As you watch the images of the oil spill catastrophe have you been curious about how BP got themselves into this position and what you could learn from their business misfortune? 

It may be awhile until the investigators and researchers put together all the pieces of what went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon rig.  Was it some type of mechanical failure?  Or, a problem caused by human error involving judgment, collaboration, leadership, oversight, or operations? The “what if’s” will go on and on.  But that doesn’t mean proactive leaders have to wait until the case studies are published in order to implement the “lessons” that can help your businesses and your teams right now.

Learning from the Mistakes of Others

From an Organization Development perspective, I sense the oil spill disaster resembles some of the organizational issues surfaced after the Space Shuttle Challenger accident, 34 years ago.  Case studies based on the Challenger disaster pointed to an internal culture of discouraging opinions from managers and engineers, a problem with management hubris, and pressure to move forward as a result of financial implications.  From the reports over these past six weeks, it sounds like BP and government oversight agencies may have had some similar problems to those NASA was dealing with. 

But why it is that today’s leaders haven’t learned from the mistakes of others?   Why is it that leaders often make changes when they initially learn a lesson from a disaster, but over time allow those new practices to be dismantled, opening themselves back up again to another disaster?  There is an element of risk with everything we do, but if we can mitigate or eliminate the risk of a project failing what’s standing in the way?  The answer may be related to the fact that most of our business decisions are still made by humans, not computers, and humans are susceptible to influencers like egos, politics, investments and goal achievement.

Barry Shore, Ph.D ., a professor and well known author on Project Management topics has studied many visible project failures of the last decade including the Denver airport baggage handling, Columbia Shuttle, Boston’s Big Dig and the Mars Orbiter and Lander.  He found four primary themes and summarized the lessons with cautions for teams to be aware of them and to set up processes to help avoid them.

Lessons Learned

• Overconfidence – There needs to be a healthy balance between the confidence that the team can achieve its goals, and an arrogant attitude that denies taking actions when issues such as safety, high risks, or overrunning budgets and schedules surface.

• Ignoring New Evidence – Ignoring new evidence, especially when that evidence may suggest the project is in trouble or on the wrong track can have a significant impact including: harm to others, loss of lives, tremendous cost overruns and loss of profits.

• Unrecoverable Costs – Circumstances can occur during projects that result in not being able to recover the money spent to-date.  According to Dr. Shore, “A project, at any time over its life cycle, has value only if its objectives can be met.”  Know when to cut your losses.

• Priorities – Research shows that projects with too much emphasis on budgets and schedules have the greatest likelihood of failure.   Why is that?  Perhaps it’s because you get what you measure, and quality and market are more ambiguous concepts to budget and schedule.

Culture Plays an Important Role

Corporate culture, your written and unwritten norms of how business is conducted sets the tone for best practice expectations.  From a systems perspective, Dr. Shore suggests:

• acknowledge that project priorities change and reconsider them periodically
  

In addition to these excellent project management strategies, you’ll also want to:

• ensure your firm has created a culture that expects open and respectful communications among team members; discouraging groupthink 

• set the tone for high ethical behaviors, supported by skill building opportunities for talents such as thinking ethically
  

• encourage recommendations and suggestions from all team members

• provide open access to senior leadership, especially where issues of safety, ethics and compliance are involved
  

• develop team relationships in a manner that invites healthy discussions involving differing opinions

• empower employees to conduct their work according to the organization’s values

So what do oil spills, ethics and teams have in common? The answer is lessons from past failures and disasters that can help steer teams away from pitfalls and bad habits. As you consider the environment your teams work in, what lessons can you apply to prevent your company from dealing with failed projects, accidents or disasters?