Three reasons why
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personal productivity/following up/getting things
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can be difficult
1. The Smart Talk Trap: Even the best managers sometimes forget that to inspire action, they need to do more than simply spout platitudes.
2. The Knowing-doing gapDoing Gap: Hollow talk, debilitating fear, destructive internal competition, poorly designed and complex measurement systems and mindless reliance on precedent can stop effective action in its tracks.
3. Attention Deficit Trait: The ever-present distractions of modern technology (email, the web, and all over our gadgets, natch) overload our "brain circuitry".
The Smart-Talk Trap. By: Pfeffer, Jeffrey; Sutton, Robert I.. Harvard Business Review, May/Jun99, Vol. 77 Issue 3, p134-142, 9p, 2c; Abstract: This article reports that many companies are plagued by a gap between knowing too much and doing too little about problems that face their organization. The authors call this space the "knowing-doing" gap. This gap can be traced to a basic human propensity to let talk substitute for action. Talk, and especially smart talk, is highly rewarded in organizations because speaking with intelligence and confidence has been reinforced in people. Five characteristics have been found in companies that have avoided the smart-talk trap, which include having leaders who understand their work, have a bias for plain language and simple concepts, frame questions by asking "how," not just "why," have strong mechanisms that close the loop, and believe that experience is the best teacher in business. Listed companies that use talk productively include IDEO Product Development, Bayport Terminal, Continental Airlines, Macintosh, and Merrill Lynch.
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