113 - Top Shelf Replay: Stage direction in the boardroom
Release Date: 11/20/2025
122 - Kate puts Kim through the worst meeting hells our listeners could dream up: a PM HappyHour role play
Project Management Happy Hour
Boss fights and boardrooms. Kate puts Kim through meeting hell in this tabletop roleplay episode. Kate: “Help me torture Kim.” That was the prompt. What followed was a meeting dungeon built from listener-submitted horror stories, tabletop chaos, and the exact kinds of project meetings that make smart people question their career choices. In this April Fool’s episode of Project Management Happy Hour, Kate becomes game master and throws Kim into a gauntlet of cursed kickoffs, bloated status meetings, executive dodging, and stakeholder nonsense. It’s funny because it’s absurd. It lands...
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121 - Top Shelf Replay: Embracing the Escalation
Project Management Happy Hour
Escalation: it’s a word that can make even experienced project managers tense. But what if you approached it as a tool rather than a threat? In this Top Shelf Replay of Project Management Happy Hour, we revisit the classic episode “Embracing De-escalation,” exploring how savvy project managers use escalation to enhance visibility, make informed decisions, and navigate risk—without losing their cool. Hosts Kim and Kate dive into the nuances of escalation, showing how the best project leaders balance assertiveness with thoughtful communication. Far from being a reactive panic button,...
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120 - How smart teams talk themselves into Failure, with Dr. Bill Brantley
Project Management Happy Hour
Why do smart teams still deliver failed projects? Most project failures don’t begin with a catastrophic mistake. Instead, they begin with small deviations—minor compromises that seem harmless in the moment. A warning sign gets ignored. A shortcut becomes acceptable. A risk is acknowledged but tolerated because “nothing bad happened last time.” Over time, those deviations quietly become the new normal. In this episode of Project Management Happy Hour, Kim Essendrup and Kate Anderson sit down with Dr. Bill Brantley to explore one of the most dangerous patterns in project leadership:...
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119 - TSR: They told me I’m ‘too nice’??
Project Management Happy Hour
Have you ever gotten feedback that made you want to flip a table because it was both insulting and totally useless? In this Top Shelf Replay, we revisit “They Told Me I’m Too Nice” and break down what that kind of vague feedback is really doing (sometimes gendered, almost always inactionable), why it hits so hard, and how to respond without spiraling - or people-pleasing your way into a personality transplant. Then we go beyond the original episode with practical, real-world tactics: how to ask better follow-up questions, how to force examples without sounding defensive, how to...
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118 - PM Turf Wars: Sharing your projects with other Project Managers
Project Management Happy Hour
"Three PMs walk into a bar: a business PM, an IT PM, and a Vendor PM…" Sounds like a bad joke, but if you don't get it right - the joke will be your project. Very often, you aren't the "one PM to rule them all" on your project - you may have other PMs involved that you need to work with. But how do you decide who does what, and how do you prevent turf wars from turning your project into a slow-motion train wreck? In this episode, we ditch the corporate fluff to dive into the messy reality of projects with "too many cooks". We discuss how to navigate the friction between different project...
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117 - Top Shelf Replay: Say No by Saying Yes
Project Management Happy Hour
Project managers are constantly told they need to “learn how to say no.” But in the real world—especially when the ask comes from a sponsor, executive, or important customer—just saying no often isn’t productive, strategic, or even possible. In this Top Shelf Replay episode of Project Management Happy Hour, Kim Essendrup and Kate Anderson revisit one of the show’s earliest “Appetizer” episodes: Say No by Saying Yes, originally aired in 2017. Short, deceptively simple, and still painfully relevant, this episode breaks down a technique that helps project managers protect scope,...
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116 - How to quit your job and completely fail as a PM contractor
Project Management Happy Hour
Thinking about going contractor? Kate and Kim share how they each left corporate and made the leap—two very different stories (burnout vs acting early) with the same core truth: contracting is built on relationships, reputation, and value… not job boards and commodity rates. We cover how to know if you’re ready, why sales is part of the job, what to watch out for (hello, 2008), and how to avoid racing to the bottom. Want us to teach the full process with scripts + steps? Head to http://pmhappyhour.com/be-free.
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115 - Top Shelf Replay: Trust Bricks
Project Management Happy Hour
As project managers, we spend a lot of time talking about tools, processes, and delivery frameworks—but far less time talking about the invisible structure that holds projects together: trust. In this Top Shelf Replay episode of Project Management Happy Hour, Kim Essendrup and Kate Anderson revisit one of the show’s earliest and most enduring concepts: Trust Bricks. Originally recorded in 2018, this short but powerful episode explores how trust is built—not through grand gestures or heroic saves—but through consistent, everyday actions that compound over time. The core idea is simple:...
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114 - Happy Hour Chatter: What PMs Really Do, Fear in Decision-Making, and Lessons from Going solo
Project Management Happy Hour
Kim and Kate settle in for a classic PM Happy Hour episode — the kind where the drinks are metaphorical, the conversation is wandering in the best way, and the insights sneak up on you. This one covers three big themes that hit close to home for project managers, leaders, and anyone who’s ever had to keep a project — or a career — moving forward despite chaos. It starts with a deceptively simple question: How do you describe what a PM actually does for a living? Kim brings his favorite one-sentence description, and Kate immediately pokes at it (lovingly) to reveal the gaps between a...
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113 - Top Shelf Replay: Stage direction in the boardroom
Project Management Happy Hour
What happens when you drop a senior project manager into a room full of attorneys, tribal leaders, political operators, and massive personalities? In this Top Shelf Replay, Kate & Kim revisit one of the most beloved—and re-listened—episodes in PM Happy Hour history: “Stage Direction in the Boardroom” featuring master facilitator Sheila Morago. If you’ve ever wondered how elite leaders steer complicated, high-stakes conversations without losing their cool (or losing six months of work with one careless comment), this episode is your new playbook. Sheila shares the tools, tactics,...
info_outlineWhat happens when you drop a senior project manager into a room full of attorneys, tribal leaders, political operators, and massive personalities?
In this Top Shelf Replay, Kate & Kim revisit one of the most beloved—and re-listened—episodes in PM Happy Hour history: “Stage Direction in the Boardroom” featuring master facilitator Sheila Morago.
If you’ve ever wondered how elite leaders steer complicated, high-stakes conversations without losing their cool (or losing six months of work with one careless comment), this episode is your new playbook.
Sheila shares the tools, tactics, and emotional intelligence behind managing senior stakeholders, building trust, engineering alignment, and yes…occasionally staging a fight to get everyone to “yes.”
Get ready—this episode is full of real-world policy drama, tribal gaming insight, negotiation theater, and powerful lessons for any PM trying to move from “task master” to strategic leader.
Great Quotes From the Episode
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“Never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.”
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“These aren’t meetings—they’re Kabuki theater.”
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“Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.”
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“If you don’t let them vent early, they will vent later—and at the worst possible moment.”
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“Policy takes years. Tech takes a week.”
What You’ll Learn (Key Outcomes)
1. How Senior Leaders Actually Negotiate
Sheila breaks down what it takes to orchestrate alignment among executives, attorneys, policymakers, and stakeholders—none of whom work for you, all of whom report to someone powerful.
2. The Secret Skill That Makes PMs Into Leaders
How listening (really listening) becomes your most strategic tool at the senior level.
3. Managing High-Stakes Meetings Without Losing Control
Why should one person guide the conversation?
How to posit their positions to draw out quiet or hesitant stakeholders.
How to keep the emotional temperature safe but not silent.
4. The Power of the ‘Safe Zone’
Why must you create a space where stakeholders can speak unfiltered, off-record, and without fear of political consequences.
5. Relationship-Building: The Long Game
Happy hours, lunches, hallway conversations—how the “work between the work” makes the boardroom possible.
6. The Art of the Staged Fight
Why conflict must be visible.
Why letting people “win” (feel like they won) is essential.
Why is the real battle scripted before the meeting starts?
7. Using Common Ground—and Common Foes
When “we all want the same thing” works.
When “the real enemy is over there” works even better.
8. How to Lock Down Decisions So They Don’t Backslide
Why immediate execution is key.
How implementation momentum prevents second-guessing.
9. Lessons Kate & Kim Learned 8 Years Later
Why parts of this episode hit harder after a decade of PM leadership.
How letting emotions into the meeting leads to better outcomes.
What PMs often overlook when they’re new to senior-level facilitation.
If you want to level up from “planner of tasks” to leader of leaders, this replay is essential listening.
Whether you're negotiating policy, driving enterprise transformation, or just trying to get two teams to agree on anything—Sheila’s battle-tested tools will help you steer the room, keep your cool, and bring people with you.
ABOUT OUR GUEST, SHEILA MORAGO
Sheila Morago is the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association. OIGA has 30 member tribes and numerous associate members. Oklahoma now ranks third in the United States in gaming revenue, with 118 casinos ranging from small fuel stops to full resort casinos.
Prior to working for OIGA, Ms. Morago was Executive Director for the Arizona Indian Gaming Association. She has also served as the Director of Public Relations for the National Indian Gaming Association, based in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Morago began her career in tribal gaming in 1994 when she was appointed Director of Marketing for the Gila River Casinos, where she built the marketing department for this multi-million dollar enterprise and opened two successful tribal casinos. Before joining AIGA, Ms. Morago was Vice President of National Relations for Initial Impressions based in Tempe, Arizona, where she was responsible for all political and public relations for tribal and non-tribal clients.
In January 2006, she was named one of 25 people to watch by Global Gaming Business. She was named one of the “Great Women of Gaming” by Casino Enterprise Management in 2004, and inducted into the Indian Gaming Hall of Fame, presented by Indian Gaming Magazine, in 2012.
And if you’re tired of carrying the emotional labor for your entire project team, come get some backup and community. Join us at: https://pmhappyhour.com/membership
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