We previously explored the human knowledge base and its importance to building effective human systems. Unfortunately, knowing something isn’t the same as acting on that knowledge.
Any roomful of leaders can rattle off a long list of characteristics that define outstanding organizations. The systems headed by those leaders, however, will often fail to manifest the very principles they have articulated.
The problem, it becomes clear, is not that we leaders don’t know what to do, but rather that we are not choosing to act on that knowledge.
Do any of us really believe that sarcasm is conducive to productive meetings? That interdepartmental turf battles contribute to an efficiently functioning business? That withholding information from perceived rivals leads to the best possible solutions?
And yet these dynamics are rife in the workplace, from the largest multinationals to the smallest family businesses.
This is perhaps the central challenge facing leadership at all levels: that the practices we know to be constructive are not consistently applied, while the habits we know to be detrimental continue unabated.
The gravity of this challenge should not be underestimated. Most leaders have a clear sense of how decisions of policy or strategy shape their organization, but far, far fewer understand the real-world impact their decisions of daily conduct and demeanor — those minute-by-minute choices leaders make in acting and interacting with others — have on organizational health, productivity, and capacity.
Put simply, human systems will only be as effective as the personal choices of their leaders. Leaders seeking optimum performance must, therefore, be consistently and conscientiously choosing behaviors that reflect the best principles of the human knowledge base.
They must, in other words, resolve carry out in practice what they already know to be right in both theory and personal experience.