How great leaders inspire action in their teams

The Know-Do Gap

I was speaking with a client recently about how great leaders inspire team action. And we got talking about a thing called the ‘know-do gap’. The know-do gap is where we know something, we have the knowledge about something, we even know that it has to get done, and yet there’s a chasm between the knowing and the doing.

When your focus is on growth — for your business or your career — that’s an inhibitor. Let’s look at three ideas to help close that gap by helping to engage both you and your people in taking action.

1. Great Leaders Ask: What’s In It For Them?

One of the reasons we don’t take action on things is we don’t understand what the benefit is for us. If we don’t feel connected to a project or task it makes it so much harder to act upon it.

So try to put yourself into the mind of somebody else, and think about what’s in it for them on a personal or a career level. Because when we find and lock in that emotional connection, productivity goes through the roof.

2. View Leadership as a Partnership

Each year Mercer releases their Global Talent Trends report and what stands out is the notion that no longer do people want to work for you — they want to work with you! This has become really prominent since the pandemic.

So find a way to truly collaborate with your team, and help people feel like they have skin in the game. Your team want to be part of something and they want to feel they are contributing. So treat them as partners, not employees.

3. Break It Down Into Small Steps

Always remember the ‘Game of Inches’ philosophy. One of the reasons things don’t get done is we are all too busy and have too many mountains to climb. It’s overwhelming.

The fact is, though, there is no mountain to climb — there is only the next step. So help your team shift their thinking to breaking down a task or project into small steps. That’s when you start getting small wins, and when you start getting more momentum is when things start happening.