Mastering Three Spaces: Personal, Reputation And Project

Do you remember last years “The Four Dharmas Of Project Management“?

“I learned that you cannot jump from the PMBoK directly to topics like “mental flexibility” and “emotional intelligence”. I am sorry to tell you, but most people cannot make that jump that fast. A path to “project enlightenment” has to be defined. Conveniently, I think I have one… In Buddhism teachings are presented in Turnings of The Wheel Of Dharma. Each turn builds upon the previous one and brings the student to a higher level of consciousness.”

I have been going back and forth this year between “Second Turn: Structure For Resilience”, “Third Turn: Global Pool” and “Fourth Turn: Flexible Mind”.

While writing, talking and discussing about these levels, I have found a more effective, easier to explain version of the 4 Dharma’s. The message doesn’t change. But the emphasis and words are slightly different.

Three Spaces: Personal, Reputation And Project

Basically, I just went from 4 to 3. I currently talk about:

• Personal Space
• Reputation Space
• Project Space

The idea originates form the Social Media presentation I’ve been giving this year (see slide 24). In order to use social media skills on your project, you have to learn and master them on a personal and professional level first. The elements of Project Leadership require strong personal and interpersonal knowledge and skills:

“Goals and Means on individual, project and organizational level
Alignment of goals and means on all levels by communication”

Or as I conclude my presentation on Project Leadership: “Develop Project Leadership Skills To Get Your Team To Self-Organize.”

So, you work on your own stuff, you master the skills before you can help your team.

Mastering Your Personal Space

If you are communicating clearly, without fear of expression and with respect for the conversation partner, under all circumstances, you have truly mastered you own personal space. Within your space you get to know what you are about, what your thing is and how to shift the mental models of your mind.

Mastering Your Reputation Space

The topic of this blog is running projects. The network that knows about you in this context is your Reputation Space. You can view this as your professional network, your community of practice or just your local office.

Your Reputation Space is your training ground for professional interaction. You practice communication skills, you get knowledge and provide knowledge back to your network. You use skills from your personal space to participate, and you use insights provided by the interaction to enhance your personal skills.

While doing this, you build your reputation (hence the name). This reputation becomes important as it is used in communication with people that don’t know you, or hardly. Reputation is used to “create trust”. Reputation is used to get an idea about what you are about. As creating an audience is also a form of self-actualization, there is a direct link to the Personal Space.

Mastering Your Project Space

In the context of projects, the essence is captured in the earlier described notion of Project Leadership. For details, check out this presentation on Project Leadership.