The Court Jester’s Payoff Grid

 

I think a lot of what passes for advanced Communications Management (ProjectManagement.com’s theme for February) can challenged by employing the Game Theorists’ favorite technique, the Payoff Grid, as it applies to the feudal era role known as the court jester, or fool. As a point of reference, although it is commonly assumed that the court jester’s primary duty was to entertain whatever court he was assigned, in many (if not most) royal courts the jester’s main purpose was to criticize the decisions made by the aristocracy, up to and including the king or queen themselves (e.g., the “Fool” character in King Lear). While offering such criticisms would be typically fatal to the dukes, earls, barons, thanes, or any other land-owning political players at court, the fool, who could clearly never represent a genuine threat to the king’s position, had some level of protection against retribution for his words to the actual emperor/empress. In short, if the king was about to pursue a clearly misguided action, but the powerful members of the palace were afraid to point out the folly, the court jester/fool would be the one to challenge such plans, relying on the convention of non-retribution for the words he spoke.

Meanwhile, Back In The Project Management World…

The analogy of the feudal court to the modern-day executive boardroom is a pretty easy one to make. In those instances where an executive is pursuing an objective with a technical approach that is clearly insufficient, or even destructive to the organization or project team, and that executive has power over the trajectory of his subordinate managers’ career paths, whom among them, bereft of the protection afforded medieval fools, would be willing to give voice to the needed challenges or criticisms? I believe that much of the Communication Managers’ assertions concerning the need to “engage all stakeholders” has its basis in avoiding this exact scenario, under the assumption that someone among the “stakeholders” who is not beholden to the person setting the technical agenda would be in a position to offer the needed challenge, thereby preventing the wasteful or destructive agenda from being pursued in the first place. Without reviewing the potential efficacy of this Communications Management tactic on its face, I would like to turn reader attention to its opposite, as shown by the following Payoff Grid:

As is the case with most Payoff Grids, two of the Scenarios (in this case, B and C) reveal a completely acceptable state of affairs. If the technical agenda is bad, and someone in a position to influence its pursuit points that out, as in Scenario B, it’s an appropriate communication. Similarly, if the technical agenda is fine, and no one puts forth a challenge or criticism of it, as in Scenario C, all is well. As I stated earlier, I believe that much of the Communication Managers’ codex is oriented towards avoiding Scenario D, which raises the question: what happens when those techniques are employed, but the situation on the ground is, in fact, more analogous to Scenario A?

Merriam-Webster defines “twenty-twenty hindsight” as

the full knowledge and complete understanding that one has about an event only after it has happened.[i]

I understand that this phrase is most often invoked after a decision was made, and the evidence that it was the incorrect one becomes obvious. But my target is the other side of the Payoff Grid. I get that, in the aftermath of a poor decision, the decision-makers are subject to criticism, some of it unfair, as virtually all serious management decisions are made based on incomplete information. My focus in on those instances where the optimal technical approach (and, in most cases, the accompanying implementation strategy) have been selected, but prominent critics challenge or criticize it, seeking to prevent its use. These can be especially damaging in those cases where a truly novel approach is being employed, with no previous success stories to justify its selection. In these instances, the inappropriately articulated challenges and criticisms end up harming the development and implementation of innovative PM techniques, all because of a lack of commonly-accepted criteria to cut off “stakeholder input” once the PM has selected the technical approach.

In short, some of the stakeholders’ input can be reliably used in forging the path to the identification of the optimal technical approach to resolving the project’s central problem, and other input can be rather neutral, neither helping nor harming. But some of this input can actually be detrimental, should it be allowed to gain traction, and the people pushing it won’t dress in stripes and funny hats to tip you off. This is something the PM will have to discern on their own, but can’t do so if they’re not aware.

Now you’re aware.

[i] Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twenty-twenty%20hindsight on February 19, 2023, 10:32 MST.