{"id":22361,"date":"2026-01-27T09:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T06:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/blog-post\/when-actions-stall-maybe-im-the-problem\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T13:01:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:01:23","slug":"when-actions-stall-maybe-im-the-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/blog-post\/when-actions-stall-maybe-im-the-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"When actions stall, maybe I’m the problem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After chairing an admissions meeting where agreed actions hadn\u2019t moved, I\u2019m increasingly convinced that stalled progress is usually a norms problem \u2014 rooted in behaviour, values and what people believe it\u2019s safe to say.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday, things didn\u2019t go the way I expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of the discussion was about the gap between what we agreed last time and what happened in between. In the previous meeting we agreed actions, named owners, set deadlines and logged them properly so there was no ambiguity about ownership or timing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we came back together, too many of the important actions hadn\u2019t moved. These were things that matter to how admissions worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When things are agreed and don\u2019t happen, people just assume it\u2019s ok for actions not to get done. At that point it\u2019s very easy to focus on the actions that didn\u2019t happen and who they were assigned to. I\u2019ve done that before. I\u2019m just not convinced it\u2019s usually the right place to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I thought about it afterwards, one issue was fairly obvious. In some cases, the task hadn\u2019t been broken down enough to act on. It sounded clear when we talked about it, but once people went away, it wasn\u2019t actually clear enough to move without more decisions being made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone nodded at the time \u2014 which I understand, because nodding is easy \u2014 but only later did it become obvious that \u201cdo X\u201d actually meant several smaller steps that no one had really talked through. If that\u2019s what\u2019s going on, that\u2019s my responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other cases, the action itself was clear enough. People knew what needed to happen and what the first step was. What got in the way was that doing it meant stepping into something uncertain, using a skill someone wasn\u2019t yet fully confident in, or making a call that felt exposed. Logging the action doesn\u2019t remove that. It just means it\u2019s written down. So it sits there while other, easier, more urgent things get dealt with instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see this happen a lot. The urgent things get done because they\u2019re easier to start. The important ones slip, not because people don\u2019t care, but because starting them feels uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the bit I\u2019ve had to reflect on most. If I want actions to move, it\u2019s not enough to agree them, assign them and track them. I also need to be confident that the person taking them on has the skills to do it, or at least feels able to say if they don\u2019t. That might mean support, pairing with a colleague, or sometimes training. That\u2019s just part of the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of this works unless people are comfortable speaking up. If something isn\u2019t clear, they need to be able to say that. If a timescale won\u2019t work, they need to be able to push back. If there\u2019s a skills gap, it needs to come out early. The key point is before the meeting moves on. Once an action is written down, people tend to stay quiet, even if they have doubts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At EUB, we talk a lot about empowerment. What this has made clearer to me is that empowerment isn\u2019t about pushing responsibility downwards. It\u2019s about making it easier for people to take responsibility without worrying about how it will be interpreted. Sometimes that\u2019s something very ordinary, like being comfortable asking for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most skills gaps aren\u2019t big. They\u2019re small things, like not knowing the right Excel command, not being sure which system does what, or not quite knowing how to approach a task you haven\u2019t done before. In practice, that isn\u2019t a problem. You ask someone, they help, and you move on. The problem starts when people don\u2019t feel comfortable asking. Then small gaps turn into blockers and things don\u2019t move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we work hard on at EUB is keeping things straightforward. People do what they say they\u2019ll do, and if something isn\u2019t working, it gets talked about in the room. Decisions are made together, and even when actions sit with one person, they\u2019re not carried alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That matters because success doesn\u2019t come from one person pushing things through. It comes from teams thinking things through properly together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days, when something doesn\u2019t move, I\u2019m less interested in who didn\u2019t do it. I\u2019m more interested in what we didn\u2019t talk about at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I chaired an admissions meeting where we were dealing with the gap between what we\u2019d agreed and what had actually happened. When important actions stall, it\u2019s often less about who didn\u2019t do them and more about what we didn\u2019t talk about at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":22362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[218,177,179,180],"class_list":["post-22361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-presidents-blog","tag-culture","tag-leadership","tag-management","tag-personal-development"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22385,"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22361\/revisions\/22385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eub.edu.bh\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}