Talent is wonderful, but success also needs good luck. So, what is the secret to a lucky project career? In this article, I’ll tell you.
How We’ll Look at a Lucky Project Career
I’ve structured this article to consider 10 important aspects of luck, in the context of a project management career. I’ll start by answering the important questions,
Then, I’ll share my 10 practical tips to help you build a lucky project career:
- Luck isn’t Always Random
- Lucky Project Managers Ask Good Questions
- Preparation is Nothing without Initiative
- For a Lucky Project Career, Reframe Bad Luck
- …and Harness Good Luck
- Reflection is Key to Learning Luck
- Lucky Project Managers Move on
- …and Lucky Project Managers are Generous
- Identify yourself as a Lucky Project Manager
- Lucky Project Managers Work Hard
So, let’s begin by understanding the nature of luck and the key to a lucky project career.
What is Luck and What Makes a Lucky Project Career?
Have you noticed how some people seem to be lucky in life?
Or lucky at work?
Probably, it’s both or neither; the two go together. But have you ever wondered how that happens? What gives some people good fortune?
This is how my dictionary defines luck:
‘Luck: events beyond our control that seem to be subject to chance’
As project managers, we seem to deal with more than our fair share of ‘events beyond our control’.
This is a similar definition to that of project risk, which I define as:
‘Risk: uncertainty that can affect outcomes.’
So, if events are outside our control, then how can we make our own luck?
The key word in the definition of luck is ‘seem’. If you want good luck, you need to get an edge. And to do that, you must find ways to influence events that seem to be outside of your control.
You can Make Your Luck
And that’s where preparation comes in. The Roman philosopher, Seneca, is often credited (possibly falsely) with the saying that:
‘Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity’
What this quote means is that, to be a lucky project manager, we need to:
- carefully train and prepare ourselves, taking every opportunity to learn and get different experiences
- keep a watchful eye open for the chance to apply what we have learned
But, as a project manager, you aren’t interested in splitting hairs over the origin of quotations. You want practical steps you can take to get luckier. That’s what we’ll look at: ten ways to influence your luck.
Luck isn’t Always Random
The first thing is to recognize the difference between random luck and consistent success. You can’t influence the outcome of the roulette wheel. The laws of chance tell you that. So, unless you’re the house, you’ll lose more than you win.
But getting lucky with a car park place… If you arrive early, you will have more time, and you’ll be less stressed. So, you will have more opportunities to find a slot before you start feeling unlucky. And, when you do… You’ll feel lucky.
So, luck is not really a random thing. As Seneca is alleged to have said, it’s more about the interaction between your choices and the random events beyond your control.
Preparation is More than Turning up Early
Getting a parking space isn’t only about turning up to the car park early. It’s also about looking at the map and deciding which car park to head for. Some will be bigger or less popular. Those are more likely to have places available.
So, your preparation means you can respond better to events and spot opportunities more often. If half of luck is turning up, then the other half is knowing which chance to seize. Actually, there are more ‘halves’ to come!
Lucky Project Managers Ask Good Questions
One way to spot opportunities is to hear about them from other people. And the best way to do that is to talk you people, ask questions, and, crucially, listen. The more questions you ask, the more you learn. And the more you learn, the more luck you have available.
Neil Rackham revolutionized sales training by teaching salespeople to stop advocating and to start enquiring. When they made that change, his salespeople started getting luckier.
It’s the same for project managers. You can use knowledge to give you an edge, but wisdom lies in enquiry. Be curious about the organization you work for, the people around you, and the plans and motives that are in place. The more you ask, the more you learn.
Curiosity is the golden ticket to learning more. And the more you learn, the more connections you can make between information and facts, ideas and concepts, and people and places. Making connections leads you to see patterns that allow you to foresee what’s coming around the next bend.
Preparation is Nothing without Initiative
Don’t just prepare. What lucky project managers are best at is going out and doing stuff.
If you wait for luck to fall in your lap, you could be waiting for a long time. The more you take the initiative, the more chances you have of getting lucky. This is what we mean by ‘making your own luck’.
I can’t help it: I like the word ‘proactive’. Though I know some people hate it! The elements of proactivity are:
- Preparation and planning: being ready
- Vigilance: keeping your eyes and ears open
- Enquiry: asking for help, advice, and opportunities
- Contingency planning and risk mitigation: knowing how you will minimize the potential for loss (and maximize potential gains)
- Taking the initiative: going out and making things happen
- Seizing the moment: taking the opportunities that come
For a Lucky Project Career, Reframe Bad Luck
Here’s something I was once taught by a sales trainer. It’s a great way to reframe losing.
‘You win or you learn’
If you want good luck, you have to take the initiative, and sometimes it will go wrong. For every success, there are plenty of failures to learn from on the way. Each failure is a step towards success, but only if you learn from it.
Don’t be afraid to fail. It may feel like people will look down on it, but the joke is on them if they don’t try new things. If you aren’t prepared to fail, then you have no chance to succeed. And no opportunity to learn, either.
And a strange fact that psychologists tell us is that we learn faster from our failures than we do from our successes. Lucky project managers also make a routine of facilitating and taking seriously their Lessons Learned Reviews.
- How to Get Your Next Lessons Learned Meeting Right
- Lessons Learned Meeting: How to make it Excellent | Video
- How to Build a Lessons Learned Log: Step-by-Step
Also
…and Harness Good Luck
‘Win or learn’ is great. But why is it a choice?
Can’t you ‘win and learn’ too?
Of course you can. And it seems that the most successful people make a habit of reflecting on the outcome of every initiative or decision.
Acknowledge Every Success
You’ll start to feel lucky because what you notice becomes your truth. If all you notice is ‘bad luck’, then you will feel unlucky
If you are good at your craft of project management, you will get most things right. We quickly learn how to move from poor to good by fixing our mistakes. But we will only get ourselves from good to great by finding what works and figuring out how to perfect it.
Reflection is Key to Learning Luck
Win or lose, reflecting on your experiences and the lessons you can learn from them is how we develop wisdom. And one way of thinking of wisdom is the ability to make the choices that will bring you good luck.
Make a habit of setting aside a few minutes at the end of every day (or every few days, if daily is not possible) for reflective learning. In that time, think about what has happened:
- The choices you made
- And the actions you took
- How they turned out
- And what you would change
You won’t always be able to see the causal chain between choices or actions and outcomes. But, if you get into this habit, gradually your unconscious brain will start to spot patterns.
To give this a boost, start a reflections diary. Keep a journal of what strikes you from each reflection session. It does not have to be a clearly articulated lesson. But the more you do this, the deeper your insights and, yes, wisdom will grow.
Lucky Project Managers Move on
It’s easy to dwell on bad luck – even to brood on it. That’s unhelpful, and it diverts your attention away from what’s happening now. As a result, more things will go wrong, and you will get into a spiral of ‘bad luck’.
When things go wrong:
- Put them right,
- Find the causes,
- Learn from them, and
- Move on
If you make a mistake:
- Own up to it
- Say you’re sorry
- Put it right, and
- Move on
Things will change as soon as you do something differently. And, when you reflect on the experience, you’ll learn from it and become a better and luckier project manager.
…and Lucky Project Managers are Generous
‘You get what you give’ is another folk saying that plays into how you can get lucky. Making the effort to be generous is another form of preparation. It’s like sowing the seeds that will grow and repay your consideration.
Be open, honest, and generous with your team, your colleagues, and your stakeholders. If you do, they will reciprocate. Share your luck, and others will help you get more. When your team and your stakeholders like you, they will be happy to work hard for you and support you. They may even be on the lookout for opportunities to help you.
Identify yourself as a Lucky Project Manager
Labels stick.
Whatever word you put after ‘I’m …’ often enough, will dictate how you think of yourself.
It’s easy to take setbacks as being:
- Personal: ‘It’s me – I was unlucky’.
- Pervasive: ‘It always happens – I am unlucky’
- Permanent: ‘It’ll never change – I’ll always be unlucky’
These are only true if your choices make them so. This form of ‘3P’ approach to thinking about your setbacks is a route to depression.
Instead, make a habit of noticing your successes. Then apply your 3P thinking to them. That way, you will start to feel lucky, see more of your luck, and get luckier still. Remind yourself: ‘I’m a lucky project manager’.
- Personal: ‘I was lucky’.
- Pervasive: ‘I am lucky’
- Permanent: ‘I’ll always be lucky’
Lucky Project Manager or Talented Project Manager?
Labeling yourself as lucky does not devalue your talent, effort, diligence, learning, or resilience. But it does add an important dose of humility.
What people actually see is your results – they rarely care how you got them. If you tell them ‘I’m a lucky project manager’ and they can see the fruits of your good fortune, they will want you around. They will know that there is more to luck than random chance!
Luck is almost entirely a matter of preparation, initiative, and reflection. There’s one other factor…
Lucky Project Managers Work Hard
You know a quote’s a good one when it’s ascribed to multiple (wise) sources. I think this one is Samuel Goldwyn, but it could be Gary Player, Thomas Edison, or Benjamin Franklin. I love this quote:
‘The harder I work, the luckier I get.’
But the truth is evident. If you trust to chance, you’ll get what life throws at you, and 50:50 is the best you can hope for.
If you work hard, your good luck will be down to you. And if working hard becomes a habit, it’ll start to get pervasive. And if you keep working hard… your good luck will stay.
Will things sometimes go wrong?
Of course.
Working hard doesn’t mean things will always go your way. Prepare yourself… They Won’t.
Does bad stuff sometimes happen? Definitely.
But if you do the right things, you can consistently beat the odds. That means more successful projects. And more successful projects, too.
Let’s face it, you only need to look at Las Vegas to see what having a slight edge has done for casino operators. If you can nudge your odds of success from 50:50 upwards by even one or two percentage points, it can make a huge difference over a lifetime… or a career.
Casinos don’t just have a few points of edge when it comes to the odds. They prepare, they take the initiative, they learn every day, they make changes, they remain vigilant, and they work hard. The result is simple: multi-million-dollar profits, every year.
What is Your Perspective on Luck?
I am keen to read about your experiences and your own point of view. Please do share them in the comments below.
