Tim Kress, PMP

Perception is said to be more important than reality. I’ve always bristled at this cliché. As much as we would like to believe that our work product should be judged on it’s merits, the truth is that perception influences reality. How others see you becomes a major determinant of your effectiveness as a project manager.

The Problem

• If you are seen as weak and unskilled, people won’t work with you. The people you need as subject matter experts on your project are struggling with the same challenges and uncertainties that you are. They are faced with increasingly large workloads and are generally worried about keeping their jobs. The last thing they want is to be associated with is a losing project. If they think you are a weakling and will be unable to bring a project to a profitable conclusion, they will go out of their way to "give you a swerve".
  
  
• Weakness can become a vicious cycle that feeds itself. As your status in the company erodes, your ability to marshal people, materials and equipment to produce results is reduced. When management begins to realize that you can’t get things done, you will find the good projects being assigned to others. The people you need for your remaining projects will start to lose interest and commitment to your endeavors.
  
  
• Ineffective people don’t last long in this era of downsizing and "doing more with less". As harsh as this sounds, a weak project manager is soon an unemployed project manager.
  

• Be organized. Keep all project documents in good form. Make sure nothing is sloppy or missing. See to it that distributions get to the appropriate parties and are sent in a timely fashion.
  
  
• Master the art of meeting facilitation. The project meeting is your stage. It’s your chance to impress people with a winning performance. You must control the agenda, flow and outcome of your meetings.
  
  
• Dress well, at least one notch above the office standard. This is an easy way to build the appearance of professionalism.
  
  
• Have facts and figures at your disposal. You’ve heard of "name dropping". Try "number dropping". People will see your use of dollar figures and statistics as proof of competence.
  
  
• Don’t be a pushover with project team members. If you let them push back too easily on deliverables they won’t see you as a nice guy, but as a wimp. They will start blowing off your tasks because your projects will be seen as less important than more important work they have to get done for stronger project managers and executives. Your stuff will get back burnered more often than not. Project team members and colleagues will lose respect for you.
  
  
• You can stick to aggressive schedules while still being seen as a decent person to work with. Don’t be afraid to be firm but fair. You have every right to insist that people keep their commitments to you.
  
  
• Be an aggressive self-promoter and a consistent salesman for your projects. You have to project a sense of believing in the projects you are managing. Even more important, people must see how much you believe in yourself.
  

Apply these principals to protect your position in the company. Although strength rules in our competitive world, you don’t have to be a classic type-A personality to succeed. Project managers of any style or personality type can win the perception battle if they are willing to take the initiative to control people’s opinion of their abilities.