Anh Dao Pham - Glue: How Project Leaders Create Cohesive, Engaged, High-Performing Teams

Glue offers a rare gift to project managers. It artfully blends specific step-by-step recommendations of how to move from project management to project leadership with the psychological rationale for taking those steps.

Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion, Regents Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University

Emerging from the pandemic, organizations need leaders who unlock the creativity and engagement of their teams by building strong, personal emotional connections. In Glue, Anh Dao Pham vividly brings compassionate, positive, nimble leadership to life, demonstrating with actionable guidance, the power of caring and connection to inspire outstanding results.

Peter Steinlauf, Founder of Edmunds.com

If youve ever led a project, go out and buy this book. Its wonderfully practical and specific, making it extremely useful. Anh Dao Pham has distilled a lifetime of experience and best practices into a guide for those who lead others in getting things done. From sticky-note roadmap meetings to ice-breaking candy jars, this book is full of ready-to-go advice that I find myself already putting to use.

Daniel Yates, Executive Chairman, Dandelion Energy, Climate Tech Investor, Founder and CEO of Opower

No authority? No problem. Finally a business book for you, not the CEO. Glue shows the rest of us how to create and harness influence to lead an organization to success, even without formal authority.

Nick Gorton, Chief Innovation Officer of Edmunds.com

Anh redefined the constellation of roles around delivery of complex and critical projects for me. While your first choice for learning how to become stronger at delivering projects should be to choose to go work with her, reading, absorbing, and playing with the strategy and tactics shared in this book until they are your own will accelerate your path to impact. Over a decade after starting to work with Anh, I continue to see echoes in my day-to-day activities tracing back to projects that we worked on together. Read this book, make some friends at work and go change the world.

Devin Dawson, Engineering Manager at Meta

Anhs infectious enthusiasm for empowering teams and leaders comes to life in this engaging read that delivers the blueprint for mastering the extreme sport of project management with the clarity, insight, and impact of a true project leader.

Lisa Murison, General Counsel of Bird Global, Inc., and former EVP of Operations, Chief Legal & People Officer of Edmunds.com, Inc.

Truly a must-read for anyone who plans to lead teams of people to get important things done! In Glue, Anh generously reveals the trade secrets that have made her a one-of-a-kind superstar in leading teams to perform their absolute best and smash their goals.

Eugene Park, Chief Product Officer of Edmunds.com

Phams Glue is a welcome break from certification-driven books on Project Management. Its a page-turning playbook on getting big things done with working professionals. Definitely read this book to get valuable insights on how to lead and inspire teams on a daily basis.

Rick Oliver, VP of Product & Program Management, Experian

This book isnt just for project managers. In Glue, Anh Dao Pham shares proven methods anyone can apply to manage friction within teams, promote collaboration, drive engagement and navigate change to simply deliver results. No matter what your role, Glue will make you a more effective contributor in your organization.

Richard Tang, VP of Insights & Analytics at Ticketmaster, and former SVP Global Consumer Insights & Data Analytics at 21st Century Fox

In Glue, Anh Dao Pham lays out techniques to support teams in a truly revelatory fashion. By itself, being excellent at rapid note-taking seems handy, but not decisive. When Anh shares how to wield foundational skills like note-taking to enable a host of other concerns from running effective meetings to managing inter-team handoffsa lightbulb turns on. I wish Id had this book when I was starting my last company!

John Fries, Co-founder and CTO of System1

How Project LeadersCreate Cohesive, Engaged,High-Performing Teams

Anh Dao Pham

Published 2022 by Gildan MediaLLC

aka G&D Media

www.GandDmedia.com

GLUE: HOW PROJECT LEADERS CREATE COHESIVE, ENGAGED, HIGH-PERFORMING TEAMS. Copyright 2022 by Anh Dao Pham. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. No liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained within. Although every precaution has been taken, the author and publisher assume no liability for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

The information provided within this book is for general informational and educational purposes only and represents the authors opinion. The author makes no representations or warranties, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this book for any purpose. Any use of this information is at your own risk.

Contact the author at www.glueleaders.com.

Front cover design by MIGO design

Interior design by Meghan Day Healey of Story Horse, LLC

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request

eISBN: 978-1-7225-2703-7

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For Daddy.

Thank you for showing me how to dream big.

My wife is a technical project manager, so Im going to be hard on you. I chuckle because I can hear my husband interviewing his latest project management candidate from his office. Im not trying to eavesdrop, but I cant help but register his words when I hear him mention me. Weve been abiding by safer at home orders due to COVID-19 for the last year, so we are always within earshot of each other.

Hes a CTO for a rapidly growing tech start-up, while Im a Vice President, Product & Program Management at Edmunds. We met at Ticketmaster over sixteen years ago when our desks were about ten feet from one another. Ironically, its not dissimilar to our working set-up now. He works in the garage. Im a nomad who migrates around our house or backyard with my laptop so I can get a change of scenery during my workday. Our house is relatively small, so we are never more than about twenty feet apart. We both work in tech, and we both work on delivering projects all day every day, just in different roles.

After his interviews, my husband debriefs with me. The latest candidate was an Agile advocate whose firm belief was that scrum ceremonies could solve all of their problems. Not only did she exhibit a lack of willingness to adapt her process, she also gave lengthy responses, which caused the interview to run over time despite multiple reminders that my husband had a hard stop. The candidate from the day before didnt build much rapport with him and didnt ask follow-up questions. Several others werent assertive enough. When asked what they would do if a developer told them a project would be late, they responded that they would just update the project status and communicate it. None responded with the initiative to deliver, which is what his company truly needs. Hes interviewed at least a dozen people for this role to date and is having a heck of a time finding a promising candidate.