Black and White

Earlier in my career I was sort of a black and white type of guy...as I now know, the world is filled with a lot of shades of gray. You'll often have conflict between scope and deadlines or between quality and deadlines, etc where the answer isn't always black and white. As a project manager and product manager I've learned that understanding, quantifying, and minimizing risk through communication with the team is essential. There are two things that have helped me in guiding successful teams and I thought I'd share with you:

• Listening - This cannot be overstated. Even if you disagree with the perspective or opinion, acknowledgment of that opinion goes a long way to building a team consensus. When you listen you might actually learn something.
  
• Be prepared - I have a rule that I work to be prepared for meetings. Being prepared allows you to actually know what you are talking about and you can't lead a team if the team doesn't believe you know what you are saying. Take the extra time to prepare for meetings, review the agenda, talk to the key players. Knowledge is very helpful in decision making :)