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The Secret To Business and Workplace Success? It’s Getting Stuff Done

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Apr 28, 2016
This article is part of a series called Classic TLNT.

Editor’s Note: As I wind down my stint as Editor of TLNT — Friday is my last day — I wanted to share some of my favorite posts from over the years. Here’s one from April 2013.  

Sometimes, the most complicated questions have the simplest answers.

This can be a little hard to comprehend because we’re conditioned to believe that complexity requires more complexity, a lesson that may have sunk in for me back when I was taking higher math classes as a kid and got freaked out by the humongous equations.

But, it also infects the business world and the talent management arena, too.

I used to have a boss — let’s call him Steve — who seemed to be obsessed with what the “strategy” was for my area of the business. Never mind the fact that HE really didn’t have a coherent strategy for anything, but he drove me (and my managers) crazy with meetings, required memos, and all manner of discussions that were designed around formulating a strategy that he approved of.

Strategy? It’s about “doing things”

I thought I had gotten there on many occasions only to have him pooh-pooh what I thought was a good strategy with a dismissive, “that’s not a strategy, those are tactics” response.

This article is part of a series called Classic TLNT.