How To Turn Insights Into Actions
We may be learning quite a bit from books, experience, and mentors, but those insights are of little value if they are locked away in our minds. The real step changes happen when we turn those insights into actions. And therein lies the hard part — if we are not intentional and make time to connect the dots, we will get frustrated when we don’t see the results we expect. So how exactly do we turn those insights into actions? As with anything ambiguous, the answer is not straightforward, but here are a few pointers that have worked for me, and hopefully they can work for you as well.
Make time to reflect on these insights and connect the dots.
One of my former managers and now mentor actually made it super crisp for me: “Book ‘think time’ on your calendar.” Life is hectic and of course, we want to be done with our to-do list by the end of the workday or school day so we can go relax and do something else. At first glance, that seems like a solid way to get things done, but in the long run, that will hurt your growth, both personal and professional.
Going through a checklist is short-sighted and it adds significant blind spots that, if go unchecked, might be the cause of mistakes that could have been prevented (not that failure isn’t a growth strategy in itself, but learning to fail and learning from those failures also needs “think time”).
To avoid navigating with horse-blinders, I’ve learned to book time on my calendar to reflect on what I’ve learned that day, week, or specific meeting with a mentor, a mentee, team members, or leaders. I take that time to connect the dots to the big picture by asking myself:
- How does that insight help my current project or goals? I write it down and see where that insight could make an improvement. That could translate to booking a meeting with stakeholders I hadn’t thought about, viewing the problem I’m trying to solve from a different angle, or anything specific. Emphasis on that last word — I spell out something specific where I can apply that insight.
- What can I do in the next few days to make that happen? I write down an activity I must do to bring that to life, and book a time to do it on my calendar.
- What will be the impact of me doing this in the long run? Sometimes I don’t have a solid answer, but I can have a rough estimate of what it will do to my goals. Maybe it’s improving the way I communicate with others so that I can be more efficient in delivering results, or something as big as creating an impact in my career progression.
Make a plan based on these connections and give it a timeline, albeit a rough timeline.
Once I have landed the insight into something more tangible, I break it down into milestones. If the insight is more a long-term strategy, then I try to incorporate that into my existing plan or create new milestones to reflect that. The key is to also give it a timeline, otherwise, having connected the dots won’t materialize into an achievement or progress.
Ask for feedback, rinse & repeat.
Once I put the insight into practice, I start collecting feedback from peers, leaders, and mentors. Have they noticed anything different or that is improving? Where can I double down on to get even greater results? What are some areas I haven’t noticed that need improvement? More insights come out of this, and so I restart the cycle.
At the end of the day, it takes time: time to think and connect the dots, time to implement those insights, and time to see the results. This is one of the reasons why time is our most precious asset. I hope you find this guide useful and go turn those insights into the results you want to see.
