The Knowing-Doing Gap
This book was suggested to me years ago by my cousin, who is a superintendent of an award-winning High School with over four thousand students.
He has been a thought leader in education for decades and suggested the book well before the “knowing-doing gap” became somewhat cliché.
If you are unfamiliar with this phrase, it was coined to identify the phenomenon in an organization where the staff knows what needs to be done or changed but never actually implements the change.
The biggest reason for not crossing the knowing-doing gap is fear.
Fear of results, fear of change, fear of repercussions.
Most of us know what needs to change, but we don’t do the work today to make those changes because we fear change. Even if the status quo is sub-optimal, at least it is known.
There is another part: trust.
Who and what do you trust?
I was recently talking with a client, and he had someone reach out to him who was, at one time, a really big deal in a genre. This person was seen as an expert by many and made high six-figures before many others.
Now, they were all but out of publishing. They had neglected their audience and hadn’t kept up with the market. Their tired old series and reboots were landing flat. Rather than throwing in the towel, they decided to publish again, but this time, they published a book about indie publishing. As an author, this behavior adds to the knowledge gap by confusing and confounding you about what works and who to trust.
What makes this more difficult is when the doing doesn’t deliver results right away. Repetitive work that may slowly be compounding and creating momentum might not feel like it’s working.
Do you currently have a knowledge-doing gap?
Action counts more than elegant plans. I’ve learned that the best approach is a rough plan of action followed by a reassessment. If no plan survives contact with reality, then learn how to navigate rather than plan.
What’s the difference? You may have heard the saying, “the map is not the territory,” meaning that your map is just a rough approximation of reality. Your map is not a plan; it’s a navigation tool. A map with a compass and waypoints allows you to determine where you are in relation to where you started and where you want to end up. Know where you want to go, then do the next right thing to move forward. If you are totally lost in publishing, the next right thing is to write something.
There is no doing without mistakes, and there are no mistakes if they help you learn. Each day from now on, ask yourself and those around you what brought you joy today and what you learned today. Just the act of focusing on those questions, framed that way versus “how did your day go,” will shift what you learn and what you do each day.
We are implementing many new systems and ideas for Author Nation. Some will fall flat, others won’t deliver as expected, and many will be great and become the new norm for all conferences. What will be unique is our team’s courage and vision to cross the knowing-doing gap. In our case, it has been embraced as a creative endeavor, a way to make something new and amazing. We are looking to facilitate local groups. This is a lot of work and takes resources. The easier way would have been not to do it, but we see how, even not at its full potential, it will help many authors with support and accountability.
I think of it like a rough first draft. Once it’s done, we can get feedback and make changes. If people are telling us what they don’t like, that’s okay. They care enough to comment, and some even care enough to raise their hand and help make it better.
Take some time this week to look at what gap you haven’t crossed and whether fear or mistrust is holding you back. What’s the worst that can happen if you just step into that gap and do the next right thing?
Read: The Balanced Scorecard as the Backbone of Your Author Business