MODERN LEADERSHIP
into action. They are exceptional
at hacking people’s inertia and the
human tendency to dwell in delay.
Great business leaders are masters
of making movement happen, and
here’s how they do it:
1. Talk action early
Leaders need to master the language
of action and accountability - not
just the language of ideas and intent.
This means being the first to ask
action-focused questions such as:
“how do we make this happen?”, and
“what will get in the way?” and “how
do we make sure this doesn’t fizzle
out after the first month?”. And
then ensuring everyone is crystal
clear about what they expect of one
another.
As a rule of thumb, spend at least
half as much time again discussing
implementation as you spent nutting
out the agreement itself. By talking
action early, you bring forward some
of the tricky questions around what’s
going to get in the way – rather than
pretending those things won’t exist.
2. Engineer the beginning
Often the hardest part of any project
or any kind of change is getting
started. One way to overcome
the barriers to beginning is to
deliberately engineer the way in
which those first critical steps
happen. In practice, this might mean:
• Start small. The enormity of a
change – and the risks that go with
it – can be enough to cause people
to delay taking action. You can
overcome this effect by breaking
the first stages of action down into
tiny chunks. Take the example of
a business owner who wanted his
team to increase the number of sales
calls they made each week. Rather
than focusing on the full extent of
that change, he broke the change
into tiny chinks, asking everyone to
make a single extra call in the first
week. Once that had happened, he
upped it to two calls, and so on until
the team was making the ten extra
calls he had in mind in the first place.
• Start together. Is there a way you
can get all the key stakeholders
together into the one place to start
working on a task simultaneously? I
like to call this a “starty party”, and
it harnesses the motivating effect
of working in packs. As the name
suggests, a starty party should also
be fun, injecting the launch with a
playful energy – much like a fun run.
will come from your own energy,
language and behaviours.
Sending out a proposal or a request
for support with the words, “Let me
know if you have any questions” is
never going to leave someone feeling
a sense of urgency. Contrast that
with the words, “I’ll give you a call
tomorrow to discuss next steps. I’d
be keen to ensure that we get things
moving early next week, because
some of the key players are going to
be in town which presents us with a
rare opportunity to launch the project
with everyone in person...”
3. Create a sense of urgency
As much as I may like your idea or
proposal, why should I take action
today? Especially when there is a
littany of things competing for my
time and energy?
The key question to ask yourself here
is: what if? What happens if people
take action now? What happens
if they don’t? If you don’t have
compelling answers, you need to get
to work on some. After all, one of the
most important signals of urgency
Simon Dowling is an expert in
collaborative leadership and building
cultures of buy-in. He is the author of
a the book Work with Me: How to get
people to buy into your ideas (Wiley)
- more information available at www.
simondowling.com.au.
October 2016
ModernBusiness
41