Is ‘failing at failing’ success?

Eddie Obeng on why we love to win but why it’s so hard to do

“Success is overrated”, we tell ourselves when we worry we might fail. So why this fear of failure? Well, for most of the last century in most spheres of life it was possible to learn faster than the world changed. That meant someone somewhere knew the correct answer so you could be judged on your actions and outcomes. In addition, for millennia when life was more precarious, getting it wrong could mean death, and you wouldn’t have further learning opportunities.

Recently there’s been a fashion to insist that projects never fail. Citing examples from the Sydney Opera House to No 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, that bankrupted constructors, I hear the argument: “Well in the longer term it was useful, so it couldn’t have been a failure!” They yawn at the iron triangle as outmoded tosh, irrelevant to modern project professional activity. HS2’s budget doubling just confirms even more ‘future usefulness’. There is a desire to ‘win’ regardless, but is ‘failing at failing’ success?

Everyone loves a winner

And winning is great. As a child did you play ‘championship golf’? All you needed was a stick and a decent‑sized stone. You’d whack the ‘ball’, shout ‘fore!’ and wherever the stone landed was automatically a hole‑in‑one. “Winner!” you would shout as you raised your hands and dopamine surged through your veins.

And it’s so hard to win as a project manager. Your first problem is that the only ones who can define and judge success are your stakeholders. They often choose to work with you based on tangibles, the hard criteria, but you will know that having a workman in your home who fixes the dishwasher, but feels spooky or tramples on the flowerbeds, means you’ll never use them again. Those soft success criteria can be show‑stoppers. And then there are four groups, each with their own list of hard and soft criteria:

Pre‑project stakeholders. Just starting the project affects them – for example, you might be taking away their people or causing disruption.
Output stakeholders. They want the deliverables. From them you learn the ‘correct answer for the project’. Does it need to go quickly, or be cheap or be super good? Anniversary party? Means good, at the right speed and spend a bit more if needed. Low margin, competitive product launch means go fast, don’t spend too much and ‘just about compliant’. Each project is unique.
Project journey stakeholders. They want to enjoy, learn, build relationships and do worthwhile work.
Outcome stakeholders. Did it resolve the original problem or provide the envisaged opportunities? What’s it like to live with?

Chances are, your project isn’t painting‑by‑numbers, and even if it is, the world keeps changing and can mean you need to keep checking or changing the purpose of the project. So you will need to agree again with the stakeholders, who define success, how you adjust the mark you must now hit. Stakeholders are people so they are fickle. Also, as the project progresses, they learn and may discover what they asked for isn’t what they need. Stakeholder management is a huge job, always knowing they will remember any infringements you make on their soft criteria forever.

Do you have a fear of success?

And then there’s you. Fear of failure may make you pretend the winnings aren’t worth it, and make you try less hard. The research suggests that although you will feel better, your chances of succeeding may reduce. Also, secretly do you have a fear of success? Real success changes your life. It lifts you out of your comfort zone like a tornado and drops you into uncertainty. Apparently, some people even sabotage themselves to avoid it. So how do you succeed? I say use ‘smart’ failure (see TED Talks on ‘smart failure’ at www.worldaftermidnight.com). Also recognise that past failure means reflection and skill building.

Work on the small steps of the journey, taking a win from each little one and absorbing the joy of the dopamine hit that will fuel you to the next challenge. That means taking time to reflect and write up ‘10 commandments’ giving advice to anyone who might attempt to do what you have in the future.

Our APM Awards ceremony is stakeholders defining and judging ‘success’. You and your colleagues are the pre‑project and project journey stakeholders. You also get to judge the outcomes. So whether the APM judges choose to put a glass ornament on your shelf or not, I hope you took the dopamine hits as you put your submission together and will take time afterwards as outcome stakeholders to bask in the dopamine‑fuelled glow of success.

Professor Eddie Obeng HonFAPM is an educator, TED speaker and author. You can join his masterclasses, courses and workshops on the QUBE #SuperReal campus: https://QUBE.cc