The Project Book

CHAPTER 3 BE YOURSELF

At a retirement function for Steve (not his real name — his real name was Brian!), a project manager in my team at the time, I got the chance to speak with his wife.

She seemed genuinely shocked about the things people were saying about her husband. ‘Grumpy’, ‘negative’ and even ‘curmudgeonly’ were thrown out there, all of which Steve took in his stride. ‘But that’s not who he is at home,’ she insisted. ‘He’s a fun granddad. He sings silly songs and never stops cracking jokes.’ It was my turn to be shocked, and when he walked over I said to him, ‘Steve, what’s this I hear about you being a really fun guy outside the office?’ He said, ‘Yeah, but I can’t bring that to work, can I?’

YES YOU CAN! Bring it every day. Bring it to every meeting, every workshop, every coffee break. To the performance evaluation when I ask, ‘is there anything more I can do to create an environment in which you feel you can do your best work — and enjoy it?’ But what could I say then? So instead I smiled and said, ‘I’m really sorry you didn’t feel able to do that’.

Putting on a different face should never be necessary — unless you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall. You don’t have to pretend to be someone else. You don’t have to suppress your feelings, to conform to what you see around you.

That’s not to say, though, that you use authenticity as an excuse for staying in your comfort zone and expecting everyone simply to accept you as you are. It’s about acting and behaving ...