A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action

I think most leaders would agree with my colleague Lee Benson’s observation that having a plan is only 10% of the journey. The rest is the execution.

If that’s true, then what are the implications? Let me offer some for your consideration:

Make all your next steps simple and clear. This means creating effective actions with a realistic date and assigned to an individual.

Start and stay highly aligned on the top objective. Identify as a team what the most important outcomes are (profits, cash flow, organization value, etc.) and use that as a “north star” to guide all decisions.

Don’t put all your time and energy into the planning process. Hint: if it takes the team until the end of Q1 to come up with the annual plan, then there is a problem.

Focus on sharing information relevant to the future in your meetings. This means having the discipline to tell people what they need to know and not wasting time telling people everything you know (or a recitation of all the actions taken recently). The world has enough talkers. What the world needs more of are people who can keep things simple and move into action.

Be the leader that does that and you will experience great success.