I work with several companies on rolling-out the results of their employee surveys. I do executive presentations, employee town-halls, enterprise-level action planning, frontline action planning, KPI setting – the whole works! In my experience, the companies who come out successful from such initiatives are the ones with a strong “bias for action”. They have a sense of urgency for getting things done, for making the workplace better, for taking the organization forward. Often companies, leaders and HR professionals fall into the “excessive deliberation” trap. Deliberation is good, but an overdose of it can paralyze actions. It can be demotivating to people. Timelines can go for a toss. And employees are left in the lurch.
Tom Peters talked a lot about bias for action in his book “In Search of Excellence”. He also shared some slides on this on his website. I just loved the quote on the second slide:
“We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.” ~ Herb Kelleher
So, stop staring indefinitely at the employee survey results. Make things happen.
