Suggestions That Are Concrete and Actionable
The third criterion for a truly effective guidance system is the
nature of the advice. It must be specific and actionable. For a time-
challenged executive seeking to improve his or her performance,
nothing is more frustrating than to invest the time seeking knowl-
edge only to receive vague and general platitudes such as “Listen-
ing is important for success.”
Improving leadership effectiveness requires doing things differ-
ently and better. Einstein is reported to have said that one defini-
tion of insanity is to continue to do the same thing but expect a
different result. Thus a system to support future action needs to pro-
vide concrete, actionable suggestions: practical steps people can
take to improve their performance in a given competency.^7 Some
of the existing texts are very good in this regard; others speak
only of the overall importance of the area or provide general plati-
tudes without ever offering clear direction. To help ensure action-
able advice, we have written the guidance in our system in the first
person future: “I will.. .” This has forced us to provide concrete
actions people can take. We were surprised at how difficult it was
to find well-supported examples in our review of the management
literature. There is a pressing need for more and better research to
document the most helpful actions that people can take to improve
their effectiveness in given competencies.
Information in “Bite-Sized Pieces”
The pace of today’s business has heightened managers’ sense of
urgency, their impatience, and their need to “get to the point”
quickly. A crisp, concise guide will see more day-to-day use than an
exhaustive treatise, however scholarly and beautifully written. The
need for conciseness is further heightened when the information is
presented electronically. Large blocks of text are difficult to read on
computer monitors. People tend to scan and “chunk” information
presented on Web pages, skipping over long paragraphs and click-
ing off pages of dense text.
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