Despite huge investments, companies frequently fail to turn that knowledge into action. For some reason, they can’t bridge the gap between knowing what they need to do, and actually doing it

More than 1,700 business books are published each year. Most of the ideas are not new, yet they find a ready market because; the ideas are
never implemented. Companies spend $43 billion each year on consulting, yet much of the analysis and advice is not applied.

In many companies, people have learned to treat talking about something as the equivalent of doing something about it. Plans, presentations, and reports become a substitute for action. Yet, planning for the future is not enough to produce the future. Something has to get done and someone has to do it.

In companies that allow talk to take the place of action, a powerful precedent becomes rooted in the organization. Making the change to actually taking action means breaking the historical way of doing, or rather, not doing things. Don’t allow memory to substitute for thinking…it’s a new world!

One obstacle that prevents businesses from turning knowledge into action is internal competition. Do Hudson Valley businesses suffer from this disease? If marketing is having a problem with timely delivery do they let shipping know? We must fight the competition and not each other.

The most successful firms were built on a foundation of a simple strategy that everyone could understand, along with a few key practices that can be measured and used to enhance performance. Does the reverse of this happen in your company because the underlying strategy is not really clear, and where the number of measures far outnumber actions?

It’s important to put why before how! Successful firms begin with a few basic principles, not with specific practices. ” At Ford quality is everyone’s job one”. What is important to business is a philosophy and set of guidelines for the way they will operate. Does your company have these guiding lights in place?

Action counts more than elegant concepts. The best plans, and the most elegant concepts, still need someone to act on them. There is no doing without mistakes. Successful businesses value failures as crucial first steps in learning how to succeed in new ways.

In many of the organizations that fail to turn knowledge into action is found an atmosphere of fear and distrust. People are afraid to take risks. They are afraid to challenge the traditional ways of doing things, or to innovate new ones. There is no first time doing without mistakes.

Successful companies are distinguished by a culture and a set of day-to-day management practices that place a high value on turning knowledge into action. It matters what leaders do, how they spend their time, and how they allocate their resources.

The role of 21st century leaders is not necessarily to make strategic decisions. Their chief task is to build systems of practice that transform knowledge into action!

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