The silent saboteurs: How strategic misrepresentation creeps into projects

There is one item you will never see on any meeting agenda, yet it has the potential to be the most important factor on your project. No-one will ever offer to discuss this item, nor will they own up to being involved, but it has the power to disrupt, de-rail or even cancel your project. It is 鈥榮ilent sabotage鈥� and we are going to examine this critical factor here.

What we鈥檙e talking about is strategic misrepresentation, and it鈥檚鈥痶ypically considered as the鈥痙eliberate and/or systematic distortion鈥痮r misstatement of information to achieve a specific goal.

What is strategic misrepresentation?

One of the most informative papers written on this is Top-Ten Behavioural Biases in Project Management: An Overview By Bent Flyvbjerg. Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg in this paper distinguishes between two types:

Strategic misrepresentation, defined as the tendency to deliberately and systematically distort or misstate information for strategic purposes. It鈥檚 also termed political bias, strategic bias or power bias.
Cognitive biases, of which there are a great number (broadly defined as the tendency to be too optimistic, to over or under-estimate or to rely too much on selective supporting data).

Cognitive biases are generally bad for a project, as they tend not to lead to the expected outcomes, but as they are often unconscious, they don鈥檛 set out to deceive. They could be considered weaknesses rather than deliberate. To an extent they are predictable patterns.

Strategic misrepresentation on the other hand does set out to deceive, for political or other reasons, and is in effect, lying.

The Flyvbjerg paper proposes that:

For smaller, less strategic projects, which have less attention from top management, bias is most likely to be cognitive bias.
For large strategically important projects, particularly megaprojects, where there is strong top management attention, any bias is likely to be political bias, or strategic misrepresentation (although cognitive biases are also likely to be present).

How this changes the risk profile of your project

Now that the spotlight is on both types of bias, behavioural psychology is starting to tell project professionals "Your biggest risk is you." Put another way, it鈥檚 not scope changes, complexity, etc. that are the main problem; it鈥檚 how human beings misconceive, underestimate and distort these factors, through optimism bias, overconfidence bias, strategic misrepresentation.

How to spot and deal with this 鈥榮ilent sabotage鈥�

So why might people strategically misrepresent information, what could be put in place to mitigate this behaviour, and what are some of the risks in doing so?

We should mention incorrect data in passing, since project data can just be wrong or inconsistent. If this is discovered, all decisions that flow from it 鈥榮hould鈥� be reviewed and perhaps changed. If this does not happen, then deliberate use of incorrect data might be strategic misrepresentation.

Human psychology and power bias

One psychological aspect to consider: even when someone is deliberately misrepresenting something, it鈥檚 important to recognise that this may be coming from a positive place (perhaps self-protection or a defensive stance). Knowing this means you鈥檙e better able to understand the other鈥檚 situation before putting mitigation in place, and in dealing with that individual鈥檚 behaviour.

It鈥檚 possible strategic misrepresentation may originate from a pressure group or organisation. Here, there may be a 鈥榝ield mind鈥� operating so that a) there are likely to be multiple justifications and b) you may be dealing with several people (who may 鈥榗all in鈥� big hitters in support of their position, i.e. power bias).

Finally, recent news comes from the Lloyds Banking Group, who are trialling AI bots that support board decisions by helping to spot and eliminate human bias. This will be an interesting trend to watch.

Dealing with strategic misrepresentation therefore requires courage and persistence, as well as a strong sense of values. It could be said that the first weapon to use against strategic misrepresentation is strategic curiosity.