The Problem with "Action Items"

A little while back, I was studying how organizations manage collaboration, and in particular, how managers track the effectiveness of their employees. One system I observed keeps a log of Action Items, and assigns scores based on the degree to which the action was performed. The more I thought about this system, the more I began to realize what was wrong with it.

The first problem is that action items are tasks. They aren't the creative, solitary noodling that results in an idea that nobody has thought of before. They aren't the interactive, small team brainstorming that produces great plans that the whole team believes in. They aren't even the follow-on activity that the excited team members take off in their separate directions with a commitment to re-assemble at the next meeting. No, action items are housekeeping. They are the details - necessary details, for sure - but details nonetheless. If your work is wood carving, your action items are the wood shavings and sawdust.

As a task, an action item is a simple binary entity. You either did it or you didn't. There is no essence to an action item, so outside of exceptional incompetence, the idea of quality is basically irrelevant. In fact, the objective of an action item is its own extermination. Taking an action item says "I'll cross this off as quickly as possible so we can move on." Not because you don't care, but because there's nothing to really care about.

So here's the first problem with action items - they are the great equalizer of organizations. The A-plus worker and the C-minus bureaucrat can achieve the same level of performance, because the action item is basically pass-fail. In fact, if the A-plus worker begins to fret about quality, the distraction may interfere with the real work - getting the action "off the plate."

The second problem with Action Items is that they are the unwanted detritus of meetings. Every worker in an organization knows where "action items" come from. They come from meetings. And that's why most people avoid meetings. If you have to go to a meeting, there's an implicit understanding that you want to leave the meeting with as few action items as possible. Why? Because an action item is a task outside your daily responsibilities. It squeezes something else out, something that's part of your "real work".

This leads to the third problem with action items. They could be done by anybody, but have to be done by somebody. If they were a routine part of one person's work, or a task that only a certain individual could perform, or if they could be addressed directly and dismissed immediately, they wouldn't end up lingering around long enough to be brought up in a meeting and assigned to someone.

The fourth problem with action items is that they are the hallmark of an un-empowered workforce. When individuals lack initiative or are afraid to take action, the things that should be done get put off. Then in order to avoid individual responsibility, a meeting is required to determine what should be done. Action items are the grown-up's equivalent of a child's household chores.

Imagine company A and company B. In company A a customer calls with a complaint. The company's delivery vehicle bumped into a potted tree at someone's house and broke the pot. The receptionist tells the customer to replace the planter and send a copy of the receipt to the company. The receptionist makes a note to cut the check and informs accounting. In company B, when the customer calls, the receptionist informs the customer that the company will get back to him. The complaint will now become an action item, and company B will spend dollars and hours in the resolution of the problem -- dollars and hours that company A won't spend, because the issue never became an action item. Action items are a kind of pollution in corporate life - energy that is wasted as heat and noise, rather than forward motion.