A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action. This country song wasn’t written about business. The phrase, however has become a standard component of leaders lexicon. We hear it and say it regularly. Sometimes the opposite, more talk and less action is the right approach.
There are three big things that ail us according to an author whose name I do not recall. He was writing about the current state of the US but it struck me that he also could have been talking about many businesses.
Disagreement on priorities was his first noted big ailment. (The second will follow in the next blog post)
If you are leader in business, chances are you have experienced this. The waste of time and resources, the distraction of trying to keep your team focused on a constantly changing target. It is the sort of situation that just makes it harder and less satisfying than it should be to do the good work of leading leaders and getting good business results through others. Beyond that if the situation persists it makes the leadership team appear to be incompetent.
It gets dealt with in several ways. Leaders can mandate priorities and by doing so may mandate compliance but you can’t mandate commitment. So, remember that no matter how large and in-charge you might be, top floor to shop floor extra discretionary effort from people requires a real commitment.
Real commitment comes from alignment. Alignment comes from participation, robust challenging discussion, hearing and being heard and learning together as a team. There is a pay me now or pay me later component to this. Time spent on the front of a change, on defining the foundation of the future and the big elements of getting there create the alignment that makes execution easier.
Easier, but not easy. I’m the Outsider and that’s what I think.