“We Don’t Finish Enough Things……”

Growing up, my parents constantly reminded me to finish things, “Eat everything on your plate…….. Make sure you finish your homework….. You haven’t finished putting things away…..” That bad habit has persisted for decades. I look at the books piled on my desk, over a dozen–half finished. Two books I’m writing, almost finished. Any number of little projects around the house, all in the same state, for weeks, not quite done.

I intended—still intend do—complete all those things. But something always diverts me, a new idea, a new project, some cool thing…. Or the work I know I have to commit any one of those projects., or I get bored.

And, I’m not alone. Everyone I encounter is the same. It turns out we are great starters—-but too often, we are bad finishers.

I read a fascinating post by Paul Stansik, “The Summit, A Short Story About An After Hours Lesson In Leadership.” It’s a must read! Among many insights, one leaped out, getting me to think, “We don’t finish enough things…..”

Reflect back on so much of what drives us and where we focus our time. There’s that Adrenalin rush that comes from starting something new. Whether it’s a new business/start-up, a new idea or approach to something, a new sales or marketing program, leveraging a new tool or technology, a new selling process, training on a new product/methodology…… And the list goes on.

We fool ourselves into thinking the secret of innovation, change, and success is starting something new. It’s exciting and different from what we are currently doing! We read all the latest books and articles on innovation (or start them). We leverage tools to help us generate new ideas and approaches. We get consultants and other “experts,” to help us figure out something new.

We reward the entrepreneurial spirit, the new ideas. Whether it’s investors lavishing funds on our, or the recognition and attention we get within our own organizations regarding the new ideas, programs, and approaches.

In this focus on novel things, new ideas, different approaches, our attention is diverted from the work we are currently doing. We displace that with doing something new…….until, that is replaced by the next new thing. And that is, in turn, displaced by something….new.

As Paul points out, ideas are cheap.

Too often, the problem is that we fail to finish enough of the new things we started.

The problem is less doing something new, but how do we make it work? What happens when the outcomes are different than what we had hoped, how do we fix it? What does it really take to succeed and how do we continue to succeed over time?

Do we stick with something long enough to see that it works? Or do we take the time to understand why it isn’t working, adjusting what we do to make it work? Do we commit ourselves to see things through to the finish?

And that’s where the real risk is. It’s not the new idea, but it’s making it work, realizing the expected results. It’s committing to something and to figuring out how to make it work. It’s taking a stand and holding ourselves accountable. Finishing things may mean we have to take responsibility for failing.

We see this in our organizations. We introduce a new sales and marketing program, we get it started, but seldom see it through to completion. We have a program du jour mindset, piling new programs on top of the others, but seldom finishing them. Or as we look at the churn in our organizations. New leaders come in with all sorts of new ideas. And soon after we implement them, they move on and someone else comes with her playbook, we shift our attention to those, never seeing the result from the prior programs.

With our reducing attention spans, we seem to have lost the idea of finishing things—both the little things and the big things.

What if we started focusing less on the new ideas and new things we start, but more on finishing them? Imagine what we can learn, imagine what we could achieve. Imagine the satisfaction of seeing something through to the finish. Even if we fail, we learn something that we can apply in the future.

I could go on…….

But I’ve finished.

Afterword: Below is the discussion from the AI agents on this article. They have such an interesting take on the issues. Enjoy!