Less talk, more action

We are living in a world where we are rewarded for talking. Visibility is king and there is a growing phenomenon of knowing too much and doing too little. This statement is quite controversial and I would suggest that its value might simply be to put some of the issues in context of one`s personal experience to test its validity.

The point is not to stop saying smart things but to have the ability to also do smart things.

The start of the problem is simply the vast amount of information, new methods, tools, etc that are available to take just about any business problem known to man and apply years` worth of theory to it. The behaviour is furthermore bedded down based on the type of education and training that business people go through. It is pretty much based on the idea of talking about things.

Furthermore, plain talk is not encouraged; the smarter we sound the better we are regarded by our colleagues and of course our company and our boss. So if we face a challenge in business, rule number one is to talk about it, analyse it, call some meetings, talk some more, call in the consultants who will talk some more and go off on extended planning sessions. So it goes on, sometimes for years.

This phenomenon of talking our business to success or out of trouble is not the domain of any particular industry or any particular size of business. I will, however, make the observation that for someone that has been in both very large corporate business and independent business where success translates into the harsh reality of survival - this is an excellent spur to action.

The point of this column is not to discredit the value of discussion, team collaboration, planning or the strength of being articulate but rather to point out the danger when talking is used as a substitute for action. When the result of all the talking and planning cannot be translated into value for the organisation. When a month or a year later no improvement has been evident.

As a case in point, consider a few of the items that have been on your organisation`s (or your department`s) agenda for the past 9 to 12 months. How much action has been achieved, beyond impressive presentations and really hefty documentation?

Real organisational paralysis results when the company creates the climate for the real smart talkers to show off, to use their verbal skills to annihilate their peers, when the trend is destructive, when ideas can be killed without anything better being offered. Where complexity is revered and where there is little effort to create common understanding about the language that is continuously evolving in the world of business.

The point is not to stop saying smart things but to have the ability to also do smart things. This brings us back to the topic of experience of having leaders who have done the work, who know what needs to be done and who have the ability to get it done.

It is also quite interesting that the best success in taking smart ideas through to action is to reduce it to a level of simplicity that is easy to see and understand. At that level of simplicity one can find the real work that needs to be done and deal with the difficulties and issues. Remember that this stuff has to be implemented. It is crucial that we remember that it is not just about the why but also the how. Inertia is often the result of the real and perceived problems in actually moving forward around an important idea. The "how" questions focus on finding the solution to those difficult issues.

Ultimately every organisation needs to devise its key mechanisms for getting things actioned. In some ways I think that here we find a good connection to the idea of driving a project competency in your company, which was the topic of the previous column. There needs to be a well proven mechanism in the organisation for taking the output of all the talking, planning and decision-making and turning it into action for the company.

More than ever speed of execution is paramount. Read though any magazine, surf the Net, talk to colleagues. The message is that the window of opportunity is getting smaller all the time. New ideas are pervasive almost as quickly as they are conceived. So paradoxically, in a world where knowledge rules, where smart talk is king, where consultants have never had it better in touting the latest and greatest ways in which to make your business better; it finally comes down to two simple ideas: innovate radically and then executive at the speed of light. The leaders of today`s hottest companies don`t stop to deliberate; they act - at top speed.