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    Social Maturity for Project Managers
    Social Maturity for Project Managers
    Social Maturity for Project Managers
    Ebook76 pages51 minutes

    Social Maturity for Project Managers

    By Robert Perrine

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    About this ebook

    This book explains the patterns that define progressive levels of social maturity. Social maturity is a psychological concept that derives from research done by Piaget, Kohlberg, Erikson, Vygotsky and many others. Your mind learns patterns of thinking. With time, your mind is capable of reorganizing itself into new patterns. The patterns described in this book are: 1) selfish, 2) me-first, 3) team-player, 4) role-player, 5) statesman, 6) humanitarian and 7) ecologist. Those patterns influence the way you think about yourself, the way you relate to others and the way your team relates to other teams. Projects work best when you have compatible social maturity in yourself, your teammates, your team structure and your organization.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Perrine
    Release dateMay 21, 2012
    ISBN9781452454429
    Social Maturity for Project Managers
    Author

    Robert Perrine

    Robert is a wayfarer on this journey through life. He was born in Pennsylvania and now resides in California. During his career he has been a civil engineer, computer programmer, professor and a project manager. Throughout this journey Robert has tried to fit all the pieces together into a holistic framework. His goal now is to describe an integrated model of psychology that he found by delving deeply into a study of project management.

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      Book preview

      Social Maturity for Project Managers - Robert Perrine

      Social Maturity for Project Managers

      By Robert E. Perrine

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 Robert E. Perrine

      Copyright

      Copyright held by Robert Perrine and Marlene Weldon, Sunnyvale, California. You may not copy or distribute this document without advanced written permission from the document authors. Contact Robert E. Perrine at http://www.robertperrine.biz.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Acknowledgements

      I want to thank my friends for their support and encouragement. I especially want to thank Marlene, Colleen, Dave, Evelyn, Franklyn, James, Marybeth, Ramesh, Ron, Shankar and Swan; the people who helped create some of the most important teams I had the opportunity to enjoy.

      Table of Contents

      Executive summary

      The concept of social maturity

      The web of relationships

      Where do we go from here?

      Bibliography

      Executive Summary

      This book is for project managers. By project managers I mean people who manage change. That definition includes people that do large projects, like Presidents and Nobel Prize winners. And that definition includes each of us when we do our own personal projects. Whenever you chose a goal and take actions to achieve that goal, you act like a project manager.

      This book explains the patterns that define progressive levels of social maturity. Social maturity is a psychological concept that derives from research done by Piaget, Kohlberg, Erikson, Vygotsky and many others. Your mind learns patterns of thinking. With time, your mind is capable of reorganizing itself into new patterns. The patterns described in this book are: 1) selfish, 2) me-first, 3) team-player, 4) role-player, 5) statesman, 6) humanitarian and 7) ecologist. Those patterns influence the way you think about yourself, the way you relate to others and the way your team relates to other teams.

      I illustrate the concept of social maturity in the picture included on the first page. The figures in that picture represent people, not male or female, not white, black or colored. The purpose for this illustration is to show that there is an expansion in various behaviors as we learn more complex ways of thinking.

      In the section titled the concept of social maturity I describe the progressive patterns. Each of those patterns includes certain characteristics. One of the key characteristics is our ability to share with others. Selfish people prefer to only share with themselves. Humanitarians want everyone to share equally. You can use the material in that section to find your place on the social maturity scale.

      The section titled the web of relationships delves into your four primary relational patterns. You relate to 1) yourself and to 2) your teammates. You and your team interact with 3) other teams. And you work within an organization that relates to 4) other organizations. We work well when those four relationships are aligned. Ideally we enter into the type of conversation that Martin Buber called dialogue. Ideally our relationships allow our team to reach the optimal state that Bruce Tuckman called preforming. Frequently, however, we experience chaos because our goals are set at difference levels of social maturity.

      In the final section I describe techniques for change as appropriate for each stage of social maturity. These techniques are social and yet the only one we have the power to change is our self. In this section I build a correlation between social maturity and project management techniques. Your project is more likely to succeed when you use the technique that matches the social maturity in your organization.

      The concept of social maturity

      Introduction: People are the project manager’s greatest challenge. You observe human behavior and strive to motivate your team. At times the team works smoothly. Occasionally there are problems. You manage the problems and find that you are managing human behavior. The purpose for this book is to explain why some teams have problems, while others play nice.

      The core concept in this book is social maturity. Research into social maturity began with the observation that children change behaviors as they grow. Piaget found that young children thought differently than older children. He devised tests to highlight the differences. Kohlberg extended those concepts into the teenage years. Erikson described the adult life cycle. Others, including you, study the same patterns and seek answers.

      The key to social maturity is to understand that adults bring their childhood behaviors with them. Some adults grow beyond their typical childhood roles while others do not. We end up with teams built with people acting like children, people acting like teenagers and people acting like village elders. We understand people that act less mature. We relate to those who think like we do. We are puzzled by the aliens that speak about a reality we do not comprehend. And to those watching us, we too are children, peers and aliens.

      The concept of social maturity is a pattern of growth. Humans have the ability to progress from selfish, to me-first, to team-player, to role-player, to statesman, to humanitarian and on to ecologist. This section of the book describes the basic behaviors characteristic of each stage in the progression. I suggest you try to identify which of these behaviors you use in a typical day.

      Selfish: We all start out as children. We all begin life as selfish creatures. This is no flaw in our behavior, it just is. An infant cannot choose other than to focus on his or her own survival. Most of us grow

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