Far too much of our time is spent “think­ing” about what we wish would hap­pen.

Wasted think­ing is called a lot of things: day­dream­ing, play­ing rich uncle or build­ing cas­tles in the air. Regard­less, this kind of think­ing is not pro­duc­tive and it sucks the life out of us. We get lost in our own heads. We do this as indi­vid­u­als, but orga­ni­za­tions are just as guilty. Exec­u­tive shelves are lined with dusty strat­egy binders. Very lit­tle fails in the realm of brain­storm­ing, but far too often a brain­storm­ing ses­sion dis­si­pates into a fine mist when it comes time to imple­ment. The real heavy lift­ing comes when it is time to make things hap­pen (great title for a blog!). So whether indi­vid­ual or group thought is con­sid­ered, here are 5 tips to stop daydreaming.

1. If you’re not will­ing to make it hap­pen your­self, stop think­ing about it.
2. Real­ize hope is not a strat­egy and that you’re the only one that can cre­ate a new reality.
3. Make plans: if you want your day­dream to come true, then cre­ate a plan to make it happen.
4. Get out­side input. Talk to some­one who has done some­thing sim­i­lar for a san­ity check.
5. Hold your­self account­able, cre­ate mile­stone and dead­lines, and tell some­one about them.

If you are lead­ing an orga­ni­za­tion, here is a “bonus tip.” Spend as much time on how you will imple­ment as you have on cre­at­ing your strat­egy. This time will pay off in dra­matic dividends.

No one is going to come by Sat­ur­day and clean the garage for you. Your biggest com­peti­tor is unlikely to just quit. If you want it to hap­pen then go do it. Stop build­ing cas­tles in the sky.

We’ve all seen it hap­pen. The more peo­ple in the room the less gets done. It’s one rea­son why we hate meet­ings. The Ringel­mann Effect or Social Loaf­ing is the dynamic whereby the more peo­ple pulling on a rope the less each per­son pulls. Com­bined they cre­ate a greater pull than indi­vid­u­ally but no one per­son pulls as hard as if they were by them­selves. We habit­u­ally count on oth­ers to take the load. While I don’t really care why this hap­pens I think it’s worth­while to know how to min­i­mize the effect. Here’s a list of best prac­tices for killing Social Loafing.

1. Hold peo­ple account­able. If you know they can do some­thing, expect them to.
2. Give home­work, con­firm peo­ple know what is expected of them prior to a meeting.
3. Ask for sta­tus updates, don’t sur­prise peo­ple but require them to state their progress.
4. Force peo­ple to use straight talk, don’t tol­er­ate mubo-jumbo.
5. Focus on out­puts, out­comes and results. Inputs (hours, calls, vis­its) don’t matter.
6. Set clear expec­ta­tions, employ­ees can’t read your mind. Test them with good questions.
7. Reward employ­ees based on team out­comes not only indi­vid­ual or com­pany success.

Lead­er­ship will have to do a lit­tle more think­ing to uti­lize these con­cepts but the effort will be rewarded with dra­mat­i­cally improved team per­for­mance. Kill the loafers!