It may usually be difficult to find a balance between thinking and acting in our everyday lives. Indeed, people often tend to lean towards one of the two extremes: overanalyzing the situation without delivering any practical solution or reacting to new ideas without sufficient assessment of possible obstacles. In this regard, being able to act fast but smart is of great importance. Especially achieving such balance is crucial for modern companies as it is associated with their ability to survive and thrive under fierce competition. For this reason, Rath (2007) provides guidelines on how managers can develop quality, which is called an activator, in order to facilitate the timely implementation of certain project initiatives. Thus, the current journal seeks to discuss how I would adopt the author’s suggestions in practice as a leader of a team.
First, to be a good activator, I should change my mindset towards thinking and acting as complementing rather than mutually exclusive processes. Although prior analysis is important and should be done thoroughly, it is crucial to remember that certain insights can be discovered only during actual plan realization. It implies that one should not wait for perfect conditions to act but act consciously for perfection. Therefore, when the project is not progressing from the discussion stage, I should motivate people to start acting because the theoretical knowledge of the team members has reached its limits.
Also, to maximize the benefit of one’s activator talent, I should earn the trust and loyalty of other team members. In order to achieve that goal, a number of strategies can be applied. For instance, the leader can promote open communication with people so that the latter can freely express their thoughts and ideas and feel that their opinion is valuable. Additionally, a delegation of responsibilities may increase an individual’s engagement with the group or the company goals and help to build trust in the leader. As a result, the increased trust would help me to realize the projects in practice as there would be less struggle to a change.
Furthermore, it is crucial to know the best time and place to introduce one’s ideas and persuade others for action. Probably, the best strategy, in this case, would be trying to study the prevailing sentiments among team members. If it is found that most individuals support the idea to start realizing the plans in practice, then I should announce the idea during the nearest meeting of decision-makers. On the contrary, if most people think that more analysis should be done before moving to the next stage, then it would be wise to try persuading teammates one by one. Moreover, I should also seek to cooperate with other activators to unite the efforts and increase the influence. Therefore, the best time and place for introducing my ideas would be during joint meetings when a significant number of people can leverage my arguments.
Finally, I should support and inspire other activators to share their ideas too. To this end, it is essential to listen to other people actively, which means that I should demonstrate my interest in what others say, ask questions, and intend to understand other person’s points of view. Such an approach would allow, firstly, broadening one’s horizons and generating new ideas, and, secondly, increasing the speaker’s self-confidence as, in my opinion, it is a central trait of any effective activator. As a result, the group or the company would become more action-oriented, and there would be less unnecessary overthinking.
References
Rath, T. (2007). StrengthsFinder 2.0. Simon and Schuster.