
646 ◾ The 12 Pillars of Project Excellence
The Sandpaper Analogy
Whenever I encountered people who were rude and mean, I thought of
them as sandpaper polishing me. I thought that they may scratch me and
rub me the wrong way, but they will eventually end up polishing and shin-
ing me, while getting a little bit of my shine on themselves too. This helped
me to look at the bright side of things.
Thus, if you are not facing resistance as a project leader, you are not
doing your job of pushing the envelope and thinking out of the box very
well. Resistance is to be expected, you will need to develop the tools not
only to face this resistance but also ...