Talk and Action - Team Mates Not Rivals!

This article was originally published in February 2000 by LearningBuzz.com

Currently, in Western management circles, action is almost universally seen as being superior to talk. "Action orientation" is the stuff of leadership; whilst talk is more likely to be equated with indecision and the antithesis of doing. It might be more useful, though, to adopt a perspective that sees talk and action as interdependent - team mates, not rivals, in the quest for improved organisational performance:

• Talk sets the context within which action takes place. Failure to understand the critical link between context and action is, perhaps, one of the main causes of poor 'follow through' and failed initiatives
• Talk articulates the visions and themes that inspire and energise action
• Talk helps to mobilise and sustain the commitment to action
• Talk is essential to the effective implementation of action: aligning effort, solving unforeseen problems and charting progress
• Talk validates action, by defining what constitutes "success" and determining which results deserve recognition and comment
• Talk builds the relationships and creates the mutual understandings that pave the way for future actions
• Talk extracts the learning from action - enriching the organisation's knowledge and increasing the ability of its members to decide and act more effectively in the future
• Talk can avoid the damaging - and potentially fatal - actions (such as the premature launch of the Challenger space shuttle), which occur when the political or cultural pressure for action suppresses vital information