PMO Leadership: Be a Finisher

How many great ideas were started, but not finished? During the Great Depression, architect Alfred M. Butts had a lot of time on his hands.  Out of work, but not out of inspiration, Alfred devised a game of 100 lettered tiles used to form words on a square grid that looked like a crossword puzzle. Each letter carried a numerical value, and players scored points by tallying up the values of the letters in the words they laid down.

But Mr. Butts was a better starter than a finisher. His game no doubt had potential, but sales were not going anywhere. He renamed his game a few times to LEXIKO and then to CRISSCROSS WORDS; but the name changes did little for sales and by 1948, Butts sold rights to his game.

James Brunot, the new and happy owner of this word game was determined to finish what his predecessor started. He refined a few rules, changed the design, made the game better, and renamed it to Scrabble. With the new improvements, players racked their brains and stretched their vocabularies to make long words and score bonus points. Word of mouth created devotees. And soon after, James Brunot had done what he set out to do.

He finished what was started and in a big way. By 1954, when Selchow & Righter took over production, sales of the game topped 4.5 million dollars and the popularity of Scrabble has yet to waver. The present owner Hasbro, Inc. sells 2 million copies annually in the United States and millions more internationally.

The morale of the story? You know it. Whether in the context of bringing a game to the market or in the context of the challenges that the PMOs of today face such as leading the strategy to bring about a new culture and new set of capabilities to the organization; it’s good to be a starter, but it’s great to be a finisher.