Talking Yourself To Death??

Too many organizations I know are writing their epitaphs in advance. One day, their tombstones will read: We talked ourselves to death. The reality is that, in the fast and ever changing environment most organizations are trying to navigate today, leaders have to be quick to act. And very often that means acting without a carefully constructed plan based on prior experience, perfect information, and somebody else's "best practices" because, frankly, those things simply do not exist.

In an article for the Kellogg School of Management, Aubrey Henretty passes along the wisdom of Marty Evans, who has served as a U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, C.E.O. of the Girl Scouts, and president of the Red Cross.

“You, as a decision maker, do not have perfect information. You don’t have that case study that’s written retrospectively.”

Evans, who was the president and chief executive officer of the American Red Cross during the devastating 2004 Atlantic hurricane season and during the following year’s Hurricane Katrina, knows a thing or two about strong leadership on imperfect information. She and her Red Cross colleagues were conducting ground-level reconnaissance in New Orleans well before Bush administration officials showed up, but still faced many unprecedented challenges.

“It wasn’t a matter of scaling up what you did before,” said Evans. “It was a whole new ball game.”

In another article, Evans describes effective leaders as "people who are flexible and very mission-oriented, don't stop until the job is done, and put service to others above self."

Notice she doesn't say good leaders talk themselves to death. But I meet too many people who are leading organizations or sitting on councils/boards who are paralyzed by the feeling that they need "just a little more information" before they make a decision to DO something. Consequently, very little very gets done.

If you feel like you're spinning your wheels, remember these four steps:

1. Discern - spend time getting what information you can, remembering that you're NEVER going to know everything you need to know in order to make a decision. which leads to...
2. Decide - just pull the trigger! jump out of the plane! know that you might be wrong but remember that you'll never know if you're right or wrong until you actually TRY something! which leads to...
3. Do - follow through. hold yourself and everybody else accountable for making something happen. which leads to...
4. Debrief - pat yourselves on the back for actually TRYING something! celebrate what went right. learn from what went wrong. figure out what needs to happen next. which leads to...
5. Discern - (are you sensing a circular pattern here??? good!)

One day, we (you, me, and the organizations we love) will ALL have tombstones. What do you want yours to read??

- Kelly Fryer