Book Review on The Hidden Project Drivers – Building Behavior that Drives Success
- Apr 1
- 4 min read
Written by Ladys Patino, Book Reviewer and Writer
Ladys Patino is a distinguished writer and book critic with a specialization in organizational behavior, management, leadership, and community dynamics.
The Hidden Project Drivers: Building Behavior that Drives Success by Kursten Faller and Alan Weiss is one of those rare business books that manages to feel both practical and quietly radical. If you’ve spent any time in the trenches of project management, you already know the usual suspects that get blamed when things go wrong, missed deadlines, scope creep, poor resource allocation, bad luck, or, everyone’s favorite, “communication breakdown.” But Faller and Weiss cut right through that noise and ask a much more uncomfortable question, "What if the real problem is us?"
This book doesn’t waste time on surface-level symptoms. Instead, it digs into the behavioral DNA of teams and organizations. The core thesis is bold but almost embarrassingly obvious once you see it spelled out. Projects fail or succeed based on people’s behavior, not just their skills or the tools they use. It’s the hidden drivers, trust, accountability, willingness to speak up, the real conversations that happen (or don’t happen) in the margins, that determine whether a project thrives or crashes and burns.
Faller and Weiss are both seasoned consultants, and it shows. They’ve seen projects of every shape and size, from Fortune 500 transformations to scrappy startups trying to launch their first product. The stories they share aren’t sanitized case studies, they’re messy, human, and instantly recognizable to anyone who’s ever worked with, well, other humans. There’s the project that looked perfect on paper but unraveled because nobody wanted to deliver bad news. The team that kept “collaborating” while quietly working at cross purposes. The leader who thought more status meetings could fix everything, not realizing the real problem was a lack of trust and psychological safety.
What’s striking about the book is how it balances candor and hope. Faller and Weiss don’t shy away from how hard it is to change behavior, especially in organizations where old habits have calcified over years or even decades. But they don’t let you off the hook, either. There’s a refreshing bluntness to their advice, stop hiding behind process, confront your own blind spots, and actually talk to the people around you. If you want to avoid the fate of so many failed initiatives, you need to do the uncomfortable work of building behavioral contracts, setting clear expectations, and holding each other accountable in real, tangible ways.
One of the book’s standout chapters dives into the concept of “behavioral contracts”, not in the legal sense, but as living agreements that spell out how team members will act, what they’ll prioritize, and how they’ll handle setbacks or disagreements. It’s simple but surprisingly rare in practice. Most teams assume everyone’s on the same page, only to discover, usually too late, that their definitions of “urgent,” “done,” or “collaborative” are wildly different. Faller and Weiss give practical examples of how to create these agreements, what pitfalls to watch for, and how to keep them alive as projects unfold. This is the kind of advice that doesn’t just sound good in theory, it’s immediately actionable, and you can imagine it saving real teams from weeks of drama and wasted effort.
The writing style is another highlight. There’s no jargon for the sake of jargon, and no empty promises about “guaranteed” results. Instead, the tone is direct, occasionally wry, and always grounded in the reality of how messy and unpredictable real teamwork can be. You get the sense that Faller and Weiss have sat through more than their share of awkward meetings and “post-mortems,” where everyone politely avoids the elephant in the room. They’re not interested in blame, they’re interested in clarity and progress.
What really elevates the book is its empathy. Faller and Weiss understand that most people want to do good work and that most teams start out hopeful. The problem isn’t bad intentions, it’s the slow drift into habits and behaviors that sabotage success. By shining a light on these hidden drivers, the authors offer a way out, not by adding more process, but by getting radically honest about what’s working and what isn’t.
The Hidden Project Drivers isn’t a silver bullet. It won’t magically fix every dysfunctional team or guarantee that every project comes in on time and under budget. But it will make you think hard about where you’re investing your energy and what you’re willing to change. If you’re a leader, a project manager, or even just someone who’s tired of watching good ideas fizzle out, this book is worth your time. It’s the kind of guide that belongs on your desk, dog-eared and marked up, because the real work of building successful projects is never really finished.
In a business world desperate for shortcuts and quick fixes, Faller and Weiss remind us that the true drivers of success are both more subtle and more powerful than we usually admit. Read this book if you want to understand the behavioral levers that quietly shape everything your team does, and if you’re ready to start pulling them with intention.
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Ladys Patino, Book Reviewer and Writer
Ladys Patino is a distinguished writer and book critic with a specialization in organizational behavior, management, leadership, and community dynamics. Her expertise lies in dissecting and evaluating literature that delves into the intricacies of organizational structures, the nuances of leadership styles, and the complexities of community interactions. Patino's reviews and writings offer insightful perspectives on how these themes play out in various settings, providing valuable analysis for those interested in understanding and improving the functioning of groups, businesses, and societies.
