The Situation
Every day, in every industry across the globe, companies lose business opportunities that they could have seized — and their problem isn’t what they think it is. They aren’t paying attention to the most critical factor in taking action — the crucial ingredient that determines what their prospects will buy and when they will take action. They don’t know what it is, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know what to do about it.
We do. And, after reading this series of articles, you’ll have glimpsed the secret (Psst! It is productive tension!) and can begin to see the influence it has on every aspect of our businesses and lives.
Productive Tension
“Productive tension” is that critical factor that makes the difference. It is what separates making a decision and taking definitive action from continuing to “shop” or doing nothing because “there is no need to change.”
The tension we’re talking about here is “the level of physical, emotional, and intellectual activity person is experiencing at any given moment in time” as defined by T. Falcon Napier. This means that no matter the situation, there is a single measure we can use to sum up our experience. What makes this useful is that it is easy to evaluate and gives us incredible insights into what is (or is not) likely to happen in this situation.
The Solution
Productive tension, and the richer ChangeGrid® it is derived from, is descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. Through answers to a few simple questions, we know a person’s level of productive tension around an activity and addresses four important factors. Those factors are around the person’s readiness to take action, their engagement with the activity, their likelihood of following through, and the level and type of support they will need to move forward.
These four factors (readiness, engagement, likelihood of follow through, and needed support) describe the current situation, predict the unassisted outcome, and prescribe certain support activities if those predictions are not pointing towards the desired outcome. In other words, skill in working with productive tension is the true “secret maneuver” that allows managers, coaches, and leaders to keep their team members and clients headed in the right direction.