The Power of Persistence: Hanging On When Others Give Up

  PM Network  

Nothing—raw talent, genius, education—can substitute for persistence. I can still remember the first project I managed 27 years ago. I made many mistakes. But project managers are only human, and failure is part of the game. And yet, you must persist.

Since that very first project, I’ve picked up some best practices for tapping into the power of persistence:

Take responsibility

We live in a society in which people are constantly trying to prove someone else is at fault. If your project fails, it’s because you didn’t have management support or the schedule was too compressed. It’s always the other person who is to blame.

But project managers need to be accountable—and they need to instill that same feeling in their team members, too. You must not pretend that other things are stopping you from reaching your goals. They only stop you if you let them.

Take action

Dreams aren’t enough. You have to come up with a plan that can be prepared, executed and modified. In this way, the dream goes from the head to the heart, and out through the hands and feet.

Last year, I managed a project to organize a professional event on project portfolio management in Spain. The financial crisis had kicked in by that time, and the team faced many issues during the planning and execution phases. However, I had a clear vision…

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