Five Laws of Success

Educated as a research chemist, I tend to reduce everything in life to laws, equations and observations. When I transitioned to software engineering 20+ years ago, it was an easy transition because logic is still the dominant force in software development. As my career has progressed, things become a little more grey. In management and leadership roles you have to lead and influence people who are all very unique, and you have to bring control and direction to businesses that can appear chaotic to an outsider.

Having said all that, the most common theme I have observed in all the chaos is that we all want to be successful. Not all business are successful and even the ones that do enjoy success have some rough patches. So what are the secrets to success?

Using the definition that a law is a statement of fact, deduced from observation, and based upon a particular result always occurring if certain conditions are present, I developed five sequential ‘Laws of Success’. Just like all laws of science, they will hopefully seem obvious when you read them:

1st Law of Success

Success is more likely when it is defined from the start

If you can’t define success at the start of any work then there is a much higher likelihood of failure. In business the biggest area of failure for the 1st Law of Success is in long-term thinking. Companies are very good at defining what needs to be done today, this week and even this month. Roadmaps are traditionally used to define long term goals but they have lost some favor in recent years (that’s a whole different post for a later date) mostly because they are solution focused and not problem focused. As a result, many employees in the trenches of a company know what they are doing in the next sprint or next month but they don’t know what success looks like a year or two from now. One interesting article I do like on this topic is “Alternatives to Roadmaps” by Marty Cagan (#cagan) which basically suggests roadmaps should contain problems to solve and not tasks to deliver. Marty also nicely captures the sentiment with the General George Patton quote: “Don’t tell people what to do; tell them what you need accomplished, and you’ll be amazed at the results.”

2nd Law of Success

Task level success is enhanced with greater knowledge and passion

The best example I have of this is when I ask my pre-teen children to mow the lawn. They get the job done but invariably leave patches of long grass which when questioned about, results in a shoulder-shrug and eye-roll that all parents have seen. The reality is that they know how to operate the lawnmower but I probably didn’t give them the knowledge to mow in a structured pattern of slightly overlapping lines to ensure full coverage. They would also rather be anywhere else and are probably focused on their next Xbox game. I do tend to find that if someone has an abundance of passion to complete a task that they will overcome any deficiencies in knowledge because they won’t stop until they figure out the problem or acquire the knowledge that they need.

3rd Law of Success

An Individual’s success is inversely proportional to their assigned task count

This tends to get a lot of acknowledgement in the business world. How many of you can honestly say that you only have 1 or 2 things you are focusing on right now? I am guessing nobody. There is a cost to context switching that is often overlooked. Success inherently breeds failure if we aren’t careful. In other words, when an individual is successful in the workplace we give them more responsibilities and scope which then leads to lower success rates. Another way to look at this is the Peter Principle, which states that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence". I would argue that their lack of knowledge (2nd Law of Success) and high concurrency of tasks (3rd Law of Success) are the major contributing factors to their overall lack of success. So what is the solution here? There is no simple answer but it definitely helps to promote people along paths where they have knowledge and passion and where they can focus on an appropriate number of tasks.

4th Law of Success

Team success is overshadowed by a struggling team member

Even if a team is successful but one team member is struggling, then you have a problem. The best teams are successful because of the synchronized contributions of every team member. An easily understood example here is an 8 person rowing team. If 7 team members are rowing in time but one is off, then the boat will still move forward at a good pace, but not a great pace. In the business world, if a team can deliver all their goals without a certain team member then you may need to find a different team that better aligns to the skills and/or passion of that struggling individual.

5th Law of Success

True success can only be judged by the customer

This is the final Law of Success but probably the most important. If you are part of a major business project to launch a new Mobile App to your customers and you deliver on the triple constraints of scope, schedule and cost, then have you been successful? In the 1st Law of Success, I talk about knowing what success looks like before you even start any work. In the example of the Mobile App, I would argue that scope, schedule and cost will be good measures for the success of the project but only customer adoption / usage / satisfaction can be used to measure true product success. Make sure you don’t confuse the success of completing the work (project) with the true success and impact of the work.

Please let me know what you think about this post. I wrote this not because I have all the answers but as a way to start conversations. Please provide any suggestions / additions you may have. Thanks.