Essentials of a Successful Meeting Pt 4 Discuss – Decide – Align – Act

Dreams pass into the reality of action.

From the actions stems the dream again;

and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

Anais Nin, American Author

A meeting is nothing without action. The process of moving from concept(s) no matter how brilliant into implementation changes the nature of the game.

Action is synonymous with movement and movement need not always be grandiose and dramatic. It can be but subtle and quiet as thought. The movement from somewhere to somewhere else cannot be accomplished except through action.

Action, i.e. movement, can, and often does, yield unanticipated discovery. Discovery is by definition unanticipated. But if you are not moving, if you are not testing, experimenting, tweaking, and taking advantage of what you learn, discovery is dead on arrival and that death is the cessation of action.

Action

Action is the lifeblood of every outcome. Outcomes begin with discussion, i.e. the open and unobstructed process through which points of view are expressed and made available to every participant in a meeting. Once the strands of those points of view have been woven into a vision and direction and they are expressed though decision. The decision is both a launch point and final goal of the process: the alpha and omega, the announcement of the fact that the condition under consideration cannot remain as it is and a committed effort must be extended to reach a better state.

For example, in 1957 Russian scientists launched Sputnik the first artificial earth satellite. This event shocked the United States. The Russians were considered a primitive people, though that was not spoken publically, who would never be able to take the lead--- but they did. That was unacceptable. So in 1961president John F. Kennedy set a national goal “of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth before this decade is out." Neil Armstrong was that man and he did it in July 1969.

Types of Action

Although the idea of “action” seems monolithic, i.e. it’s only one thing, this is not true. There are at least three types of action:

1 --- Habitual, pertaining to or using a rule or procedure that can be applied repeatedly. When you learn to walk you spend your whole life walking, yet very little changes unless some catastrophic event occurs. Walking is an iterative action with some small changes occurring over time but nothing that would change the essence of walking.

2 --- Developmental, behaviors are unfolded and elaborated, by various technical means, so as to reveal their inherent possibilities. Take, for instance, a collegiate football player who wants to be drafted into the national football league. In the 40 yard dash the difference between 4.0 and 4.1 seconds can mean the difference between being drafted in the first round or not. He will work with a coach to refine his native ability because a tenth of a second is a lot.

3 --- Transformative, to undergo a change in form, appearance, or character. Staying with the physical theme imagine a girl born with seriously compromised lungs who, as she grows older, decides to become a world class runner. AND she succeeds. To do so she has to transform her body and more deeply she has to transcend her identity. She has to become someone different and significantly different in order to triumph over the disadvantage she was born with.

Another example is fund in Steve Jobs approach. He was not famous for tweaking the needle. He was a transformer who changed the way Apple does business and was wildly successful with this approach.

Evolutionary vs Creationist Action

There is a profound difference between evolutionary action vs command-and-control “creationist” action. The latter is what might be called “stroke of the pen” action when an executive can issue an order with his/her signature and the act is done. Evolutionary action is emergent. Evolutionary action is from-the-inside-out action and emerges out of an understanding of the relationship being generated by the product and its environment.

Any decision, no matter how well thought out, is formed into a concept. Every such concept is pure in that it has not been tested in the world. Testing will always discover the limitations and blindspots that are part of any and every new idea. The core of the decision serves as a lead and guide but how it’s implemented will be based on testing and discovery as you move along.

Karl van Clausewitz, a German (Prussian) general and military theorist, has been quoted as saying “no war plan outlasts the first encounter with the enemy.” Action always trumps plans but action cannot be taken without planning. To say this in another way, no decision ever stays intact after its first encounter with the world. No decision is ever sacred. Only change and adaptation remains ongoing---a reciprocal interaction between the core of a decision and the impact of its environment.

So Act!

“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act!

Action will delineate and define you.”

Thomas Jefferson

Action is life. Many people are afraid to act for fear of failure so they work to create perfection to protect them. When we started our first online company in 2005 we fell into the trap of perfection until we were told by a very successful online entrepreneur---“Don’t get it perfect. Get it going.” This did not mean to produce schlock. It meant to discover along the way. That was a very profound and effective lesson because perfection is the death of action---not by homicide but by suicide.

So act!

(Photo Credit: Eric Brisson/Flickr)

James Sniechowski, PhD and his wife Judith Sherven PhD --- https://JudithandJim.com --- have developed a penetrating perspective on people’s resistance to success, which they call The Fear of Being Fabulous. Recognizing the power of unconscious programming to always outweigh conscious desires, they assert that no one is ever failing. You are always succeeding. The question is---at what?

Currently working as consultants on retainer to LinkedIn providing executive coaching, leadership training and consulting as well as working with private clients around the world, they continually prove that when unconscious beliefs are brought to the surface, the barriers to greater success and leadership presence begin to fade away. They call it Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous.https://OvercomingtheFearofBeingFabulous.com