How the Seven Deadly Sins Can Lead to Project Failure – Part 3 - PRIDE by Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. Senior Executive Director for Project Management International Institute for Learning

In a project environment, any or all of these sins can cause rational people to make irrational decisions, and this can occur at any level within the organizational hierarchy. At some levels, the existence of the sins may have a greater impact on project performance than at other levels. If a sin is apparent in the beginning of a project, then poor decisions in the initiation phase can have detrimental consequences in all of the downstream phases.

PRIDE

• "A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you can't see anything above you." (C.S. Lewis)
• "The blind cannot see - the proud will not." (Russian proverb)
• "Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us." (Jane Austen)
• "We are rarely proud when we are alone." (Voltaire)

Pride is an inward emotion that leads to personal satisfaction or meeting personal goals. Pride can be a virtue or simply love of oneself or an inflated sense of one's accomplishments, which leads to exhilarating emotions. Pride can have both negative and positive connotations.In a negative sense, pride can cause us to grossly inflate what we have accomplished. In a positive sense, it can be an attachment to the actions of others or a fulfilled feeling of belonging, such as national or ethnic pride, or being a member of the team on an important project.

Pride is often seen as a virtue. Overinflated pride can result in a disagreement with the truth, which sometimes comes with self-gratification. The antonyms to pride are humility and guilt.

Here are some examples of how pride can affect a project:

Situation 1: Failure Due to Too Much Expertise.  Peter was one of the        most experienced engineers in the company. His technical expertise was second to none. Peter was asked to solve a problem on a project. Even though there were several possible options, Peter chose the option that was the most costly and resulted in the addition of unnecessary features which we refer to as "bells and whistles." Peter asserted that his solution was the only practical one, and the project manager reluctantly agreed. Peter saw this project as a way of increasing his reputation in the company regardless of the impact on the project. The bells and whistles increased the final cost of the deliverable significantly. It also inflated Peter's self-esteem.

Situation 2: Failure Due to the Wrong Sponsor. Nancy was the Director of Marketing. Her superior, the Vice President for Marketing, had requested the development of a rather sophisticated IT project for the Marketing Division. It was customary for the IT Department to act as the project sponsor on all IT projects once the business case for the project was approved. Nancy knew that this project would get the attention of the senior-most levels of management. Nancy had never served in the capacity of a project sponsor but believed that, if she could be the sponsor for this project, her identification with this project could result in a promotion.

Nancy's campaign to become the sponsor was a success. Unfortunately, there were numerous IT issues that had to be resolved at the sponsor level and, because of Nancy's lack of expertise in IT, she made several wrong decisions. The project ended up being late and over budget because many of Nancy's decisions had to be changed later on in the project. Nancy's quest for pride ended up having detrimental results.

We painted a bleak picture here of how this Deadly Sin can have a negative impact on projects. From a project perspective, some of the sins are closely related and cannot be as easily separated and discussed as psychologists and philosophers would have us believe. This can be seen from some of the situations presented previously, for example, where the desire for control of vast resources could be considered as some form of lust, gluttony or avarice.

It is true that, in some situations, the sins can produce positive results. They can force us to become more aggressive, take risks, accept new challenges and add value to the company. Our fascination with pride and lust can help us turn around a distressed project and make it into a success so that we can get corporate-wide recognition. The greed for wanting a large bonus can likewise encourage us to make our project successful.The downside risk of the vices is that they most certainly can have a negative effect on our ability to establish on our interpersonal skills and our relationships with the project teams and functional departments.

So, should we train project managers and team members on how to identify and control the sins? Perhaps not as long as beneficial results are forthcoming. Once again, we all succumb to some or all of these sins, but in varying degrees.

The Roman Catholic Church recognizes seven virtues, which correspond inversely to each of the Seven Deadly Sins. This is shown below in Exhibit 2.

Exhibit 2: Vices and Virtues

From a project management perspective, perhaps the best solution would be to teach the virtues in project management training courses. It is even possible that in future editions of the PMBOK® Guide, the Human Resources Management Chapter may even discuss vices and virtues. Time will tell. 

[1]There are several versions of colors, animal, and punishments in the literature. Exhibit 1 is just one version.