This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.
Run a business and not thinking about podcasting?
Think again.
More Americans listen to podcasts than add supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.
And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined.
Learn how podcasting can help your business.
Call 844-844-iHeart.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is that whenever you are about to begin a project, think about the end of it.
Today's tip, like some other recent ones, was inspired by the book The Friction Project.
How smart leaders make the right things easier and the wrong things harder.
In this book, authors and Stanford professors Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao talk about how organizational friction can slow down productive output.
However, in certain situations, they note, friction is good.
Slowing things down can help teams make better decisions.
One form of good friction is pausing before you start a project to think about how it might end.
Team members can project themselves into the future and envision two scenarios the project's success and the project's failure.
The imagined future success is a pre-victorum, if you will, and the imagined failure is a pre-mortem.
Now, you've probably heard of a post-mortem.
That's Latin for after death.
You can examine a project after it is over to understand what worked, what didn't, and why.
This can be a very valuable practice.
But why wait to consider what leads to a project's success or failure until after the project is over?
Sutton and Rao suggest inviting the team to time travel before a project begins and imagine the project's success.
What events and behaviors led to that success?
The team can then plan the project to make sure to build in those key factors.
Sutton and Rao also advise imagining the project as a total failure.
This would be the premortem.
What happened that led to the failure?
And how can we avoid that in real life?
When each team member tells the story of the events that led to the victory and of the events that led to the failure, the team is positioned to avoid the bad stuff and embrace the good.
Sutton and Rao's advice about thinking about endings from the beginning got me thinking about my recent conversation with Emily P Freeman, host of the Next Right Thing podcast and author of the book How to Walk into a Room.
When I interviewed her for my other podcast, Best of Both Worlds, Freeman noted that, even though we don't think about it all that much, pretty much everything in our lives will end at some point.
So we would be wise to think about that.
Endings can be good or bad or neutral.
But often, we have some say over that matter.
So best to consider the possibilities.
I know I have been thinking about this with some upcoming projects in my life.
Over the next eight months or so, my oldest child will be applying to college.
Eventually, this process will be over.
To me, success is that he is happy with the outcome and that he felt supported during the whole thing.
So that is how everything needs to be considered.
What about you?
What are you starting?
How will it end?
By thinking about this ahead of time, we might be able to shape the narratives in ways that make success far more likely.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at laura at lauravanderkam.com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeart Media.
For more podcasts from iHeart Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy.
Not quite.
On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends.
Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.
This week my guests SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter.
We do some retirement homes.
Those people are starving for banter.
Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Life is full of hurdles, so how do you keep going?
On Hurdle.
With Emily Abadi.
We're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, from professional athletes, coaches and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward.
At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world.
Like, I can do anything.
Like, I can do anything.
Listen to Hurdle with Emily Abadi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Guaranteed human.
