Did your focus on action obstruct action?
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Did your focus on action obstruct action?
Your Friday Trigger Question #136
Reading time: about 1.6 minutes
You are a manager. Managers get things done. Unlike leaders. Leaders envision things that managers must get done.
Sorry. I did not mean to go off about leadership again. It's just that we pay way too much attention to leaders and leadership. As if other people don't matter.
And yet, visioning and dreaming matter. But dreams will stay dreams if someone does not enact them. Leading someone else to execute is not enacting. It's directing.
Sorry. Did it again. This happens when I act on my thoughts without focusing on how I should express them so that people can understand what I mean.
That is also what many managers end up doing if they aren't careful. If you are too quick to act because you are so keen on getting things done, then you will prevent others from understanding how they should act to get things done.
Hang on. Let me explain that differently and maybe clearer.
Your job as a manager is to turn (leadership) dreams into projects. And to turn projects into action steps. Why? So that the people best suited to getting those things done can get on with getting those things done.
It's called delegating. Actually, done that way, it is called effective delegating.
The problem... Yes, there is always a problem. The problem is two-fold. First, you can probably do it faster and smarter. And second, you are itching to jump in and get it done. (Because you're a manager. It's your nature to get things done.)
The solution? Don't focus on getting things done. Focus on the people who must get things done.
Or translated into manager-speak: Don't act-out the steps to get things done. Rather, act-on the people who must act out the steps to get things done.
If you don't, you might find yourself without a title, getting the things done that your leader envisioned for your manager to execute.
Your Friday Trigger Question:
Did your focus on action obstruct action?
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.