developments, saving £m’s in resources and quicker results
• Raised over £50m of investment in new projects

And it’s neither the achievement nor the specific project that’s important here – that’s a given – but the principles of successful project delivery and the quality of the thinking of the people involved that makes this success possible, and stays with them

Clients also experience:

• Shorter project durations – lead-in and implementation times shorter; outcomes greater
• More for less:  Less resources and fewer people-hours used
• Commitment and ease of implementation: Intrinsic commitment and implementation and reduced need for monitoring management and revisiting of issues
• Productive meetings: More focused and productive; less going over old ground; fewer off-point comments and less repetition.  Tough subjects discussed easily, and participants maintain or recover a balanced and open state when differences arose.
• Better quality decision making: decisions that stick, having organisational resilience and confidence from the inside-out.

And the capabilities we have uncovered amongst the people we work with stay with them long after we have gone: Once learnt, this understanding cannot be unlearnt but only deepened.

Traditional approaches get traditional results (including 80% failure of major IT projects!!).  We’re only interested in exceptional results, and this never comes from mediocrity or tradition.

Anthony is inspirational to work with, he inspires confidence and brings a can do attitude. He spots opportunities quickly and is great at building and sustaining new relationships and getting people to buy into a collective ambition. Caroline Munday, FICPD

What next?

If you would like to discover how an understanding the quality of your thinking and frame of mind can have a beneficial and lasting impact on the success, performance and resilience of you, your organisation and projects, let’s have an exploratory conversation.  Call Anthony +33(0)6 34 56 98 40, or email: anthony@headstuff.eu to arrange.