By Dan Rockwell
Talking gives the illusion of action.
If the room goes quiet when you ask, “What are we going to do about that?”, you have a team that talks too much and achieves too little.
The illusion that talking is achievement leads to:
- Smug superiority. You look down on the people you talk about.
- Self-satisfied frustration. Leadership teams that talk more than act develop frustration toward the people they should encourage and support.
- Self-deluded stagnation. Teams that talk – but don’t act – imagine they’re getting things done.
Teams that talk focus on the responsibility of others.
Action creates personal responsibility.
Hidden value of action:
- Openness to listen and learn. People who talk too much over-estimate their knowledge.
- Momentum. You’re stuck until you act.
- Clear thinking. Guesswork happens while you sit and talk. Clarity happens when you get off the stool of do-nothing.
How teams overcome inaction:
#1. Set deadlines.
Before the discussion begins, ask, “When would you like to be doing something about this agenda item?”
Make small decisions now. Procrastination invites overthinking.
Distill big decisions into a series of small action steps.
#2. Ask for action.
Before the meeting ends, ask, “Is there any reason we can’t move forward on this now?” If the answer is, “We CAN’T move forward right now.”:
- List and rank the top reasons you can’t move forward now.
- Focus on the top three concerns.
- Assign concerns to the people around the table. “Please return to our next meeting with three possible answers to the concern you’ve been assigned.”
- Schedule your next meeting soon. “If we had to, how quickly could we act on this item?”
- Set the tone. The purpose of our next meeting is to find small ways to move forward.
Take a small step if you can’t take a giant leap.
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What prevents teams from achievement?
How might leaders develop teams with a bias toward action?
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This post was previously published on Leadership Freak and is republished here with a Creative Commons license.
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