On the evening of Howard Dean's third-place showing in the Iowa caucus in January 2004, he took the stage to thank his supporters and provide a little moral support. What followed was a cross between a pep rally and a geography lesson delivered with a kind of crazed intensity that people admire in high school football coaches but not in presidential hopefuls. This one moment seemed to exemplify his foibles and crystallize doubts about his credibility. What is sad about this moment is that it could have been prevented, if only Dr. Dean had thought about it first.
Easy to say in retrospect but hard to anticipate. Managers, however, can learn from this example, as well as many others, and begin to teach their employees to think first, then act.
Internal Dialogue Simon Blackburn, an author and philosopher, argues in his book, Think, that "practical reasoning" (itself a form of thinking) emerges from within, e.g. "we need to know where we stand." Thinking is a form of figuring things out. That statement is music to the ears of engineers and programmers but equally important for those who manage people. As a manager you have to do two things: one, provide context for decisions; two, enable people freedom to figure things out for themselves and thereby become active participants in the work. When people know the why and wherefore they become much more committed to their work. Hence, the urgent need for thinking.
Thinking is a form of communication. It is a kind of dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious. As such it is something that should be encouraged as part of the communication process. If we teach our people to think, we can avoid the kind of rash decisions that result in products that do not perform, upgrades that no customer wants and service that is prevention-minded rather than patch-up.
Forethought, however, is no guarantee that mistakes will not be made. The people at Coca-Cola thought long and hard about the introduction of New Coke in the early 1980s, just as the team at Apple thought equally long about not licensing their software to others. Both decisions proved disastrous.
Think, Then Act We live in a culture with a strong bias for action. This is good; it is what has propelled American enterprise as the engine of global commerce. But in the process, it has chewed up good ideas and good people. While ideas are not in short supply, thinking them through is not valued enough. Too often we jump the gun with half-baked ideas, not because we are half-baked but because our management system rewards us for doing, not thinking. So here are some things managers can do to get people to think before they act.
Talk about the need to think. Mention that you want people to take time to consider options and alternatives. You can encourage this kind of thinking by inviting them to write a short memo itemizing the need for action. Caution: this only applies to major decisions. If you apply this process to every action step, you will incur the unintended (but predictable) consequence of thinking — analysis paralysis.
Invite people to think. Make a habit of inviting people to talk about their reasons for doing things as well as reasons for not doing them. You will risk the option of getting pushback on your great ideas but sometimes it is good to have ideas vetted by good discussion. At the same time, as a manager you will have to override opposing thoughts in order to get things done.
Learn from thinking. When you put a new idea into practice let it be known where the idea came from. Recognize those who contributed. Also, cobble together ideas from many sources. The germ of one idea, combined with the beginnings of others, may involve into a fully formed infectious idea that everyone wants to catch. Do not rush into action; think about it overnight and in the coming weeks. Revisit it later to see if the concepts hold validity.
Apply Lessons to People Aword to the wise: Do not forget to apply some of this thinking to yourself. Think about what you could be doing to make things better for your people. Thinking about your people is a good preparation for a coaching session. Think about what you want to say and what you want to accomplish. Frame your thoughts in such a way that they are geared toward bringing out the best in your people, first by appealing to their self-interest and then to their interest in making things better for the team, and eventually the organization.
As we consider the value of thinking, it is good to recall a story told by Douglas Brinkley in Wheels for the World, a biography of Henry Ford and his namesake company. An efficiency expert complained to Ford that a man with an office down the hall had his feet up on the desk and was staring into space. To which Ford, a man who institutionalized efficiency, countered by relating how the man with his feet on his desk had once saved the company $10,000. Ford knew, as all good managers know, that a good thought was often more valuable that a day's worth of production.
It's a good thing to keep in mind as you plan your next staff meeting. Think about it.
John Baldoni is a leadership communications consultant who works with Fortune 500 companies as well as non-profits including the University of Michigan. He is a frequent keynote and workshop speaker as well as the author of six books on leadership; the latest is How Great Leaders Get Great Results (McGraw-Hill). Readers are welcome to visit his leadership resource website at
www.johnbaldoni.com.