Bias towards action can be cultivated and trained over time. When you master this skill, you will apply it to all facets of your life with massive success. At that point, congratulations — I think you’ve truly become an excellent operator.

Step 1: Do you need to do it?

<aside> <img src="/icons/new-alert_purple.svg" alt="/icons/new-alert_purple.svg" width="40px" /> Here’s a tip: try to say yes to things that are only full-bodied “yes.” That means saying yes when your head, heart, and gut are all in agreement.

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First, just because you can get something done, doesn’t mean you should.

And just because someone has asked you to do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.

Before you agree to do something, remember that for every request you say “yes” to, you’re saying “no” to something else. Is that trade-off worth it?

Here are a few more questions you can ask yourself:

If you are a manager: how important is it for you yourself to do it? Instead, can you delegate it to one of your direct reports?

If you are an individual contributor: is the task in harmony with what your manager’s priorities are? Is it in the company’s best interest?*

TL;DR: should you say yes to that thing? Think carefully about the time spent and the payoff for doing it.

Step 2a: Is this the best thing I can be doing with my time right now?

If you have decided that it is, indeed, worth it to do the task and that it’s in the company’s best interest, the next step is to ask yourself: Is this the most important task on my plate right now?

When you decide how to structure you work day and what stuff you’ll get done, first consult your Actions Towards Goals.

Here is a framework for figuring out your actions towards goals:

  1. Look at your company’s goals. This can exist in the form of an MVV (Mission, Vision, Values), OKRs and KPIs, or a Product Roadmap if your company is pre-product market fit.
  2. Look at your Areas of Responsibility (AORs). If your company doesn’t have an AOR list, highly recommend you to help them implement one. That way, there is no ambiguity in who owns what processes across the entire org.
  3. Look at your action tracker. Look at the agreements you’ve made with others on the tasks you have promised.

If you’re a manager, your main job is likely following up on actions with your immediate team and cross-functionally with other department heads.

If you’re an IC, your main job is likely working on projects your manager and you have collectively agreed on you owning.

Step 2b: Example: company goals → personal work goals → action

Answer the following questions, step by step:

  1. What are the company goals?
  2. Based on those goals, what should my work goals be?
  3. What are the actions I can do to finish those goals?

After going through this line of questioning, it will become abundantly clear what you have to do to move the needle forward. Everything else is a distraction.

Re-evaluate this list of priorities on a weekly basis to make sure you’re still on track.

Step 3: How can I make this action happen in the next 30 minutes?

One of the biggest hurdles of having a bias towards action is expecting perfection right from the get-go.

Rather than ...

...instead, optimizing for getting something in front of an audience and iterating from there is the best way to make progress towards goals.

Get in a habit of requesting your teammates declare what they’re going to do and actively solicit your feedback.

Send this to your direct reports to challenge them into acting with autonomy

“What do you intend to do?”

This is a helpful prompt in promoting a bias towards action culture. It puts them in the driver’s seat, helps them lean into their autonomy, and gives them decision-making power.

Step 4: What can I accomplish before someone assigns me an action?

What action items can I give myself and do to make this goal happen before anyone assigns me an action item?

An operator’s greatest superpower is being able to predict the needs of the organization before anyone asks them to do it.

This means preemptively going through the logic tree in Step 2a and giving yourself action items to act on before anyone else does it for you.

This is shockingly simple to implement. All you have to do is ask yourself what actions you need to take to reach the goals.

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