It is amazing how exposed organizations and knowledge workers are becoming with the continual forces of the new economy. There are many people pretending to be busy rather than being productive. Their bureaucracies have afforded them a now fleeting hideaway that is eroding quickly. Getting things done is what matters.
The opportunities to create are boundless today. The speed and ability to drive towards an idea continually amaze me. We live this reality within our team and we continually drive excellence in our execution process, for we know it is what differentiates. There are plenty of talkers and dreamers. There are very few people that deliver.
Here’s a tip to get more focused in your knowledge work and business process. Have an insatiable and obsessive bias toward action. When you entertain ideas or have dialogue, there must be an output of actionable steps. Capture these in a system you love, trust and have buy-in from your collaborators within.
Secondly, ignore all the noise of notes and immaterial content. Action is what matters. Note Scott Belsky’s findings in Making Ideas Happen, “The process of excessive note-taking actually interferes with the bias toward action that is necessary for a productive creative environment.”
Try listening and only capturing concrete action steps for yourself and others in your next meeting or dialogue. Make a practice of it and execute. You will be well on your way to becoming indispensable. While others are stuck in the “ideas world,” you will be making it happen.
