Second Cup: Begin by thinking about the end

When you start a project, think about how you'll wrap it up.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that whenever you are about to begin a project,
think about the end of it. Today's tip, like some

(00:25):
other recent ones, was inspired by the book The Friction Project,
How Smart Leaders make the right things easier and the
wrong things harder. In this book, authors and Stanford professors
Robert Sutton and Huggy Row talk about how organizational friction
can slow down productive output. However, in certain situations, they

(00:48):
note friction is good. Slowing things down can help teams
make better decisions. One form of good friction is pausing
before you start a project to think about how it
might end. Team members can project themselves into the future

(01:08):
and envision two scenarios, the project's success and the project's failure.
The imagined future success is a pre victoriam, if you will,
and the imagined failure is a pre mortem. Now you've
probably heard of a post mortem. That's Latin for after death.

(01:30):
You can examine a project after it is over to
understand what worked, what didn't, and why. This can be
a very valuable practice. But why wait to consider what
leads to a project's success or failure until after the
project is over. Sutton and Rouse suggest inviting the team

(01:54):
to time travel before a project begins and imagine the
project's success. What events and behaviors led to that success.
The team can then plan the project to make sure
to build in those key factors. Sutton and Rao also
advise imagining the project as a total failure. This would

(02:17):
be the pre mortem, what happened that led to the
failure and how can we avoid that? In real life.
When each team member tells the story of the events
that led to the victory and of the events that
led to the failure, the team is positioned to avoid
the bad stuff and embrace the good. Sutton and Raw's

(02:40):
advice about thinking about endings from the beginning got me
thinking about my recent conversation with Emily P. Freeman, host
of The Next Right Thing podcast and author of the
book How to Walk Into a Room. When I interviewed
her for my other podcast, Best of Both Worlds, Freeman

(03:01):
noted that even though we don't think about it all
that much, pretty much everything in our lives will end
at some point, so we would be wise to think
about that. Endings can be good or bad or neutral,
but often we have some say over that matter, so

(03:25):
best to consider the possibilities. I know I have been
thinking about this with some upcoming projects in my life.
Over the next eight months or so, my oldest child
will be applying to college. Eventually this process will be over.
To me. Success is that he is happy with the

(03:46):
outcome and that he felt supported during the whole thing.
So that is how everything needs to be considered. What
about you? What are you starting? How will it end?
By thinking about this ahead of time, we might be

(04:07):
able to shape the narratives in ways that make success
far more likely. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.

(04:29):
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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(04:51):
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