The Brown Principle: Create a Results-Oriented Focus

Edward de Bono asserts, “If I had to choose the one motivating factor that seems to me to be operating in most successful people, it is the wish ‘to make things happen.’”1 Indeed, as one article in Fast Company suggests, “Nothing is more important than getting it done! Today, implementation is the real source of competitive advantage! Even the best idea is only as valuable as your ability to execute it! Ideas are critical. Innovation is the mainspring of the new economy. But as more and more companies compete in ideas, the game changes to competing in the implementation of ideas. In this next stage of competition, getting an idea gives way to getting it done.”2 The objectives “to make things happen” or “get it done,” as well as other related implementation guidelines, are at the heart of the Brown Principle: Create a Results-Oriented Focus. Unfortunately, these aspects have hardly been addressed by the traditional project management literature, which has largely embraced the implementation philosophy illustrated by the practices of the “European navigator.”