Don’t confuse motion with improvement

Don't confuse motion with improvement

I wrote recently how action can produce information. But an important corollary to that idea is that action alone does not necessarily mean improvement.

For example, how much time do we spend preparing board materials that the board never looks at, and even if they do look at it, won't take any action on the information provided? (I mean, sure, this probably never happens at your association...)

I recall once as an association staff person many decades ago spending literally weeks preparing a three inch three-ring binder for our board meeting. At the end of the meeting, the board chair, with barely a glance at me, handed me the binder and said "Do something with this."

The reality is that far too often, we're taking action (in motion) but we're not really improving anything.

So think about all the things you do: the data you're collecting, the reports you're running, the marketing you're sending; all of them are motion, but are they really accomplishing something?

Motion alone is not improvement.

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