Closing the Knowing-Doing Gap

If you've read any of the previous blog entries, you'll know I'm a big fan of anything that Jeffrey Pfeffer or Bob Sutton write. And when they co-author a book, you know it's going to be well-researched, intelligent and useful (with a couple of good chuckles - Sutton is a wise-cracker). They have a great knack for debunking commonly held business notions.

One of my dog-eared volumes from Pfeffer and Sutton is a book called, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action. Here's a summary of eight guidelines for action:

1. Why before How: Philosophy is important
2. Knowing comes from doing and teaching others how
3. Action counts more than elegant plans and concepts
4. There is no doing without mistakes. What is the company's response?
5. Fear fosters knowing-doing gaps. So drive fear out.
6. Beware of false analogies: fight the competition, not each other
7. Measure what matters and what can help turn knowledge into action
8. What leaders do, how they spend their time and how they allocate resources, matters.

Pick up a copy if you can. You won't regret it.

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