The Eight Essential People Skills for Project Management

How can you lead projects with brilliant technical execution and still fail because of people? That’s the uncomfortable question at the heart of Zachary Wong’s The Eight Essential People Skills for Project Management. Wong argues that project success rarely hinges on scheduling or budgeting, but on human behavior, emotion, and relationships—the unpredictable elements that make leadership both difficult and beautiful. He contends that project leaders must become human experts, not just task managers. To do that, they must master eight core people skills that turn technical managers into inspiring leaders.

In a world where work has become faster, flatter, and more collaborative, Wong explains that yesterday’s pyramid organizations—those run from the top down—no longer fit reality. Today, leaders operate in what he calls the “wedge,” a horizontal, fluid structure linking individual contributors, teams, and management. In this environment, your challenge is not enforcing compliance but aligning attitudes, behaviors, and performance across all three levels. Wong provides tools that help you diagnose people problems, facilitate cooperation among diverse personalities, and motivate the right behavior rather than punish mistakes.

Why People Skills Matter Now

Wong observes that organizations have been delayered into fast-moving teams that require leaders to blend psychology, communication, and process management. With more educated and autonomous workers, power has shifted downward—team members now want engagement, not commands. Yet many project leaders were never taught how to lead people; they were taught how to manage tasks. The result is frustration and burnout. Learning the human side of leadership is therefore not optional—it’s the cornerstone of success.

Eight Essential Skills for Real-World Leaders

Wong distills four decades of research and consulting into eight people skills:

• Diagnose and Correct People Problems (The Wedge): Learn to spot whether an issue is individual, team, or management-driven.
• Be Tough on Problems, Not People (The Three Hats): Balance your roles as manager, supervisor, and teammate without losing authenticity.
• Build Highly Successful Teams (The Loop): Use trust, accountability, transparency, and individuality to foster inclusiveness.
• Boost Attitudes and Happiness (The Ice Cream Cone): Recognize good work and treat people with positivity instead of criticism.
• Turn Around Difficult People and Underperformers (Roll the Ball Forward): Help low performers move from fear and inertia to progress.
• Motivate the Right Behaviors (The ABC Boxes): Apply behavioral science to trigger and sustain desirable team actions.
• Succeed During Change and Challenges (The Black Box Effect): Manage fear and risk aversion to keep teams moving forward.
• Gain Favor and Influence with Your Boss (Be More Visible): Manage up with integrity, competence, and proactive communication.

The Emotional Journey of Leadership

The book’s emotional truth is that leading people isn’t clean or predictable—it’s messy and deeply human. Wong tells stories about real managers, from the compassionate leader who found alcohol under an employee’s desk to the young project head whose strict rules alienated her team. These stories aren’t about efficiency—they’re about the inner struggle of wanting to do the right thing while preserving trust and motivation. He teaches that authentic self-expression, emotional transparency, and empathy are not weak traits but leadership power sources.

Why It Matters

In an era of automation, artificial intelligence, and virtual collaboration, people skills remain irreplaceable. They are what make teams resilient and projects sustainable. Wong’s eight essential skills remind you that graphs and charts don’t lead people—attitudes, trust, and empathy do. As he says in his epilogue, projects come and go, but helping, coaching, and inspiring others are the moments you’ll remember most. Leadership in the wedge world is human work, and it’s what makes teams—and you—flourish.

Every project leader eventually faces someone not doing their job, a team not collaborating, or management shifting the goalposts. Wong’s first skill—using the Organizational Wedge Model—is a diagnostic tool to identify where people problems actually live. He urges you not to overreact or guess at causes, but to determine whether the problem is individual, team, or management driven. The wedge replaces the old pyramid hierarchy and illustrates how power, scope, and leverage flow horizontally across today’s lean organizations.

Understanding the Three Levels

At the bottom of the wedge are individual contributors. They are skill-oriented workers whose performance is affected by expectation clarity, resources, ability, and motivation—a diagnostic set Wong calls ERAM. The middle level represents work teams, where coordination, process, and behavior matter. The top level is management, responsible for mission, vision, values, objectives, and strategies (MVVOS). These form the organizational backbone. Each level requires different interventions. You must solve the problem at its proper altitude.

Finding Root Causes

Wong’s practical method begins with ERAM: clarify expectations, ensure proper resources, assess ability, and strengthen motivation. Most mistakes stem from misunderstanding expectations or insufficient support rather than laziness. For teams, he introduces the CPB framework—content, process, and behavior. Content defines purpose and goals; process captures methods and workflows; behavior determines success. Finally, management issues demand alignment between individual actions and MVVOS. Without shared values, performance drifts.

Applying the Wedge

Imagine an employee frequently missing deadlines. Instead of scolding them, you use ERAM: were deadlines understood (expectations)? Did they have the needed tools (resources)? Do they have the skill (ability)? Are they motivated? For team disputes, apply CPB: is the issue unclear goals (content), poor workflow (process), or toxic communication (behavior)? At higher levels, you might trace dysfunction to conflicting departmental values (MVVOS). The wedge reminds you leadership isn’t about blame—it’s about diagnosis and alignment.

Knobs and Levers

Wong’s metaphor of “knobs” and “levers” reinforces the idea that performance factors are adjustable. The knobs (ERAM, CPB, MVVOS) regulate behavior, while levers—motivation, process, and values—create exponential improvements. Motivation drives individuals, process amplifies team results, and values elevate organizational integrity. (Note: These ideas echo Peter Drucker’s emphasis on focusing management attention where it multiplies productivity, not where it merely reacts.)

Alignment Across the Wedge

“Alignment” appears constantly in Wong’s model. Every project succeeds when individual effort connects upward to team goals and management values. He even recommends asking each team member to identify one action benefiting each wedge level—a personal task improvement, a team initiative, and a company contribution. These micro-alignments build a culture of shared direction and mutual accountability. Diagnosis then becomes prevention: you anticipate tension before it breaks the wedge apart.

One of the most practical insights in Wong’s model comes from Skill Two—the Three Hats concept. You must know when you’re speaking as management, as a supervisor, or as a team member. Misidentifying which hat you’re wearing leads to confusion, resentment, or weak leadership. Wong uses vivid real-world stories to illustrate how the wrong hat can create problems and the right one can save lives—literally.

Case of the Late-Night Accident

In a foggy parking lot, supervisor Robert found his longtime colleague Thomas stuck in a culvert after drinking on company premises. Thomas begged for help moving the car quietly, hoping Robert would act as a friend. Instead, Robert kept his management hat on, enforced policy, and took Thomas to security and medical staff—discovering later that Thomas’s blood alcohol was far beyond the legal limit. Robert’s professionalism prevented harm and upheld safety standards. Being tough on problems doesn’t mean being cruel to people; it means wearing the right hat at the right moment.

The Power of Hats

The management hat governs policy and long-term accountability; the supervisor hat focuses on process, direction, and efficiency; and the team member hat emphasizes empathy, trust, and care. Balancing them prevents favoritism and confusion. Wong warns against the common mistake of “hogging your hat”—keeping power without delegation—or switching hats for convenience. Clarity builds respect: people should always know which role you’re operating from.

Authenticity in Action

In another case, Jean, a gifted lab technician promoted to team leader, became authoritarian to appear strong. She issued rigid rules, hid her personality, and lost trust. Former mentor Elaine reminded her, “When we treat everyone the same, we become unfair.” Jean learned the hardest lesson: leadership is not costume but character. Wearing the management or supervisor hat should never replace your authentic self. You can’t lead through control—you lead through connection. Wong’s message mirrors Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability in leadership: real strength comes from openness, not armor.

Six Practices of Authentic Leaders

• Increase transparency—explain your decisions honestly.
• Express who you are—share stories and personal experiences.
• Practice introspection—connect feelings with actions.
• Be comfortable in your own skin—embrace weaknesses as strengths.
• Show your pure self—lead with enthusiasm and empathy.
• Believe in yourself—trust your judgment in tough calls.

Authenticity bridges all three hats. You earn respect—not from authority alone but from sincerity. The goal is not to be liked but to be credible. As Wong warns, fake personas weaken confidence. The strongest leaders wear their hats clearly and their hearts openly.

Most teams function well enough when things are simple—but when change, mergers, or conflicts hit, weaknesses surface. Wong’s third skill introduces the Loop Model, which explains why some teams thrive while others fracture. The loop represents inclusiveness—the emotional glue that makes people feel accepted, relevant, and valued. It satisfies two universal human needs: purpose and peer acceptance. Without it, people drift, withdraw, and eventually self-exclude.

The True Meaning of Inclusiveness

In a story about Maria, a human resources manager leading a merger, Wong shows that reorganizations often neglect people’s need to feel “in the loop.” Maria’s employees felt stranded, unheard, and minimized. They experienced exclusion—even self-exclusion—and morale dropped. Inclusive teams, by contrast, make individuals feel relevant to a larger mission. They embrace the principle of “we > me.”

Six Behaviors That Build Inclusion

• Mutual trust: Assume others’ intentions are good.
• Interdependence: Coordinate tasks like parts of a watch—each movement affects the whole.
• Accountability: Move from “your mistake, your problem” to “our mistake, our fix.”
• Transparency: Share motives honestly, without self-serving excuses.
• Learning: Exchange experiences freely and conduct open feedback sessions.
• Valuing individuality: Treat people how they want to be treated, not how you want to be treated.

From Conflict to Connection

Wong uses a humorous everyday example—a couple’s argument over a stolen tuna fish sandwich—to illustrate how “me > we” thinking turns small misunderstandings into conflicts. Inclusive leaders choose empathy and honesty over accusation. They practice what he calls the “you-me-we sandwich”: start by recognizing the other person, share your honest feelings, and end with a positive, forward-looking plan. Inclusion means turning disputes into collaboration, much like coaching teams to choose the project’s success over being right.

Sustaining the Loop

Good teamwork isn’t bureaucracy—it’s belonging. Wong emphasizes that inclusiveness takes effort; the natural human tendency is to revert to “me > we.” You preserve the loop by continuously reinforcing purpose, appreciation, and respect. Teams fail when people no longer feel seen. In contrast, when they trust, learn, and hold each other accountable, their loop expands and grows stronger—a sign of sustainable team culture.

If Skill Three builds connection, Skill Four builds joy. Wong’s Ice Cream Cone model is a colorful metaphor for attitude, motivation, and happiness at work. Every employee, he says, walks around with a cone, hoping someone will fill it with ice cream—praise, recognition, dignity, or kindness. When people feel valued, they keep their cones up. When they feel unappreciated, they droop, spill their ice cream, and feel empty.

Why 'Cones' Matter

In a charming story about young Charlie dropping his scoop, Wong shows that losing your ice cream can be disappointing, but how you react defines your attitude. Charlie’s mother’s advice—“Keep your cone up”—becomes a mantra for leaders: maintain optimism even amid setbacks. A good manager helps employees keep their cones upright through empathy, encouragement, and fair recognition.

Recognizing, Not Coning

“Getting coned,” Wong explains, means doing good work yet receiving no recognition. He recounts cases of employees who submit urgent reports or volunteer creative ideas only to be ignored. Over time, silence kills motivation more effectively than criticism. His advice: recognize behavior, not just results. Praise the courage to act correctly even when outcomes disappoint, as exemplified by Susan—the researcher who reported a safety injury despite losing a team bonus. Her supervisor rewarded her honesty, not punished her mistake.

SCOOP Framework for Recognition

• Sincerity: Be specific to be sincere; generic praise feels hollow.
• Consistency: Avoid favoritism or uneven rewards.
• On Time: Recognize achievements within 24 hours.
• On Values: Link recognition to organizational principles.
• Personalized: Tailor appreciation to each employee’s preferences.

Empowerment and Attitude

Wong highlights four empowerments that fill cones: responsibility (feeling trusted), opportunity (believing you can grow), encouragement (feeling supported mid-project), and recognition (feeling seen afterward). When you offer these regularly, you transform morale. Empowerment creates hope—the most potent motivator. (Psychologist Martin Seligman’s Positive Psychology supports this: encouragement and meaning, not perks, generate sustained happiness.)

The Ice Cream Cone model reminds you that leadership is about nourishment. Every interaction is a chance to refill someone’s cone. Joy is not frivolous—it’s fuel for productivity. When you treat people right and give deserved ice cream, performance soars and negativity melts away.

Few tasks drain managers more than dealing with poor performers. Wong’s fifth skill, Roll the Ball Forward, shows how to transform not by punishment but by facilitation. Difficult people and underperformers, he notes, aren’t bad—they’re stuck. Fear, insecurity, and distorted perspectives trap them mentally. Your job is to roll their ball forward—to help them move from defensive inertia to productive motion.

Understanding Difficult People

Wong divides low performers into two types: difficult people, who impede others with aggression, cynicism, or passive resistance; and underperformers, who struggle quietly with inconsistency or low confidence. Both suffer from excess fear that distorts reality. This fear drives negative attitudes like “no one cares” or “I’m treated unfairly.” The root cause isn’t competence—it’s perception.

The Past-Present-Future Model

To lead tough conversations, Wong uses a process he calls the Past-Present-Future Model. In the past, listen and empathize; in the present, conduct a reality check; in the future, co-create options and actions. He presents it as a “three-scene movie” that guides emotional and intellectual resolution. This method turns confrontation into facilitation—helping employees own their improvement plan. He pairs it with the Six-Step Performance Review Process to formalize documentation, feedback, behavior goals, and agreements.

Techniques for Tough Conversations

• Make observations, not judgments.
• Judge the work, not the person.
• Use “I” statements, not accusatory “you” statements.
• Focus on behaviors, not intentions.
• Address only one or two critical issues at a time.

By following these guidelines, you reduce defensiveness and increase accountability. Wong repeatedly warns: never argue intent—you can’t read minds. Assess actions, not motives.

Rolling Forward, Not Backward

Helping low performers isn’t about fixing the past—it’s about creating hope. When they act, they break fear’s inertia. The metaphor of rolling the ball forward captures progress through consistency, empathy, and process. Difficult conversations become collaborative ones. As Wong reminds you, “Let the process do the dirty work.” Managers succeed when employees feel ownership of their change and when everyone learns that fear diminishes through action, not reprimand.

Wong’s sixth skill, The ABC Box Model, turns behavioral science into practical leadership. Managing a project isn’t only managing tasks—it’s managing behaviors. A team’s success depends on how people act, interact, and reinforce one another. The ABC model stands for Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence, adapted from applied behavioral analysis (psychologist Raymond Miltenberger’s work).

Triggering the Right Behavior

Antecedents (Box A) are prompts before a behavior—rules, standards, or team values that set expectations. Wong advises clarifying these antecedents early through ground rules, training, and communication so people know what good performance looks like. He shows how simple tools—like meeting start-time rules—can transform culture when consistently applied.

Defining Critical Success Behaviors

The behavior box (Box B) holds the actions you want to foster—such as mutual trust or accountability. Wong urges teams to define specific Critical Success Behaviors (CSBs) that reflect organizational values. For example, if ethics and honesty are valued, the corresponding behavior is transparent communication. Align top-down values with bottom-up human needs: do work that meets both management’s mission and people’s desire for respect.

Consequences and Reinforcement

Box C represents consequences—the feedback, recognition, or punishment that follow behavior. Wong classifies four types: Yay! (positive reinforcement), Nay (negative), Nothing (no response), and Ouch! (punishment). His research shows most workplaces deliver “Yays” less than 10 percent of the time. People work in a “shell game” of consequences, guessing whether recognition will come. The cure: give more specific, immediate, positive reinforcement for desired behaviors and reduce reliance on silence or criticism.

Above-the-Line vs. Below-the-Line Leaders

Below-the-line leaders control through fear, relying on “Ouch!” and “Nay.” Above-the-line leaders empower through encouragement and “Yay!” The difference between compliance (“have to”) and ownership (“want to”) defines performance levels. By giving positive reinforcement early and often, you create sustainable behavioral change. (Note: Wong’s emphasis parallels Daniel Pink’s Drive, which argues that autonomy and purpose—not fear—fuel motivation.)

The ABC Boxes highlight a simple truth: what gets reinforced gets repeated. Wong gives managers a blueprint to cultivate healthy behaviors intentionally instead of leaving them to chance. It turns management from muscle into mind.

Change always triggers fear. Wong’s seventh skill, The Black Box Effect, explains why uncertainty paralyzes teams and how risk-taking reawakens their courage. He tells the story of Sarah, a cross-country runner who, despite illness and doubt, led her team into the championship gateway. Her daring inspired everyone. Wong uses her race as a metaphor: leadership is sprinting toward uncertainty with courage.

Three Uncertainties

Every risk involves three uncertainties, paralleling the ABC Boxes: (A) the circumstance, (B) your ability to perform, and (C) the outcome. Fear fills these boxes like darkness fills a black box. To succeed, you must reduce uncertainty in all three. Treat challenges as gift opportunities rather than threats. Control fear—don’t let it control you.

Managing Fear and Building Risk Tolerance

Risk tolerance, Wong says, is learned through experience. Each success leaves “positive trace memories” that shift your fear threshold. He visualizes fear’s effect on performance as a bell curve: moderate fear sharpens focus; too little breeds complacency; too much creates paralysis. The secret is to stay in the middle—courageous enough to act but cautious enough to think.

Three Mental Steps to Overcome Fear

• Step 1: Take control of the circumstance—reduce external uncertainty through preparation.
• Step 2: Strengthen your ability—practice, get support, and build confidence.
• Step 3: Redefine outcomes—see every result as good, great, or an invaluable learning experience.

These steps help leaders and teams treat risk as growth rather than threat. A failure becomes feedback, not fear.

Outside the Box

Wong argues that risk takers play outside the box—they define their own consequences. Instead of avoiding “Nays” and “Ouchs,” they act for “Yays”—positive outcomes and learning. Courage is contagious. When you rise, others follow. Risk taking, therefore, is not recklessness but leadership in motion. The greatest fear isn’t losing—it’s never daring.

If managing teams is about motivating down, managing up is about inspiring trust above. Wong’s final skill, Be More Visible, focuses on your relationship with your boss—the most influential factor in your well-being. Studies confirm that respect from supervisors increases health, engagement, and happiness. Yet many people fear their bosses or remain invisible, letting others control their narrative. Wong teaches how to manage up proactively, respectfully, and visibly.

Visibility vs. Invisibility

You can either stay silent, hoping your boss notices your good work, or magnify your value by being engaged, communicative, and reliable. Visibility isn’t loudness—it’s clarity. Show your boss your strengths, gratitude, and consistency. Wong visualizes it as raising a magnifying glass between you and your supervisor: you enhance mutual understanding, appreciation, and trust.

Seven Strategies to Gain Favor

• Increase engagement—participate actively and support others at work.
• Possess a can-do attitude—be an achiever, not a complainer.
• Build competency—continually develop skills your boss values.
• Communicate—keep your boss informed to reduce micromanagement.
• Seek win-win outcomes—align your success with your boss’s success.
• Be a go-to resource—provide reliable insight without boasting.
• Know your boss’s personality type—adapt communication accordingly.

Integrity and Influence

Wong closes with the story of Amy, a project manager facing a moral crossroads when her boss misled clients about budget status. Amy’s struggle illuminates the tension between loyalty and integrity. Wong urges you to act transparently, use organizational processes, and stand on values—your greatest lever. Doing what’s right for both yourself and the company restores trust.

Working with Difficult Bosses

For toxic bosses, apply earlier skills: stay on top of your cone (maintain attitude), roll your ball forward (keep progress), and manage up through visibility. Don’t let your boss control your emotions or fate. Be your own champion. Respect earns trust, and trust earns freedom. Visibility, integrity, and competence illuminate the wedge from bottom to top—making you a leader, even upward.