I presented to a group of project managers recently on managing your self. This pack includes some techniques to manage your self and some case examples of when these skills may be useful.

1. Managing your self as you
manage a project
“The worst leader is one who cannot
lead himself.”
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© 2012 Niall McShane

2. Agenda
• Why, what, when, where and how of self-management for PMs
• What is your authentic self and are you faking it too much?
• Knowing yourself is how you change your self
• Nine key self-management skills for PMs
• PM case examples using self-management
• Wrap-up
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© 2012 Niall McShane

3. What is “self”?
• You as you know you does not exist
• You are a collage of self moments
• Draw your self
WHAT IS SELF?
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© 2012 Niall McShane

4. What is your authentic “self”?
• You are plastic
• You can (and will) change
• Read the article and reflect on the questions at the
end of the article
So what are the
Implications for a PM?
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© 2012 Niall McShane

5. Your lens
Self Unfiltered reality
Your reality So what are the
Implications for a PM?
1. Approval points and
governance
The world IS 2. Consensus may not always
be possible
They all ARE 3. Communications
I AM 4. Know your Is-Are-Am to
avoid derailment
DNA Experience 5. … 5
© 2012 Niall McShane

6. Self-knowledge
How do you get knowledge about one’s self (Is-Are-Am)?
1. PIRs or intra-project retrospectives
2. Feedback on performance (formal/informal)
3. Development programs (professional, leadership)
4. Feedback on behaviour (formal/informal)
5. Introspection/self-reflection
6. Psychological testing (individual and team-based)
7. Coaching/mentoring (formal/informal)
Share your stories on which have worked for you and why
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© 2012 Niall McShane

7. Managing your self
Skill 1—Know your strengths
1. Don’t fake it, work to your strengths
2. Build a team to allow you to use your strengths
3. People know your truth
4. Non-preferred roles versus signature strengths
5. Uncover hidden strengths
Write down your strengths (maybe split into competent
versus signature)
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© 2012 Niall McShane

8. Managing your self
Skill 2—Know your weaknesses
1. Don’t fake it, accept and get comfortable with your weaknesses
2. Select the weaknesses that are worth investing development
effort (be realistic but don’t cop-out)
3. Build a team to mitigate your known weaknesses where
development is not going to give you a return
4. Watch for derailment (mindful)
5. Uncover your blind spots
Write down your weaknesses (maybe split into can be
competent versus will never be competent enough)
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© 2012 Niall McShane

9. Managing your self
Skill 3—Recognise you have many selfs
1. Situational application of a past selfs
2. Work in a non-signature competency as and when required
3. Adopt a role-based approach to your many selfs, put them on
and off as required, they all make up you.
4. Look for a balance of self roles as a PM; if too skewed to weak
areas look to mitigate with your team
Write down the roles you need to play as a PM and when.
Which of these are your preferred ones? Which should
you mitigate with your team or org support?
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© 2012 Niall McShane

10. Managing your self
Skill 4—Letting go
1. Reflect-learn-release
2. Grudges usually not useful
3. Staying present to be there for the issue at hand is a lifelong
practice never mastered.
4. Letting go of the habits, beliefs and opinions that no longer
serve you is at the core of personal and professional
development.
Write down what about your self you may need to let go
of in order to excel as a PM.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

11. Managing your self
Skill 5—This too will pass
1. Impermanence is useful to keep in mind when situations are
overwhelming you
2. Forest versus trees balance is important to maintain
3. This mindset is central to self-care/resilience and working
sustainably to avoid burnout
Write down when you would expect to be in the heat of
the moment; where you may be at risk of being
overwhelmed (and what you will do to not burn out).
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© 2012 Niall McShane

12. Managing your self
Skill 6—Visualise success
1. Athletes do it as standard practice; well supported by research
2. First-person visualisation of success-what are you saying, doing and
what are others saying and doing around you?
3. Feel what it is like to be in the successful situation
4. Allows you to see and feel yourself past challenges and seemingly
impassable situations (both operational and inter-personal)
Take a minute to visualise what success for a project looks like where you are
the PM? What are people saying/doing around you, how do you feel and
what does all this tell you about yourself? Your visualisation points to your
leadership style.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

13. Managing your self
Skill 7—Your Ego: tame it, don’t stroke it
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said
to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow,
regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority,
and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,
kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is
going on inside you - and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf
will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
Make a note where you are at risk of your ego running the show instead of supporting you
in a healthy way. What are your taming techniques?
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© 2012 Niall McShane

14. Managing your self
Skill 8—Embed reflective practices into your work
1. Always doing the doing and not pausing to consider your self
2. Just as a project team can do a retrospective, you should
regularly conduct retros on your self; reflect on-the-job.
3. E.g. meeting with yourself, embed into the schedule
4. Hire a coach or meet with a mentor
Make a note where in the project lifecycle would you
schedule in self-reflective practices to support self-
awareness and learning 14
© 2012 Niall McShane

15. Managing your self
Skill 9—You are plastic
1. Use project work to change your self to a better version
2. Experiment with your attitudes, beliefs and behaviours to learn
on-the-job.
3. Life long learning is the key to continual personal and
professional performance improvement
Make self-development goals a part of your next PM role.
List what areas about yourself you would want to grow
and learn about in your next role.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

16. Case example exercise
1. Partner up
2. Choose a case example
3. Read your case example and discuss
4. Choose three skills previously listed in the presentation and
outline how you could apply them to this example.
NOTE: it is not so much about solving the problem but how you manage your
self as you solve it.
5. Also use any information from the notes you have taken about
your self throughout this session.
6. Present your findings to the group.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

17. Case example 1
Dealing with destructive conflict
A project resource is in conflict with another team member and you
as the PM have had to get involved to diffuse the situation and get
things back on track.
Write some notes on how you would employ three self-
management skills during this case example.
© 2012 Niall McShane 17

18. Case example 2
Dealing with extreme emotion
A project resource has taken some feedback very personally and has
been going through some personal challenges that have resulted in
them becoming overly emotional on the job. You need to act.
Write some notes on how you would employ three self-
management skills during this case example.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

19. Case example 3
Your key business expert does not like you
A project resource has formed a negative opinion of you personally.
You value the person and their contribution but there is a risk your
working relationship may deteriorate and impact the project.
Write some notes on how you would employ three self-
management skills during this case example.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

20. Case example 4
You lead analyst has said “NO!” to you
A project resource has pushed back on your first and probably only
request to do some additional overtime to get the project over a
“bump” and meet a deliverable timeline. You believe the request is
reasonable and part of project work but the resource is standing
firm.
Write some notes on how you would employ three self-
management skills during this case example.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

21. Case example 5
You make a mistake
As the PM you make a mistake that results is a significant amount of
re-work for your team. You know you should have handled things
better and now need to face into the issue you are directly
responsible for creating.
Write some notes on how you would employ three self-
management skills during this case example.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

22. Case example 6
You need to lead
As the PM you receive feedback through a formal process that your
team is not seeing enough “leadership” from you and that they are
lacking in motivation as a result.
Write some notes on how you would employ three self-
management skills during this case example.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

23. Case example 7
You need to be a “good” and “bad” cop
As the PM you receive feedback through a formal process that you
need to be more assertive in how you both performance manage
and incentivise your team.
Write some notes on how you would employ three self-
management skills during this case example.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

24. Case example 8
You are let down
As the PM your key deliverable date is missed due to a resource not
taking responsibility for its completion on the agreed date.
Write some notes on how you would employ three self-
management skills during this case example.
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© 2012 Niall McShane

25. Wrap-up
Take aways:
Self-awareness is the key
My recommended tools of choice are:
– Coaching-the single outcome of coaching is awareness
combined with action to enable growth and learning
– Mindfulness –defined as paying attention on purpose and
without judgment to your internal and external environment
in the present moment.
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© 2012 Niall McShane