Create Lucky Projects

Excellent opening presentation at IPMA 2014 World Congress in the Netherlands. Luck by Dr. Richard Wiseman, an experimental psychologist and former magician.

Basic premise: the same mental processes that influence the way we see things in optical illusions work in how we perceive events in life -whether we see ourselves as luck or unlucky. This perception than influences whether we see opportunities or not. It boils down to the context around the event.

For example,  in an optical illusion, our mind uses context to fill in gaps and see things a certain way. It is only the blue circles around the orange circle that make us believe the orange circles are different sizes. They are actually the same size.

The same thing in life. Our mental framework, the context we put around the event, determines whether we see opportunities or risks. It also impacts the kind of people we meet and who we get connected to. Resilient people are luckier. Resilient projects are luckier. Seeing everything as “Wow am I lucky, it could’ve been much worse” creates resilience and helps us see opportunities.

The same thing in projects. Communication creates context. Design and foster a communication environment that creates a lucky project with lucky people. Design and foster resilience, instead of punishment. It impacts whether you have opportunities or problems, people that want to work together or people who fear each other.