Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity pdfdrive com

Accountability
The dark side of “collaborative cultures” is the allergy they foster to holding
anyone responsible for having the ball. “Mine or yours?” is unfortunately not in
the common vocabulary of many such organizations. There is a sense that that
would be impolite. “We’re all in this together” is a worthy sentiment, but seldom
a reality in the hard-nosed day-to-day world of work. Too many meetings end
with a vague feeling among the players that something ought to happen, and the
hope that it’s not their personal job to make it so.
The way 
I
see it, what’s truly impolite is allowing people to walk away from
discussions unclear. Real “togetherness” of a group is reflected by the
responsibility that all take for defining the real things to do and the specific
people assigned to do them, so everyone is freed of the angst of still-undecided
actions.
Again, if you’ve been there, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you
haven’t, test it out—take a small risk and ask “So what’s the next action on
this?” at the end of each discussion point in your next staff meeting, or in your
next “family conversation” around the dinner table.

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Productivity
Organizations naturally become more productive when they model and train
front-end next-action decision-making. For all the reasons mentioned above,
determining the required physical allocation of resources necessary to make
something happen as soon as the outcome has been clarified will produce more
results sooner, and with less effort.
There are risks and costs to a program of
action, but they are far less than the long-range
risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
—John F. Kennedy
Learning to break through the barriers of the sophisticated creative thinking
that can freeze activity—that is, the entangled psychic webs we spin—is a
superior skill. “Productivity” has been touted for decades as a desirable thing to
improve in organizations. Anything that can help maximize output will do that.
But in the world of knowledge work, all the computers and telecom
improvements and leadership seminars on the planet will make no difference in
this regard unless the individuals involved increase their operational
responsiveness. And that requires thinking about something that lands in your
world 
before
you have to.
One of the biggest productivity leaks I have seen in some organizations is the
lack of next actions determined for “long-term” projects. “Long-term” does not
mean “Someday/Maybe.” Those projects with distant goal lines are still to be
done as soon as possible; “long-term” simply means, “more action steps until it’s
done,” not “no need to decide next actions because the day of reckoning is so far
away.” When every project and open loop in an organization is being monitored,
it’s a whole new ball game.

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