A Plan for Immediate Action

Every session Cindy and I do, be it in person, virtual, or for any of our digital resources, closes with a call to action; a challenge for participants to identify what they can apply immediately from whatever we just shared. That call to action is really based on two things… First was the expectation that had always been placed on me to produce a measure impact on productivity from any training I had attended. The second thing was a comment I heard someone make in a training session just a few years back. One of the participants commented on all the take-aways they had learned and made notes on through the two day event. The trainer was quick to push back by suggesting that those take-aways wouldn’t do much if they never put them in play…

Consider this; you’re away from work for a training event. It doesn’t really matter if that’s half a day of a full week, it’s extremely rare to have anyone cover for us while we’re gone… But the workload never stops, especially when we have any kind of leadership responsibility. And the more of that responsibility we carry, the higher the pile on our desk is sure to be when we get back! I’d ask if any of this rings true but I know just how much it is true all too well…

Not only does that pressure serve as a distraction while we’re away, investing into ourselves and our businesses, it can be a huge roadblock to applying even the best lessons when we return. I remember leaving numerous behavior-based safety conferences with some of the most exciting ideas for improving the work we did in our own facility, only to nearly drown in the work that was waiting for me when I got back to my office. Since being too busy was never an acceptable excuse, I still had to figure out a way to apply some of those ideas and show a tangible return. But it was usually really, really tough!

As I was leaving a conference one year, I noticed one company had reserved a meeting room in the same hotel and had all their team members who attended stay an extra day. Me being me, I started asking questions. Turns out they had been doing this for years! They had experienced the same issues upon returning to their respective facilities so they started booking an extra day to detail the specific action steps they could each take as soon as they returned to their offices. And they raved about the results!

Understanding that the workload almost always increases exponentially for business owners and executives, even when they’re only away for a few hours, Cindy and I took responsibility for building time into our Executive Leadership Elite Think Tank session for this kind of strategic action planning. The fourth and final hour of the time we have with this group on a quarterly basis, is dedicated specifically to allowing each participant to have an opportunity to outline the one thing they picked up during the tailored lesson and the group coaching session that they can apply right away. As they outline that immediate action item, we also challenge them to detail the results they want to achieve, who on their team they’ll work with to ensure it’s successful, the tangible impact they want this step to have on their business, the impact they want to make on their overall culture by implementing this step, and when they hope to begin seeing results. We also suggest they list three additional things they picked up throughout the session that they can apply moving forward. Those aren’t necessarily things they take action on right away, but the things that struck a chord with them and they don’t want to lose sight of. We typically close out the session with each member of the group sharing a little bit about what they plan to do. While this also helps hold them accountable to one another, they each typically get even more ideas from what everyone else is planning to put in place.

I’m certainly not suggesting that a group like this is the right fit for every business owner or executive, but we’ve definitely seen it serve the folks involved by helping them each hone the executive leadership skills they need most to serve their teams. Moving forward, we’ll take a look at a few of those specific skills and why they matter for building a strong leadership culture!