December 2011 – Bruce Thompson Coaching

The post back in December about Identifying Corporate Procrastination has sparked a bit of a debate about the relationship and difference between Procrastination and Overwhelm. While procrastination is an internal choice, albeit unconscious in most cases, some people have reasoned that overwhelm is a frozen state when one feels overwhelmed by external circumstances, and therein lies a trap for the unwary!

How Procrastination and Overwhelm Affects Business
It is easy to assume that a company in difficulties is the end result of taking wrong decisions. However, it is often the case that the problem is delayed decision making rather than making a wrong choice. The reason why Managers delay action in the face of emerging risks will be explored elsewhere, but the consequence of failure to make timely decisions can cost a business in a number of ways, including:

Unsatisfactory performance
Missed opportunities
Inadequate damage limitation

What Have Procrastination and Overwhelm In Common?
It is not difficult to understand that procrastination is a an internal process, but spotting the similarities with overwhelm is a bit of a stretch.

In order to deal effectively with Overwhelm, it is important to understand the mental processing involved in order to feel overwhelmed. If we believe that Procrastination and Overwhelm are different then it makes a solution more complex, and hence a greater challenge. However once we realize that overwhelm is just another form of procrastination then the solution is much simpler. In coaching terms, once we understand the micro-strategy which is running, then we can make a conscious decision to change the strategy, and so behave differently.

A Typical overwhelm micro-strategy goes something like this:

First imagine the task at hand as a gigantic, looming mass of work of incredible complexity
This leads to feeling that the task is impossible to achieve
Logically and rationally it is pointless starting an impossible task
This feeling in turn leads to putting off doing the task
But we are now in conflicted with the task imperative, so the result is overwhelm!

Put like that, being overwhelmed is more like a conscious decision not to start something, or failure to act for some reason, which is a bit like procrastination!

How To Overcome Procrastination and Overwhelm
The key to dealing with procrastination and overwhelm is to understand that they are the same thing, which is an internal response to external circumstances. Once we take responsibility for the internal process then it is easier to make the change. All we have to do is Decide, Commit, then Act.

Decide
Decision making can be regarded as the mental process which results in the selection of a course of action among several alternatives. Every decision making process produces a single ¹ final choice. With the right motivation, such as a clear positive vision of where you are going, then decision making is straightforward.

Once you rule out the environmentally damaging options, the do-nothing option (this is overcoming procrastination after all!), and any choice limiting options, what remains are candidate options. The question we must ask ourselves, is which of the remaining choices takes us closer to our goals and the vision? If you have multiple choices, with equal merit, then invite your team to chose, or toss a coin! The latter is quick and easy, while the former gets buy in from your team. Either would work.

Commit
When you commit to a course of actions, you cut yourself off from any other possibility, including the possibility of not taking the action. To use a skydiving metaphor, you are suited, booted and out of the door; you can decide on when to pull the ripcord, or your final approach route as you go. If you are CEO, you announce what the result will look like, even if you have no idea how to achieve your vision.

When John F. Kennedy said “We choose to go to the Moon” he personally had no idea how that was going to be achieved; he trusted his team, and put his vision out there. That is commitment!

Act
Once you have made your decision and committed to your course of action, then Act! As Jedi Master Yoda from Star Wars ² is renown for saying “Try not! Do or do not; there is no try!”

Conclusion
To overcome procrastination and overwhelm all we need is the right positive motivation, a clear vision of where we want to go, then decide, commit, then act.

Note 1. For the argumentative or miss-matchers who want to know what happens if you are looking for two options, or a top three, then it is still a single pair, or a single trio, or a single triskaidectet (13) which matches your selection criteria.

Note 2. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) © and TM Lucasfilm Ltd.

Procrastination, or failure to act, is one of the biggest challenges in business. Regardless of whether you are CEO of a multinational corporation, MD of your own limited company or a solo entrepreneur, all businesses suffer from inertia or procrastination from time to time. Identifying Corporate Procrastination is the first step in overcoming it.

Sometimes procrastination can be as simple as overwhelm in an individual, which prevents them from seeing past the pile of paperwork on their desk or the unread mail in their in-box. At other times, this can be collective paralysis when the senior management team has too many voices with conflicting suggestions, which make it almost impossible to pick out the right message from the cacophony. Or it might be the inability of a large organization to alter course in response to a change in the business environment, because of excessive or constraining process or legislation, or an over-reliance on historical precedence.

Procrastination usually takes one of three forms:

Individual Overwhelm
Collective Paralysis
Titanic Obliviousness

Individual Overwhelm
In the first case nothing ever gets done, because there is no place to start. This is sometimes colloquially known as rabbit-in-the-headlight syndrome. The deadline is past, the opportunity is missed, or an entrepreneur’s business venture never sees the light of day. There are plenty of statistics about how many business start and then fail within one, two or five years, but no meaningful information about how many great ideas never get off the ground through procrastination. For a business coach or indeed another person taking an interest, individual overwhelm is quite easy to spot.

Collective Paralysis
The second case, Collective Paralysis, the inertia is procrastination in stealth mode. The subjects will be unaware that they have a problem. If it is the senior management team, they will no doubt be able to show evidence of movement or progress, with minutes evidencing the steps towards a decision, but still the net result is no actual movement. Sometimes this covert procrastination is covered up by excessive requests for further information, and an almost obsessive need to overcome all objections. This can quite often occur at team level, when too many people are talking but no-one is listening.

Titanic Obliviousness
In the third example, it is not always obvious that anything is out of place. The organization is progressing according to projections, all the numbers are looking good, there are no alarm bells ringing and the ship is steady underfoot. Unfortunately, the potential danger may be the iceberg somewhere ahead, so it is no use just looking at the internal gauges of progress. The need to change course rapidly requires mental agility, which may not be the strong suit of the crew that got you where you are today. One possible warning sign of this form of procrastination is that there is a lot of talent leaving the organization.

Procrastination Worst Case
The worst case scenario is a combination of all three forms of procrastination! An organization which is steaming along nicely and does not realize what lies ahead, a dysfunctional senior management team too busy talking up their own interests to respond to new ideas from outside, and a Captain or CEO who has spotted the obstacle ahead but does not know what to do, or has too much work, or just does not realize what is possible. Do you recognize that scenario?

Where To Get Help
If you are a solo entrepreneur starting a new business venture, or the multinational CEO, the last thing you want to focus on is failure. But if you address the common reasons for failure, you’ll be much less likely to fall victim to them yourself. That is the purpose of a mastermind group, and why quotes from some of the greats can often help.

One of my favorite quotes in business coaching is actually from Arthur C. Clarke: The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible. In other words imagine what might be possible, and try it.
Another quote which works for me is from Samuel Johnson – Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome. Allow sufficient time for the objectors and nay-sayers to have their moment, and then make up your own mind. Decide on the new course, commit yourself to your chosen direction by documenting your decision, and finally act upon that decision.
In case you fall into the trap of thinking that you still do not have enough information to make a decision, then heed the words of Albert Einstein: Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Conclusion
All businesses suffer from inertia or procrastination from time to time, but a good executive business coach can help us identify the problem and point us in the right direction. All we need then is a little imagination and the fortitude to decide, commit and then act.

Resources
The Seven Pitfalls of Business Failure And How to Avoid Them by Patricia Schaefer