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Reports : Getting further faster: Closing the knowing-doing gap
In the latest of his monthly e-zines, Pete Rogan of Future Positive Consulting reminds us that "sometimes in life and business we don’t get as far as we wanted or go as fast as we wanted". Pete asks: "Why?" and argues that "one big reason is the failure to bridge the knowing-doing gap. We know what we need to do but we lack follow-through". What else does Peter say?
Success is not a mystery
While no-one can deny the importance of the X-factor – a natural talent or ability – and the occasional assistance of Lady Luck, most success can be but down to a combination of the courage to get out the comfort zone and god old BHW (Boring Hard Work).
As one of my mentors likes to point out, the two hardest and most important parts of any endeavour are getting started and getting finished ……
Follow-through part one: Getting started
Sometimes we have a great idea get really excited about it and never quite get round to doing anything about it. The favoured line is “I can’t find the time”. Sometimes – if we’re being honest - the whole “can’t find the time” thing is just a smokescreen for two other things “I haven’t really got a plan” or “I’m actually a bit scared of the idea now that I’ve sobered up and it’s staring me in the face”.
The first step in closing the knowing-doing gap is to have a plan. For most of us (bar those lucky few with a natural gift in this area) planning is the very definition of Boring Hard Work: Sometimes tedious, complex, ambiguous with no obvious immediate result. We’d really rather just dive in and start making avoidable mistakes thanks you very much. The really bad news is there’s no way around it. We just have to find the discipline to do it. The plan is the foundation of everything. Weak plan usually equals failed (or at the very least problematic) implementation. The truth I suppose is that if we want the result badly enough we’ll find the discipline to do the planning, if we don’t it’s just a sign that we really weren’t that serious in the first place.
The second step is getting past that troublesome jumping-off-the-diving-board moment: Taking that step that commits us to that no-turning-back-now phase. Having a good plan really helps win the psychological battle on this one. It brings the confidence that we are not diving into the unknown and that if we stick to the plan we can see our way through it (albeit with the odd inevitable excursion to confusion, doubt and panic along the way). Having a good team of people (or informal support network) around also helps a lot. Knowing you have people to turn to for comfort, reassurance, advice, and an occasionally necessary boot up the derriere helps. Beyond that we simply have to locate our JFDI gene (Just Do It - I never did work out what the F stood for ). Finding this in ourselves is a skill in itself, and like all skills the more we practice it, the better and quicker we get at finding it. As that well know management philosopher Del Boy put it “He who dares wins Rodney”.
Some people are rather good at planning and not jumping. Others are rather too good at jumping without the advisable precautions of planning. Each alone is a recipe for failure, together they are a recipe for success.
Follow-through part two: Following up
A key component of following through is the suspiciously similar sounding “following-up”. More BHW (Boring Hard Work) I’m afraid, but the good news is that it works, and nothing else does.
Get back to the plan – the actions, timescales milestones. Check what you’re meant to be doing this week (yes, weekly check-ins), check that you did what you said you would do last week and how it went. Recognise and celebrate progress and success. Be honest about setbacks, missed promises, mistakes. Don’t accept any excuses from yourself, but equally don’t kick yourself to death over it. That’s missing the point. Completely. This is about learning not punishment, about growth and development, not giving ourselves reasons to wish we’d never started this in the first place. That’s just a guaranteed formula for damaging confidence, ambition and desire.
The key word here is discipline: Steady, calm, positive, unspectacular BHW. You can either do this or pray for a miracle.
Follow through part three: Getting finished
Here’s the hard bit. Getting finished presents two interesting problems:
1. Fear of failure
2. Fear of success
While we are chuntering away happily during the implementation phase we can still keep alive the hope and the promises: Finishing means submitting it to judgement in some fashion. The fear of failure is more obvious one. Few people like to let others down, and fewer still enjoy criticism or a sense of failure, so putting off judgement day can be a temptation. Like many temptations it’s seductive but ultimately destructive, procrastination is like a comfy bed, easy to get into hard to get out of.
The more other enemy of finishing is the often-missed fear of success. If we succeed, it might open up a whole new can of worms. Things might change. Expectations will go up – you’ll be expected to deliver to this standard every time from now on. You might get more challenging problems or assignments to take on that you’re not sure that you either can, or want to handle. Your role might change, you might get pulled away from things that you like doing into things that you are good at but don’t like doing.
The key here is again a combination of discipline, BHW and psychological strength. Stick to the plan and to the follow-up mechanisms that drive it on and on week by week by week. Also work on seeing beyond our fears. We can’t stop feeling fear – that’s just natural human emotion – but we can teach ourselves to see it for what it is and choose to move beyond its constraints. As Rudyard Kipling observed, teaching ourselves to: “Meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same”.
In summary
How well do you manage the knowing-doing gaps in your business and wider life? Understanding these gaps, why they occur and how to overcome them could have a huge impact on your success and satisfaction. Many people have cracked the code and enjoy as much business as they can manage. It's not luck. It's a skills and techniques implemented with discipline and consistency.
Making a breakthrough – starting now
So this month find one thing in your work or wider life that will make a difference to your success and happiness (or better still the success and happiness of those around you as well) and work out what you need to do to:
1. Get it started
2. Drive it on
3. Get it finished.
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