Over a series of posts I will summarize what I learnt from the excellent book by Dan Ariely “The honest truth about dishonesty” and talk about how the lessons apply to project management. It is an excellent book and one that I highly recommend that you buy.
I discovered Dan Ariely through the enlightening “Behavioural Economics” course on edx.
Conflict of interest, when you buy a new and expensive device, you want to use the device. So you find any excuse to use it, even if there is not a genuine reason to do so. If this involves a client facing solution then a client could end up paying for an expensive and possibly unnecessary service.
The hidden cost of favours, a common conflict of interest is that it is natural for us to want to return favours. As humans have a deep social need to return favours and not be in someones social debt, therefore as a result of a favour (or perceveid favour) we will become more favourable to them. This is a classic sales tactic. Give people small gifts with your logo on and they will end up believing that they owe you and will order more.
Why do car sales people give you coffee or water when you are in the show room? As soon as they give you a gift, you then believe that you owe them . So you buy the car for a price maybe higher than you want.
As we have a social need to be liked. We want the sales person to like us even if we will never see them again and their opinion of us has no baring on our lives.
Free samples and small gifts influence people to buy your product as they feel that they owe you.
Know what your customers like (food, coffee) and bring them what they like.
Make the client’s staff happy – staff like muffins – bring muffins.
We believe what comes out of our own mouths – so ask people to present about a product and they will believe what they say.
Be friends with clients and then they will see that buying from you is a way of helping their friends out.
How does this apply to project management?
I like to lead projects that are ground breaking and result in seismic change but sometimes I need to stop and ask myself why is this project needed? New and shiny is great but tried and tasted never fails. Not all change is for the best. As the saying goes, “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it!”. Consequently, it is important that the project manager continually challenges the business case and need of the project. So if the business case or need changes the project manager can be in a position to realize it and subsequently request that the project is stopped.
As a project manager it is useful to be aware of the human element of the project and how easily we are influenced. This is not a bad thing, it is just important to be aware of the reasoning behind a decision that is taken.
Successful International Project Management 