Daily Inspiration: “Stop the complaining. Quit pretending. End the evading. No more postponing. Start doing!”

“Stop the complaining. Quit pretending. End the evading. No more postponing. Start doing!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Many of my clients will talk of the need for action, big bold decisions, aggressive steps to align themselves to fast change.

I’ll look back on them years later, and I sometimes see a few that are dying from their indecision and insecurities. They’ve failed in the key leadership attribute of taking actual action.

My favourite situation? Motorola! They brought me in for a high level leadership meeting of their global R&D team, senior executives, movers and shakers. Blackberry/RIM was the dominant force in their industry; Skype was demonstrating a future in which voice was but a commodity; hyper change with products was the new rule. They wanted to focus on an aggressive path to accelerate their capabilities, enhance their R&D.

ALL the things I spoke to them about in terms of future trends came to pass. It’s fascinating to go back and look at the slide deck in the context of the eventual reality of the trends I identified.

What did they do with the insight I shared? Not much! I spent two days with them – and watched as much of that time was consumed by internal squabbles over the allocation of R&D budgets. Staffing issues. Petty rivalries. Internal politics.

Excuses, inaction, half-hearted efforts, misguided decisions. These are the sins of the innovation failures of our time.

The thing is – this happens all the time, and organizations *let it happen.* It also happens on a personal level, a fact that some of my friends are fully aware of.

The path to personal enrichment is often a rocky and complex one, but the voyage is easier once you make a full commitment to it.

It’ not until you take personal responsibility for your actions, and are willing to admit that you’d better settle on a new path, that you’ll start to see real progress.

Excuses, complaints, evasion, indecision – these are the drugs of avoidance. It’s best to identify them, be aware of them, and avoid them!