A BIAS FOR ACTION

How Effective Managers Harness

Their Willpower, Achieve Results,
and Stop Wasting Time
HEIKE BRUCH and SUMANTRA GHOSHAL

HEIKE BRUCH is a human resources professor at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). She earned her
Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Hanover (Germany) and earlier degrees at the Free
University of Berlin. Dr. Bruch’s research focuses on leadership and she has written six books as well as
publishing more than forty articles in journals and books.
SUMANTRA GHOSHAL is a fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research as well as a professor
of strategy and international management at London Business School. A graduate of MIT and Harvard
Business School, Dr. Ghoshal is also a member of the Committee of Overseers of Harvard Business School
and founding dean of the Indian School of Business. Dr. Ghoshal has written several books and more than
seventy articles which have been published in academic journals.

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 A Bias For Action - Page 1

MAIN IDEA
Great managers and effective business leaders have an inbuilt bias for action. They don’t dissipate their time and energy on
peripheral issues – like complaining about overwhelming workloads or trying to work despite tight budgets, barriers, setbacks,
distractions and unsupportive bosses. Instead, good managers get to work purposefully on the organization’s most important work –
cutting costs, improving efficiency and encouraging innovative thinking – and get things done. Good managers harness willpower to
improve both their individual performance and that of the organizations they manage. In essence, great managers stop trying to do
more things and instead focus on getting the right things done.
The process of becoming a purposeful action taker actually has an organizational and a personal dimension:

Becoming a purposeful action-taker

Personal Organizational

Become a purposeful Cultivate action-taking in

action taker yourself the people you manage

Great managers succeed not because they are good at motivating others or giving public addresses, but because they can and do
harness personal willpower to achieve their personal goals, and then find ways to help others do the same. The effective application
of willpower is what differentiates the achievers from the also-rans.

1. The personal dimension of purposeful action-taking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 2 - 5

To act purposefully means to take consistent, conscious and energetic actions which work towards
achieving a goal. This is not a superficial effort to do busywork but a deliberate attempt to eliminate
distractions and produce results. People who achieve this in practice do four things better than others:
1. They possess energy and focus. They make a deliberate attempt to act towards clear goals.
2. They harness their willpower. They aspire to execute disciplined, well-directed actions.
3. They have clear mental pictures of their intentions. Purposeful action-takers make deliberate choices.
4. They overcome the most common traps and snares. They ignite their own dreams first and foremost.
Overall, purposeful action takers lead from the front. They influence others by being a good role model to
emulate.

Personal
Becoming 1 Develop your energy and focus
a
Purposeful 2 Build your reserves of willpower
Action 3 Align your emotions with your goals
Taker
4 Overcome the traps of inaction

2. The organizational dimension of purposeful action-taking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 6 - 8

To build an organization that supports and encourages purposeful action-taking, managers and leaders
must do three things:
1. Create space for autonomous actions to occur, so people have enough freedom to act.
2. Build processes which support action taking into the culture of the organization itself.
3. Develop a culture which celebrates and encourages purposeful action-taking.
In all, creating an organization that acts purposefully isn’t something that can be achieved with quick fixes.
Rather, it will require a long journey where the values and benefits of acting purposefully are extolled and
then enshrined as worthy of emulation. Embedding a bias for action within an organization is difficult and
challenging, but it can and should be done.

Organizational
Cultivating 1 Overcome the internal challenges
Purposeful
Action 2 Weave action-taking into the culture
Taking in Free your people to act accordingly
3
Others

1. The personal dimension of purposeful action-taking
To act purposefully means to take consistent, conscious and
energetic actions which work towards achieving a goal. This is
not a superficial effort to do busywork but a deliberate attempt to
eliminate distractions and produce results. People who achieve
this in practice do four things better than others:
1. They possess energy and focus. Purposeful action-takers
make a deliberate attempt to act towards clear goals.
2. They harness their willpower. Purposeful action-takers
aspire to execute disciplined, well-directed actions.
3. They have clear mental pictures of their intentions.
Purposeful action-takers make a deliberate choice to align
their emotions with their goals and develop strategies for
protecting their intentions from distractions.
4. They overcome the most common traps and snares.
Purposeful action-takers ignite their dreams rather than try
and motivate others.
Overall, purposeful action takers lead from the front. They
influence others by first and foremost being a good role model for
to emulate.
“From 1993 to 2003, we carried out research into the behavior of
busy managers at nearly a dozen large companies. At the end of
our study, we reached this disturbing conclusion: Despite all their
activity, only a small fraction of managers actually get something
done that really matters or moves their organization forward in a
meaningful way. In other words, most managers do not take
purposeful action.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
Based on this research, four kinds of common managerial
behavior were identified:
1. The frenzied – 40-percent of managers are so distracted by
the myriad of tasks they are trying to juggle each day that they
never get to what really matters. Frenzied managers are
highly motivated, well intentioned and enthusiastic, but they
dilute their effectiveness by attempting to focus on a flurry of
activities rather than acting thoughtfully and intelligently.
Frenzied managers typically underestimate the time and
resources required to implement a business strategy and
tend to launch new projects without thinking about the risks or
long-term implications. They live by the creed that doing
something, anything is better than doing nothing. The
hallmark of a frenzied manager is someone who is so busy
ticking items off his or her to-do list that there is no time to
stop and reflect how whether those are actually the right
things to be doing.
2. The procrastinators – 30-percent of managers put off doing
important things because they lack the energy and focus to
set and act on their priorities. Many managers who end up
becoming chronic procrastinators started their managerial
careers as frenzied managers.
3. The detached – 20-percent of managers are so disengaged
or detached from their work that they are too aloof, too tense
or too apathetic to get anything much done.
4. The purposeful – only 10-percent of managers actually get
the job done.
A Bias For Action - Page 2
So what’s involved in becoming a purposeful manager? The
natural conclusion is to assume this is a matter of motivation. But
the research actually identified four key steps which are required
at a personal level for a manager or business leader to become
more purposeful:
Becoming
1 Develop your energy and focus
Purposeful
Managers who take effective actions – those who actually make
the seemingly impossible happen – rely on a combination of
energy and focus rather than mere motivation. In this regard:
n Energy is vigor fueled by intense personal commitment and
hands-on involvement with the details. In a business context,
energy allows quick and effective actions to be taken in high
pressure situations. People with energy are proactive and
innovative in their approach to what needs to get done.
n Focus is essentially energy channeled towards a desired goal
or a specific outcome. Focused people can concentrate even
in an atmosphere of multiple distractions. Focus is the fine
balance between discipline and stubbornness.
Frenzied managers have high energy but low focus.
Procrastinators typically have low levels of energy and little or no
focus. Detached managers have high focus but low levels of
overall energy. Purposeful managers, notably, have high levels
of energy and focus.
To enhance your own personal action-taking ability, energize
yourself and your work. To jump start your personal energy level:
1. Set some clear and well defined goals – which are ambitious
yet challenging. Challenging goals not only provide a sense
of meaning but also motivate people to put in the effort
required to achieve them. Worthwhile goals:
• Will have a concrete feel about them.
• Will encourage you to stretch and get going.
• Are believable but at the same time challenging.
• Are not overwhelming.
2. Suppress your feelings of negativity – by developing
sufficient positive feelings and emotions. Detached
managers in particular are overwhelmed by negative
thoughts and ideas. Action takers dwell more on deepening
their personal wells of self-confidence. This may be done by
networking with supporters and mentors, or by engaging in
sports and hobbies that consistently create good feelings.
3. Strengthen your confidence in your ability to actually achieve
your goals – by dwelling on past occasions when you’ve
achieved comparable things. Or you may find a role model
who can act as a mentor, someone who will be able to
provide you with meaningful feedback. Alternatively, you
may be able to find some situations where you can
experiment and rehearse to build the skills which will be
required to achieve your goals.
“Energy implies a level of personal involvement that is more than
just doing something. Rather, it is subjectingly meaningful
action; it genuinely matters to the action-taker. Energy also
implies effort. The action involves a certain amount of exertion,
fueled not only by external pressures but also by an individual’s
inner resources. Purposeful action, then, is self-generated,
engaged and self-driven behavior.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal

Focus is your ability to visualize a positive result and having the
courage to commit to work towards that goal. The more vivid your
mental image, the stronger your focus will become and the
greater your personal attachment to that objective. To build your
level of focus:
1. Look for the most vivid way possible to visualize your
intentions – by placing firmly at the front of your mind a clear
mental image of what your intention looks like in the flesh. It
might also be useful to mentally see yourself doing the
specific steps which are needed to reach your goal. Embody
your goal into a compelling and attractive mental model.
2. Make a personal commitment to act – and take full
responsibility for getting this done rather than leaving
everything up to some amorphous collective like the
“management” of your organization. You’ll only be able to
make this intensely personal commitment if your goal is
aligned with your own values and beliefs, and if you’re
motivated by the potential rewards which will flow. Without
that essential link, you’ll be tempted to walk away and do
something else when the first signs of trouble appear. Your
personal commitment provides tenacity and purpose.
“Purposeful action is also focused behavior. It is conscious and
intentional, guided by a person’s decision to achieve a particular
goal. It requires discipline to resist distraction, overcome
problems, and persist in the face of unanticipated setbacks. In
other words, purposeful action is different from impulsive
behavior; it does not emerge from the moment but involves
thought, analysis, and planning.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
Becoming
2 Build your reserves of willpower
Purposeful
Willpower is more than being motivated to act. Willpower
requires total commitment to make something good happen. It
implies that a person effectively “burns their bridges behind
them” so the only way to move is to achieve the objective. With
willpower, there is no chance to go back to how things were
before. The key question then becomes how to realize the goal,
not what to do.
What are the differences between motivation and willpower?
When you’re motivated:
• You keep on weighing up all your options.
• You work in bursts and then get distracted by other things.
• You have just a vague idea of where you want to head.
• You’re ready to chuck it in at the emergence of obstacles.
• You can easily change from one goal to another.
By contrast, when you have willpower:
• All debate about your goals has ceased.
• You keep your intentions at the forefront of your mind.
• You continually seek information about how to implement.
• You get enthused by taking action towards your goal.
• You stay focused and let nothing distract you.
• You have no self-doubts about your goal.
• You can describe exactly what achieving your goal will mean.
• When you strike obstacles, your resolve is strengthened.
• You frequently visualize achieving your objectives.
• You ignore any resistance from your peers or colleagues.
• Abandoning your task will not be an option.
• You won’t feel tempted by alternative opportunities.
A Bias For Action - Page 3
Most managers will never have experienced genuine willpower
in the course of their careers. Research shows only about
10-percent of managers ever feel fully engaged towards a goal
for which success is the only option. Typically, to harness your
willpower, you’ll need to pass through four stages or phases:
1. Form your intention – Find a goal that you feel personally
driven to achieve. Ideally, this goal should resonate with your
emotions. At first, your objective may be fuzzy or vague, but
as you dwell on it, a concrete and tangible idea of what you
want to make happen should emerge. Visualize what you
hope to achieve in as much detail as possible.
2. Commit unconditionally to your intention – that is, accept the
challenge and make a deliberate choice to put your entire
energy and focus behind doing what you visualize. As you
take personal responsibility for bringing your idea into reality,
you pass the point-of-no-return. Sometimes this will be a
gradual process of eliminating options, and at other times
this will be the result of a one-time event. The key moment,
however, is when you commit to throwing all your resources
and energy into the effort. This means all disputes and other
options are then dropped.
3. Protect and guard your intention – by eliminating distractions
and by starting to consciously control your thoughts. High
achievers deliberately manipulate their environment to stay
the course. They keep their energy levels high by regularly
triggering positive emotions, usually by rethinking about their
goal in vivid images. If you do the same, you’ll be building
your self-confidence and increasing your reserves of mental
energy to deal with obstacles. You’ll also have fun and feel
great about what you’re doing.
4. Establish right at the outset your own personal “stopping
rules” – the logical point at which you should disengage from
your intention. Unless this is done, you might persist in taking
actions even when a project is obviously doomed. Or,
possibly even worse, you might fall in love with a project so
much you keep investing more time and effort even when it is
completed rather than moving on to a new challenge. By
anticipating this possibility and planning ahead, you’ll be able
to redirect your energies if your goal becomes undesirable for
any reason whatsoever.
“Purposeful action-taking depends on engaging the power of the
will. Not only does willpower galvanize your mental and
emotional energy, it also enables you to make your intention
happen against the most powerful odds: distractions,
temptations to move in a different direction, self-doubt and
negativity. Willpower is the force that strengthens your energy
and sharpens your focus throughout the action-taking process.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
“While motivation might suffice in helping managers sustain
organizational routines, managers are not generally paid just to
maintain routines. Rather, their tasks are usually complex and
require creativity and innovation. They often must strive for
multiple and conflicting goals, many of which are long-term
projects that require sustained effort. Ambitious goals, high
uncertainty, extreme opposition – these circumstances
underscore the limitations of motivation. Managers who make
things happen under these conditions – who exhibit consistently
purposeful action – rely on a different force: the power of their
will. The good news is that every manager is capable of engaging
willpower.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal

Becoming
3 Align your emotions with your goals
Purposeful
Every manager or business leader will face critical moments of
decision during their careers. Often, these key moments will be
similar to the crossing of the Rubicon river by Julius Caesar and
his army in 49 B.C. Caesar knew that once he crossed the
Rubicon and moved forward with his armies, he was effectively
declaring civil war against Pompey who held power in Rome. In
similar fashion, most managers face their own personal Rubicon
decisions where they have to commit to a project and cut off all
other options.
Invariably, at these critical junctions:
• Your emotions will be pulling you in a number of directions.
• You’ll face great uncertainty and inner conflicts.
• You’ll feel overwhelmed by your time constraints.
• You’ll be unsure about what you’re genuinely thinking.
• There will be conflict between what’s rational and what’s right.
To act purposefully at this point and create a bias for action, you’ll
have to align your thoughts with your emotions about your goals.
There are three viable strategies to achieve this:
1. Harness the emotions that support your goals – deliberately
choose to focus on images of positive outcomes to create
energy and vitality. To do this, you might ask yourself:
• How will I feel once I’ve succeeded?
• What setbacks are likely, and how will I deal with them?
• What mental images will prompt me to act constructively?
Note that to avoid being too superficial, it’s important to think
about positive outcomes and potential setbacks. The tension
between the positive and negative aspects will enable you to
marshall the enthusiasm and commitment needed to see
your project through to completion.
2. Manage the positive and negative emotions that distract you
from achieving your goal – primarily by conjuring up images
that will make all other options less appealing. In other words,
don’t try and ignore your negative feelings and doubts, but
turn them around and use them productively. For example:
• Inject a little humor into your thinking.
• Discuss your fears with some friends you trust.
• Use other people’s doubts to spur you on.
• Distance yourself from negative environments.
The whole objective here is to find the right button to push to
activate your pride and get you back into action. In essence,
you’re trying to outwit yourself so that the reality of your goals
will overwhelm and crowd out your fears. In this way, you’re
leveraging your emotions to create energy to act.
3. Put yourself into “the Flow” – the area where your rational
goals overlap with your deepest emotional preferences.
When you’re in the Flow, you’ll feel completely absorbed by
what you do. You’ll reach for higher goals automatically
because your actions won’t feel at all strenuous or unnatural.
To achieve this state:
n Modify your goals if necessary so they overlap and
harmonize with your emotions.
n Identify your deepest desires and your greatest fears.
Pinpoint why you feel that way.
n Analyze your negative emotions. Picture yourself taking
individual steps and inadvertently generating those
negative reactions. Increase and enhance your tolerance
for those intense feelings.
A Bias For Action - Page 4
Conceptually, the main objective in this step is to align your
thoughts about your goals with your emotions about your goals:
Thoughts about Emotions about
your goals your goals
TheMotivation
three
Willpower
The Flow
Where your thoughts and emotions naturally overlap there is a
zone called the Flow. Effective managers and leaders get into
and stay in that zone to enhance their bias for action. When you
get into the Flow, there is no longer any contradiction between
what you feel is rational and what your gut tells you is right. You’ll
be able to stand behind your project emotionally and
intellectually, which in turn will allow you to act with persistence
and purpose.
“Clearly, crossing the Rubicon and engaging your willpower
requires an investment of time and energy. More than anything
else, it requires that your thoughts and emotions about your
objectives align. Managers who never create such alignment
find that their doubts continually resurface and that the process
of achieving their goals ultimately exhausts them. But managers
who do can unconditionally engage their will: They act with
confidence and persevere against all odds.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
“Managers will always have conflicts about goals. Contradictions
and the pursuit of multiple projects are inevitable in managerial
jobs, and the tensions they create can even stimulate creativity
and innovation. But when such conflicts become extreme and
last for long periods, they sap energy, lead to halfhearted action
and a counterproductive short-term orientation. As with
conflicting emotions, a lack of clarity about which goals to strive
for becomes a personal burden. The result? Managers become
overwhelmed by time constraints, dissipate their energy, and,
ultimately, perform poorly. With the crossing of the Rubicon,
these conflicts about goals disappear. Confidence and
determination regarding priorities replace confusion and inner
doubts. Managers who have tuned out the white noise in the
background find that their feet no longer drag.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
“Willpower – the force behind energy and focus – goes a decisive
step further than motivation. It enables managers to execute
disciplined action, even when they are disinclined to do
something, uninspired by the work, or tempted by other
opportunities. An insatiable need to produce results infects willful
managers. They overcome barriers, deal with setbacks, and
persevere to the end. With willpower, giving up is not an option;
there is no way back. Willful managers resolve to achieve their
ambition, no matter what. Jack Welch implied this doggedness
when he wrote, ‘I learned the most important principle of life from
my mother: you just have to want it’.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
“Management was, is, and always will be the same thing: the art
of getting things done. And to get things done, managers must
act themselves and mobilize collective action of others.”
– Bob Eccles and Natin Nohria, professors,
Harvard Business School

Becoming
4 Overcome the traps of inaction
Purposeful
The three traps of inaction which you have to overcome before
you can develop a genuine bias for action are:
1. The trap of overwhelming demands – where you get so
caught up in webs of expectations that it completely
overwhelms you. You might be so busy pondering various
attractive alternatives that you never actually get around to
doing what will add value. You’re busy and doing so many
things that you don’t have the time to pick up on new
opportunities that arise to move things forward.
Surprisingly, most of these situations are self-generated. It’s
easier to be busy than to take the time to think creatively. To
become an action-taker, manage your demands by:
n Developing a clear and explicit personal agenda – If you
have a precise idea of what you want to achieve in your
job, you can give perspective to your day-to-day actions.
n Practicing slow management – prioritize, be deliberate
about what you choose to do and organize your demands
in terms of priority rather than expediency.
n Structuring your contact time better – perhaps make
yourself available to your direct reports only at set times.
This allows you to block out chunks of uninterrupted time
for some high quality activities.
n Actively shaping demands and managing expectations –
instead of trying to please everybody, concentrate mainly
on exceeding the expectations of your key stakeholders
and let everything else work itself out.
2. The trap of unbearable constraints – where you feel so tightly
squeezed by rules, regulations and budgets that you have no
room for discretionary actions. In this situation, you might feel
the corporate constraints are so binding you cannot pursue
goals you consider to be significant because of a lack of
available resources.
While these constraints will be real, there are some things
you can do to still develop your bias for action:
n Map your constraints – and see whether there isn’t a little
wriggle room that you can exploit. You might find ways to
broaden your freedom to act within the boundaries of the
system as it stands you weren’t even aware of.
n Be more flexible and willing to accept trade-offs –
separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves and be
willing to accept compromises and other arrangements if
that helps you move in the right direction.
n Be willing to selectively break some of the rules – on the
basis that: “Sometimes, it’s better to say sorry afterwards
than to waste time asking for permission beforehand.”
Question standing rules and regulations. You may be
surprised at how often they will be outdated or
inappropriate, and people will applaud your initiative
rather than insist you toe the line.
n Get comfortable with and tolerate conflicts and
ambiguities – in other words, be able to disagree without
becoming disagreeable at a personal level. Analyze your
assumed constraints, confront conflicts directly when
needed, give yourself freedom to think and act and keep
working productively, even when it takes some time to get
things sorted. People with a bias for action do all these
things.
A Bias For Action - Page 5
3. The trap of unexplored options – where you get so intensely
focused on immediate needs and requirements that you
develop tunnel vision and miss other opportunities which
present themselves quite regularly. You might assume you
have very little discretion about what you do, but purposeful
action-takers are more autonomous.
To better explore your options and become a purposeful
action-taker:
n Become more aware of the other choices you already
have – and get into the habit of asking yourself: “Who
forbids me from doing this, and what would be the
consequences if I went down this path?”.
n Actively work to expand your choices – by talking to other
people, by analyzing the challenge from a different
viewpoint or by seeking more clarity about the amount of
personal discretion you already have. Stay focused on
your objective, and ask: “What would be a genuinely
better way to achieve this goal?”
n Build your own knowledge and deepen your personal
competencies – because this combination will help you
identify more choices, lend you greater credibility and
open windows of opportunity. The more you know, the
greater your choices and the easier it will be to move
forward.
n Exercise your freedom to act intelligently – and enjoy the
opportunity to make choices and make a difference. The
personal satisfaction which comes from doing something
innovative on your own initiative is intoxicating. Take full
advantage.
“Most managerial jobs tacitly encourage mindless busyness
rather than purposeful action. No wonder, then, that managers
so often fall into the traps of overwhelming demands, unbearable
constraints, and unexplored choices. Fortunately, managers can
overcome these traps.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
“What differentiates the entrepreneur from others? Most people
go about their normal, daily business and have sufficient to do
thereby. A minority with sharper intelligence and a suppler
imagination, see numerous new combinations. It is a still smaller
minority that acts. The new combinations will always be there;
the truly indispensable and decisive will always be the deed and
the energy of the entrepreneur.”
– Joseph Schumpeter, Austrian economist
“A manager becomes a purposeful action-taker by developing
energy and focus, building the resolve of willpower, aligning
emotions with goals, and, finally, overcoming the traps of
nonaction. Becoming a purposeful action-taker is not only
important for the sake of a manager’s individual effectiveness it
is also decisive for his capacity to lead others. Without energy,
managers cannot motivate or inspire others. Without a clear
focus on priorities, managers cannot provide orientation,
channel other people’s energy toward critical business issues, or
set the right agenda for their company. The first task of
managers is to take charge of their own capacity for acting with
willpower. A second set of tasks, then involves fostering
willpower in others. This is a true leadership task that implies
building the structural context, nurturing a volitional culture, and
personally encouraging managers to make things happen that
go beyond mere routine.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal

The organizational dimension of
2.
purposeful action-taking
To build an organization that supports and encourages
purposeful action-taking, managers and leaders must do three
things:
1. Create space for autonomous actions to occur, so people
have enough freedom to act.
2. Build processes which support action taking into the culture
of the organization itself.
3. Develop a culture which celebrates and encourages
purposeful action-taking.
In all, creating an organization that acts purposefully isn’t
something that can be achieved with quick fixes. Rather, it will
require a long journey where the values and benefits of acting
purposefully are extolled and then enshrined as worthy of
emulation. Embedding a bias for action within an organization is
difficult and challenging, but it can and should be done.
While it is true managers must be doers, they cannot achieve
their goals in a vacuum. This is why companies and even
markets exist. The true challenge for leaders is not to motivate
others to act productively but to facilitate purposeful
action-taking by the people within their own organization.
How can leaders create an organization that consistently
demonstrates a bias for action? In addition to setting a good
example, there are three key things leaders can and should do:
Cultivating
1 Overcome the internal challenges
Action
Simply put, this requires that leaders craft a context within the
organization that will support and encourage purposeful
action-taking. To put this idea into action:
n Give people space – their own domain which belongs to them
and which they have full control over. Unless people feel like
they have this space, they won’t self-initiate any purposeful
action. The organization’s values, vision and beliefs will set
logical boundaries but within those areas, people should be
able to determine their own actions and standards.
n Support individual actions professionally and personally –
professional support requires that you ensure each person
has a network of experienced people to help them. Personal
support means that you do whatever is required to help them
cope with stress, overcome any negative feelings and build
pride and enthusiasm.
n Embed purposeful management practices into the
organization’s culture – in other words, have managers and
leaders who encourage action-taking rather than feeling a
need to try and micro manage everything the organization
does. If people feel trusted, they will feel confident enough to
take the initiative and do more things. Conversely, if
everything the organization does suggests that it’s more
important to comply with regulations and rules than to think
creatively, that’s precisely what everyone will do. Managers
set the tone by providing freedom for individuals to act and by
shaping the culture. Top management can have a profound
impact on the degree to which other managers perceive and
exercise their choices.
A Bias For Action - Page 6
n Integrate values with daily behaviors – so that willpower is
always relevant and always at the front of everyone’s mind.
It may be helpful to try and build some good support networks
within your organization to strengthen the organization’s bias for
action. Support networks may include peers, mentors, experts,
consultants, associates in other industries and the
organization’s leaders. These support networks can function on
a formal or informal basis with equal effectiveness.
Cultivating
2 Weave action-taking into the culture
Action
To generate a strong bias for action, your organization’s energy
must be mobilized and focused effectively. Processes must be
built which will encourage and expand the organizational will to
get things done. Whenever an organization becomes fully
energized around its business goals, people become exhilarated
and energized.
In simple terms, the challenge is to move your organization into
the productive zone:
The
The
High Productive
Corrosion
Zone
Zone
Intensity
The The
Low Resignation Comfort
Zone Zone
Negative Positive
Quality
n Corporations that have succeeded for long periods
sometimes settle into a comfort zone where they lack the
vitality and alertness to initiate anything bold and new. As long
as the marketplace is stable, they do just fine, but if the
marketplace changes – as it always does – then organizations
in the comfort zone struggle to adapt.
n Organizations can fall into the resignation zone when they’ve
been subjected to a number of change initiatives which have
failed. Once here, mediocrity becomes accepted as normal
and people lose their confidence to deal with new problems.
n Companies in the corrosion zone have energy, activity and
emotional commitment, but that intensity is drawn from anger,
fear or hate. The organization gets so caught up with internal
politics and turf wars there is little vitality or stamina left for
productive work. The corrosion zone arises when
organizations face an external threat or opportunity that
activates energy but there are no internal systems in place to
channel that energy in the right direction.
n Organizations in the productive zone have high emotional
tension, alertness and activity. Their people are driven by
enthusiasm and pride. They have systems in place which
allow and encourage people to strive for larger-than-life
achievements. These companies live to meet challenges
head on and use surprises or the excitement of the unknown
to spur people on to exploit novel opportunities and new
niches within the marketplace.

To move your organization into the productive zone, there are
three strategies available, depending on where you’re currently
starting from:
The The
Corrosion 3 Productive
Zone Zone
2 1
The The
Resignation Comfort
Zone Zone
1. To move an organization from its comfort zone to the
productive zone, use a “slaying-the-dragon” strategy – where
you get people to focus their emotions, attention and action
on overcoming an immediate threat. Organizational energy
always increases when everyone faces an external threat.
To make slaying-the-dragon work:
n Clearly define the imminent threat – bankruptcy, the
arrival of a ruthless competitor, the development of a
disruptive technology which will obsolete existing
products and services, etc.
n Direct the resulting burst of energy towards crafting a
collective response to that threat – so people replace their
fear or anger with actions which are integrated, cohesive
and aligned.
2. To move an organization from the resignation zone to the
productive zone, use a “winning-the-princess” strategy – in
which the vision of the future is so alluring and energizing that
people sign on to the effort. Organizational energy will
increase because of the excitement and enthusiasm that
arises from people committing to a dream. To make
winning-the-princess work:
n Define, delineate and communicate a specific opportunity
the company can and should seize – and make certain the
object of desire is intensely beneficial.
n Give people freedom to develop their own ideas about
how to achieve the objective – and go with the best ideas
that come out.
3. To move an organization from the corrosion zone to the
productive zone, use a hybrid strategy which combines the
other tw o s trategies intelligently, s ort of a
“dragon-at-the-gates-of-the-princess” strategy – whereby
the organization has to create its own path to an attractive
long-term vision by first dealing with some short-term threats
and problems. In theory, this hybrid strategy will deliver the
best of both worlds – a boost in organizational energy with the
immediacy and pride that comes from overcoming an
imminent threat. In practice, however, making this hybrid
strategy work is challenging because there are inherent
contradictions and ambiguities involved. Companies which
have followed this hybrid strategy have found there needs to
be direct linkages and ongoing feedback between the two
different and ongoing initiatives if this strategy is to work well
and provide genuine benefits.
A Bias For Action - Page 7
So how do you decide which strategy to use? Make your decision
in light of three factors:
1. The style of your organization’s top management – whether
they are c ommand-and-control oriented
(slaying-the-dragon) or encouraging and empathetic
(winning-the-princess). You stand a better chance of
succeeding if your strategy matches your leader’s preferred
style.
2. The existing energy state of the organization – whether you
are currently in the comfort zone, the resignation zone or the
corrosion zone.
3. Your company history – whether your organization naturally
leans towards slaying-the-dragon, winning-the-princess or
the hybrid approach.
“Both management theory and practice have, for nearly fifty
years, adopted a very technical, analytical approach to success
that has largely denied the role of energy. Yet, such ‘soft’ factors
as energy, emotions, and moods greatly affect companies’
performance. Without high levels of energy, in particular, a
company cannot grow, improve or innovate. What keeps an
organization from generating and focusing the energy needed to
succeed? A lack of shared purpose among its people – either a
vision to attain, or a threat against which to fight. Purposeful
leaders, therefore, must begin by understanding their
organization’s particular energy state. Then they must make
deliberate use of strategies for marshaling the energy of their
companies.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
Cultivating
3 Free your people to act accordingly
Action
“Most corporate leaders recognize that people drive
organizational action and, therefore, the performance of their
companies. For routine jobs – when the tasks are simple, short
term, and involve relatively habitual activities – motivation
usually leads to accomplishing them. For most managerial jobs,
however – when the tasks are complex and far reaching – mere
motivation is not enough. Strategies that leaders use to motivate
managers usually lead to superficial acquiescence to goals,
rather than to conscious and deep commitment. Indeed, many
leaders act as coconspirators with their people in developing a
work ethic of superficiality. The result? Inauthentic consensus,
smart talk and poor action.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
To create true commitment to a goal rather than the superficial
buy-in generated by motivational talk, leaders and managers
need to free their people to engage their willpower toward a bias
for action. There are six strategies leaders can use to do this:
1. Help managers visualize their intentions – as a way to
transform ideas into concrete intentions. The more clear and
vivid the mental picture a manager has, the greater the
likelihood they will succeed in achieving their goal. It also
helps if managers visualize the processes involved. This act
of positive visualization creates a strong emotional link which
is good. Garnering willpower and encouraging a bias for
action is a very personal process which will tap into the forces
of human behavior. Visualization is very useful in making that
link and those emotional connections.

2. Prepare managers for the inevitable obstacles which will
crop up – that is, instead of downplaying the risks involved,
make certain everyone fully understands and appreciates
them before asking for a commitment. One of the most
effective ways to do this is to get each manager to answer the
question: “What will be the personal cost to me of
undertaking this project? What must I stop doing to create the
time that will be required? What other opportunities will I not
be able to pursue if I take on this project?” If people can
explain these factors rationally and still want to start the new
project, then they have a better chance of actually staying the
course as roadblocks arise.
3. Encourage managers to confront their emotions – and reflect
on whether they can stand behind a project with their heart as
well as their head. Sometimes, their heads will be all for a
project, but their heart will be elsewhere. Don’t brush this
under the carpet. Ask directly: “Does this project feel right to
you? Do you really want it?”
4. Develop a climate of choice – where managers are offered a
few viable alternatives and then the final decision is left up to
them. That way, managers don’t feel like they have been
coerced into doing something they didn’t want to do. This isn’t
an excuse to lower your goals or performance standards, but
make it clear accountability comes with choice. Make people
responsible for delivering on what they chose to do.
5. Build a self-regulating system – wherein the managers who
initiate a project can also choose to deactivate it at their own
discretion. To make this system credible, have each
manager specify the stopping rules for each project right at
the outset. That way, if the specified developments arise, that
will automatically trigger the project’s termination. If the
project is highly creative and visualizing appropriate stopping
rules is impossible, define a set of social stopping
mechanisms – like where colleagues withdraw their support
or if a top-management sponsor backs out. By making this
process transparent, internal political game playing is
minimized, resulting in less frustration.
6. Create a “desire for the sea” – in other words, give people
permission to dream. Don’t try and make everything into a
routine. Give managers sufficient space to visualize an
exciting future and the opportunities that await there. Provide
them with challenges that will stretch them and then
encourage them to act creatively. As long as the goals are
meaningful, managers can come up with some great
breakthroughs on their own dime.
In effect, corporate progress requires the disciplined and
relentless execution of the right projects and tasks. For people to
become more effective action-takers, they need to personally
commit at a deep emotional level. Building and stimulating that
kind of commitment is the job of the organization’s leaders.
“Should leaders build their people’s commitment to the company
overall, or to specific projects or goals? We have found broad
loyalty to an organization is increasingly difficult to achieve and
sustain. Besides, such general commitment, even if achieved,
does not necessarily lead to purposeful action on specific tasks.
The best way leaders can build effective organizational
commitment, therefore, is from the bottom-up, on the foundation
of personal ownership of and commitment to specific initiatives.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
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A Bias For Action - Page 8
“More than anyone else in the organization, top leaders must
possess willpower. Without it, how can they direct or encourage
others and provide meaning to their work? The problem is that
most leaders actually end up destroying their managers’
willpower by encouraging superficial acquiescence to tasks – but
no real commitment to specific goals. Leaders who activate their
own willpower can then engage others’ willpower by doing
precisely the opposite of what leaders typically do. Rather than
simply motivate their people, leaders must create a desire for
action without encouraging superficiality. Leaders must ignite
people’s dreams while preventing them from making hasty
promises. Leaders must make commitment more difficult rather
than get quick buy-ins. They must force their people to consider
conflicts, doubts, anxieties, and ambivalence, and they must
discuss the difficulties, costs, and privations rather than paint
rosy pictures of the necessary tasks.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
“The good news is that every manager is capable of engaging
willpower. From our observations, willpower is neither limited to
a certain set of personality traits, nor to a person’s particular work
situation. So how can managers activate and harness this
powerful force in their own lives? We cannot prescribe a magic
formula but we can describe an effective process: Willpower
flourishes when people develop a clear mental picture of their
intention, make a conscious choice to commit to and pursue that
intention, and develop strategies for protecting their intention
against distractions, boredom or frustration.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
“To unleash the willpower of their managers, leaders absolutely
must embed purposeful behavior as a central element of the
company’s core values and shared understanding of how it does
business.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
“Most managers have experienced the rhythms and cycles of
energy in large organizations. They know that companies differ
in the intensity, speed and endurance with which they respond to
threats, pursue new opportunities, and manage change. Many
have seen the symptoms of low energy: apathy, inertia,
tiredness, inflexibility and cynicism. These managers know that
high-energy organizations can flounder if their energy turns
corrosive. By contrast, some leaders have felt the exhilaration of
organizations that have fully energized around business goals
and can pursue them with vigor and joy. Managers know too that
all employees have a reserve of discretionary energy which –
when set free – can lead to enormous effort and achievements.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
“Ultimately, what distinguishes human beings from almost all
other species are two things – imagination and willpower. These
two wonderful capacities have allowed the enormous progress
that human society has forged over time. Corporate leaders
have many resources at their disposal – money, technology,
manpower – but none is as valuable as their own ability to take
purposeful action. Leaders must harness that same willpower in
their people and instill a bias for action in their organizations. As
we move into the future, this is the task of the purposeful leader.”
– Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal