Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 29 seconds

Quick Initiative, Slow Follow-Through

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 29 seconds

In my old job at Prcoter and Gamble, one of the characteristics they looked for beside things like communication, intepersonal and creative problem-solving skills, was called “Initiative and Follow Through”.

If you’ve collaborated with me on anything in the past year or so, you’ll know my initiative-taking is really quick, but my follow through is less consistent. I almost always follow through, but the speed varies, depending on a lot of things, like family life, actual paid work pressures, and the..er… Million or so other initiatives I am on.

I always have questions and ideas about writing things. If I get a research or article idea, I either write it (if single author), or blog about it (to invite others to join in) or discuss it with someone to develop it first. If it,s a single-authored thing I can honestly say if I am passionate enough I can get it done in somewhere between two hours and three days, depending on how much new research I need to do to finish it.

If it’s collaborative work, sometimes it has a sense of urgency, but other times it can get better by letting it stew, and sometimes I think it helps if I leave space for others to take the idea in different directions rather than lead. It may feel like abandonment (but I never lose complete touch with my collaborators – I keep going in to google docs, group DMs and stuff; just not taking leadership too much).

So yeah, sometimes I do it coz I am busy, but I really do think slow follow through on some things make them better, allows more people to catch up and reflect and come up with something even better and have more ownership.

What do you all think?

6 thoughts on “Quick Initiative, Slow Follow-Through

  1. Slow follow through can sometimes get out of hand and allow things to die as they slip from our thoughts. Alternately, insights appear with time and exposure to things we might think are “unrelated” in the initial rush. There must be different characteristics, qualities and uses for closing / completing subjects like at Proctor and Gamble and the seemingly less directed open-for-input style?

    I think you are right that an individual project needs completion–maybe because the feeling of being unresolved blocks new thoughts and new projects? Read in a writer’s guide once that we need to learn to trust we can come back to an interrupted thought stream and that’s true but it’s best used when other strategies fail and a full-time way to write.

    Collaboration requires a certain graceful patience and expectation that everyone is doing what they can. A release of control maybe that sometimes can be frustrating.

    1. Hey Scott, yes the release of control can frustrate both me (i tolerate it) and others (who may or may not – #rhizo14 are exemplary tolerants of that kinda thing)

  2. I have commented before on our (since we both have it) desire to be “quick to publish” when ideas inspire us. I think that is in part why blogging works well for us. When inspiration hits, it gives us a space to get the ideas out before they fade away into the ether … I think I’ve forgotten more things than I have written about … so there is that desire to get an idea written down, but also to share it while the excitement about the whole thing is still fresh …

    Sometimes I find that things don’t get better with time, they just get older … and with that, there is value in being quick to publish and quick to get things done … now if only I could figure out how to be quick to do a lit review!

  3. This article on procrastination is a bit relevant. Not suggesting you are procrastinators, only it suggests to me that there is an internal clock that might signal a “best time to start” and then the determination to finish takes over. Wonder if this is a learned behaviour? As in you learned that starting and completion at a certain place in the assignment cycle got you better grades? Or if it’s a natural response of a good student to preform this way?

    The author looks like an interesting person. For Laura G. maybe?

    Data mining finds lessons about procrastination
    Education by the Numbers
    Column by JILL BARSHAY
    June 15, 2015
    http://hechingerreport.org/data-mining-finds-lessons-about-procrastination/

    1. Well said Jeffrey! So tweetable/quotable “there is more to learn than we have time to learn it”

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