I’ve been writing recently on my thoughts about what project managers need to do now to grasp the opportunity (yes, opportunity) that the current economic climate gives them, and move from being a good project manager to being a great one.

And I really do think this climate is an opportunity for project managers, one we should grab hold of. For one thing, we get to shine by delivering for our businesses. For another, governments around the world have been announcing huge stimulus packages that will involve many new projects that need managing.

Something else, though, has got me thinking about this being an opportunity. And that is a book, Outliers: The Story of Success.

This is by Malcolm Gladwell, he of Tipping Point (The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference) and Blink (Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking) fame.

Outliers is a fascinating book. Malcolm Gladwell looks at successful people, and how they got there, in an interesting way. Some of the conclusions are perhaps what we have suspected, but he has done the legwork to find the data that backs it up. I really do recommend you take a look at it.

Now, some of you may have seen some of the buzz around the book, most of which focused on the assertion that someone successful needs to have practiced something for about 10,000 hours before they get really good at it.

Yes, 10,000 hours. 10,000 hours of work and practice. 10,000 hours, day after day, month after month, year after year, of sheer effort on whatever it is they are now successful in. The figures seem to hold for everything from music, to law, to ice hockey. People start to get good, really good, when they have spent 10,000 hours doing what they do.

Now, this isn’t really that surprising an answer. It may be a little disappointing, but it’s not surprising. It’s disappointing because all of us secretly would like to think that the people who are successful are somehow gifted – that their success has literally been given to them. But it turns out that successful people really aren’t that different than the rest of us.

But what I think we need to pay attention to now, with the economy as it is, is the other aspect of what makes successful people successful. And that is the environment they are in.

Outliers has a compelling section where Gladwell talks about the rise of Jewish lawyers, and law firms, in New York. And the reason they rose was, at least in part, because they were lucky enough to face a harsh environment.

It was precisely the difficulties they faced getting into one of the supposedly prestigious New York law firms in the 60s and 70s that placed these lawyers into a position where they could take advantage of the changing legal scene in the 80s and beyond.

Reading this book made me think about what we really mean by an opportunity. Often, opportunities come to us disguised as a challenge, a problem, maybe even a disaster. I’ve been writing elsewhere about the pros and cons of being a contractor, precisely because for some, the disaster of losing their job may really be an opportunity for more success.

It is all about being in the right place, at the right time. And, crucially, about grasping the opportunity, recognising it for what it is.

Right now, right here, I believe that project managers, good and great project managers, have the opportunity to make the best of this economic challenge. To make the best of it, to be successful not despite it, but because of it.

But then, I’m a born optimist.

What do you think? Am I just fooling myself? Let me know!