Walking the talk

Posted by Robert Beauchemin on Mar 27, 2010

In one my past engagements, where we had agreed to implement a whole bunch of changes, the CEO asked me, "how do we do that?", "how do we implement this new way of thinking?" After explaining all the concepts of change leadership, operational alignment and organization alignment, I felt they were still not all on the same page. So, I added: "you have ALL to walk the talk", I said.

As smart as I thought I was, the answer clearly remained unfulfilling, I could see.

What does "walking the talk" mean?

We intuitively know that you can't say one thing, point everybody in one direction, and then walk in a different path. We all understand it means preaching by example.

But to preach something, by example or not, you need to have something to preach about. More precisely, you need to be complete, coherent and abundantly clear about your preaching. There should not be much room for interpretation. There should not be ambiguity. There should not dissonance in what is being preached. Read the rest of this entry »