chances of receiving negative feedback (likely of greatest
value to you) are pretty slim.
Customer—It’s always nice to get positive feedback from a cus-
tomer. However, they often provide it without knowing much
about your day-to-day behavior and ordinarily it is based more
on what they see you achieve than your ongoing performance.
In addition, your relationship with clients tends to be somewhat
artificial: let’s face it—you always try to put your best foot for-
ward when interacting with customers.
Your Supervisor or Manager—They don’t know what you do or
how you get it done. Does that sound familiar? That’s one of the
biggest complaints I hear about direct supervisors. What’s the
point? The point is simply this: the closer you get to the soft
end of the competency continuum (Figure 3-3), the more you’ll
need to rely on yourself for self-improvement. Reflect on how
you just interacted with that team member when you offered
constructive feedback. Think about how you may have biases
that are affecting the way you perform. Be objective about how
you tend to jump to conclusions about people and how that
impairs your ability to remain objective. These are examples of
introspection and self-awareness.
There’s an exception to the recommendation to rely on your-
self for self-improvement, however. If you’re fortunate enough to
work with someone (a) whom you trust implicitly, (b) whose
opinion you value, (c) from whom you can expect honest feed-
back, and (d) who is in a position to observe your on-the-job
behavior, I suggest you latch onto that person and try to enlist
his or her support in your quest for self-understanding.
Unfortunately, the combination of all four of these factors is rare.
Now that you completely understand everything there is to
know about projects, project management, and the role of the
project manager, I think you’re ready to move on to defining the
project. So, let’s get back to Brad as he prepares to launch
Project Apex.
46 Project Management