Do YOU Mistake ACTIVITY, for Action

 In Luminary, Message creation, News, The Winning Voice

“A kid who practices hours of sloppy pick-up basketball every day is going to develop less than a kid who practices really well for two hours a day with good instruction and feedback,” Michael Goldstein, one of the best teacher trainers in the country, recently told us.

John Wooden seems to concur, offering would-be coaches this singular advice: “Never mistake activity for achievement.”

This is a quote from the excellent PDF I’ve been reading, titled Rethinking Practice

Do you mistake activity for action?

Here’s another vignette from the document.

“We overrate hard work in evaluating the effectiveness of practice. “Bustling bodies making noise can be deceptive,” Wooden wrote. Hustle and bustle can distract us from noticing when we’re not actually that productive.”

 Do you have a hard working, bustling body or mouth – that is not productive?

Own the Conversation

Aligned to principles in the article, here are ways to engender success in your communication:

#1 Put a calendar entry for tomorrow to ask yourself this question, ‘What could I delete from my calendar?’

#2 In a meeting this week, put an entry in your calendar to remain silent – on one occasion – if you’re unsure whether to speak or not.

#3 In a meeting this week, start the meeting saying, for example, ‘As an experiment, we’re going to finish 15 minutes early – to make sure we’re focusing on action versus activity’.

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p.s. In last week’s post I suggested you ask yourself this question:

  • When is it best to lead from the front versus leading from behind – and what is my preference?

With this message in mind, and for cricket fan readers, a client of mine and luminary CIO, Dr. Raju Varanasi made this observation about the Indian cricket team’s historic win over Australia in the Brisbane Test match earlier this year.

Namely, that the reason India won the match, was that the team was not captained by a ‘lead from the front’ captain (Viral Kohli) – but rather, by a ‘lead from behind’ captain, (Ajinkya Rahane).

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