Numerous factors influence the chances of success for any project.  While too much power may not intuitively be among the risk factors we would identify, new research from the Kellogg School suggests that it can actually harm the chances of success for any project.

The researchers examine the chances of success in the video game industry, and find that when a project has a high-status leader, it tends to result in a less positive outcome for any projects they lead.  This is because those leaders can veer between huge successes and enormous flops, whereas leaders with more modest status tend to coalesce more towards the average.

The study reveals that while status can be great in terms of securing resources and support for the project, it can also harm the project because those leaders can often suffer from being overburdened and may not always receive honest feedback from those around them.

“We tend to be too deferential to people who we consider to be higher status. And where we give deference, what we should be doing is increasing our scrutiny—or at least, scrutinize them as much as we do people of lower status,” the researchers say. “There is greater potential for them to let their egos take control and produce something that sounds good to them but that is in reality a terrible idea.”

Gaming success

The gaming industry was chosen because so many games are released each year and gaming fans are very vocal about their preferences.  The researchers collected data on nearly 750 titles produced between 2008 and 2012, with information on the development team for each game.  They narrowed this list down to games with a single producer who had developed games before, which gave a final sample of 349 games.

The performance of each game was collected using the MobyGames database, which contains both user reviews and those from critics.  The status of the producer was gauged by their network position, which itself was gauged by looking at who they had collaborated with in the past.

When the success of the games was analyzed, an inverted U-shaped relationship appeared between the performance of the game and the status of the producer.  This shows that a high-status producer was helpful, up to a point, at which time it harmed the chances of the game.  The best average performance was actually achieved by middle-status producers, with high-status and low-status producers performing equally.

Highs and lows

It should be said, however, that while the high-status and low-status producers performed equally badly on average, the high-status performers tended to veer wildly between extremely successful games and total flops.

When the researchers spoke to some of the high-profile producers, they found that as their status rose, their productivity fell as more people wanted a piece of their time.  This overload can also cause producers to miss important signals that ultimately undermine their projects.

The high status of the producers can also generate a degree of hubris that prompts them to ignore any problems that emerge on the project.

By contrast, the success of mid-level producers is linked to their current career phase, as producers with that status are likely to be in the middle of their career, at which point they are likely to be trusted with a reasonable amount of resources, but still hungry to progress and prove themselves.