If you don’t believe in the project, what do you do?
If you don’t believe in the project, the team will sense it; energy will drain from the project; and no one will want to work the project.
If you don’t believe in the project, you can’t make yourself believe in the project.
If you don’t believe in the project, you can’t fool people and make them believe you believe in the project. Your disbelief will flow from your pores like a bad smell.
If you don’t believe in the project, your disbelief will weaken an already weak project.
If you don’t believe in the project, your disbelief can twist a good project into a bad one.
If you don’t believe in the project, it may not be the right project, but you are not the right person to run it.
If you don’t believe in the project, but the company still wants you to run it, the worst thing for the project is for you to run it; the worst thing for the company is for you to run it; and the worst thing for your career is to refuse to run it.
If from the start you think the project will fail, tell the right people why you think it will fail. If after telling them why you think the project will fail, they then ask you to run the project, you have a problem and a choice. Your problem is you’re the wrong person to run the project. Your choice is to run the project into the ground or take the lumps for not running it into the ground.
My choice is to give someone else an opportunity to run the project. I think life is too short to run a project you don’t believe in.
Image credit — Bennilover