Know How? Do You Know-Do?
“There is no shortage of know-how. Know-do, you will.” Business Yoda.
Harvard Business Review cautions business leaders, managers and would-be entrepreneurs to avoid the “smart-talk trap.”
At the center of both stories is a particular kind of inertia that plagues companies of every size and type. In our four years of research at nearly 100 companies, we observed it at global conglomerates and at 20-employee start-ups, at capital-intensive manufacturers and at knowledge-driven service firms. It is not the inertia of indifference or ignorance but of knowing too much and doing too little. We call this phenomenon the knowing-doing gap.
It’s good reminder that in many cases, knowing what to do too often substitutes for doing what you know.
