From a simplistic perspective, there really are only two types of activity in business …
Business as usual (BAU) – marketing, selling, serving and administering the day to day transactions of the business.
Improvement – implementing changes designed to make the business more robust and grow it at a rate faster than what might be possible if you just do the business as usual activities, day in day out.
Both actions are important, however they couldn’t be more different. BAU has an in-built accountability … the customer. The paying customer brings a high level of focus and discipline to action.
Improvement doesn’t have the same accountability, or urgency, because the consequences are often only felt INTERNALLY in the business DOWN THE TRACK and we too easily compromise the future for the now.
When we talk about taking “massive action” in business, we’re really talking about taking massive IMPROVEMENT action – but it is a weakness of many businesses.
This was the focus of my book “How To Take Massive Action – The Psychology And Science Of Achieving More” which I wrote as a result of a 20 year consultancy, based on successfully bringing critical business projects home in companies of all sizes.