Managing Internal Risk
From the Project Management 2.0 Blog
by Dave Garrett
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Situation: You've been making a lot of decisions on the fly lately...
I read this
cover story a couple of days ago on a plane - "Why We Worry About the Wrong Things, The Psychology of Risk." by Jeffrey Kluger. Even though it's really about the personal, sort of everyday risks that we all take, I thought it was particularly relevant to what we as Project Managers do for a living.
The author talks about the following reasons for our natural mis-perception of risks, saying:
- our pre-historic brains are pre-programmed to have fight or flight reactions to certain stimuli.(when we
intuitively feel threatened, we react)
- we naturally are troubled more by the prospect of pain and suffering than even death. The closer in time we are to the unfortunate event, the more motivated we are to react.
- we fool ourselves into thinking we are less likely to suffer a bad outcome if we are in control (driving a car vs. being a passenger on a plane)
- we need to be particularly skeptical of statistics, as they can be rigged to say anything.
He concludes the piece by recommending we all make more reasoned, rather than intuitive choices.
I think he makes a good point. We need to be mindful of:
- how we react when we feel threatened.
- how we overreact when we feel like our reputation or career might suffer.
- how we sometimes take on tasks that would be better done by others, even though they might do things differently.
- decisions based purely on numbers.
Posted on: December 05, 2006 01:20 AM |
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Aaron Smith
Editor - ProjectManagement.com | PMI| PMI
Los Angeles, Ca, United States
Good stuff, Dave. A recent article on ProjectsAtWork.com called "Crucial Conversations" (www.projectsatwork.com/content/articles/232592.cfm) dealt with this subject in some detail. Here's an excerpt:
After identifying the five crucial conversations that go missing-in-action on too many projects, Maxfield focused on why so many people find it hard to actually have them. “These problems don’t fix themselves — 75 percent of these problems continue for the life of the project or beyond, causing the project to be terminated or the scope radically changed,” he said. “It’s a slow-motion train wreck, and the blame is parceled out. Who gets blamed? Project managers typically.”
P@W: With so much on the line, why is it still so hard for many of us to speak up?
It’s a hardware problem. We weren’t designed to be good at crucial conversations with our boss or an angry sponsor. We were designed to be good at a crucial conversation with a saber-tooth cat. When we faced a saber-tooth cat, adrenaline would flood into our bloodstream. Our heart rate would jump. Blood would rush to our major muscle groups — our arms and legs. What were we getting prepared to do? Fight or flight. We were getting ready to either fight the cat or flee. I have a question. If blood was rushing to our major muscle groups, where did it come from? Our brains. When facing a saber-tooth cat, it didn’t pay to be “lost in thought.” Now we face tough people rather than tough cats. But still the adrenaline kicks in and leaves us “dumbed down.” Instead of fight or flight, we end up going to silence or violence.
So how does and organization or an individual, for that matter, reverse this tendency?
First, executives and project leaders must take action to create a culture where crucial conversations are consistently held and held well, where people feel its safe to speak up. Are project managers feeling able to speak up and influence sponsors? If they don’t feel empowered and it isn’t safe to speak up, then your not going to be able to improve the success of your projects.
Second, leaders should measure their progress in creating this kind of culture as a leading indicator of project success. This is essential, but it’s not enough. Think about what goes through my head when I have a concern about what someone’s doing. I know I should speak up, but I don’t want to — no matter how safe the environment is. And so individuals can make an immediate difference without waiting on leaders by increasing their individual competence at holding crucial conversations. It’s not just top-down. We all need to build these skills.
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