Taking action seems to intimidate a lot of people in business. Sure, we all know someone who seems to never procrastinate or doubt a decision. But for the rest of us…

There are loads of reasons why we avoid making  choices. In some cases, it is simply the phenomenon known as “choice overload.” Research is pointing to people faced with many choices and becoming unable to make a decision. Remind you of the menu at The Cheesecake Factory? If you haven’t been to that particular restaurant, they have a book for a menu.  A book?!

However, this could be very bad for your small business.It’s hard to take action when you have so much information to process but taking action is really about productivity. We tend to think productivity is great. We can enhance it with efficiency. We can measure it. And yet, if you change the word from productivity to action, some of us do the deer-in-the-headlights freeze.

Are there dangers in taking action? Of course there are! You could end up changing the world as you know it. It doesn’t even have to be on the end-world-hunger scale. Our individual worlds have value as well. There are people in our lives who depend on us. We may be in an enviromnent where rocking the boat is strongly discouraged.

It works something like this. You start off with a predictable circle of comfort. No risk. Vanilla.  And then, you come across a very good reason to expand this circle of comfort. Its not nice and tidy. Change can be awkward and uncertain. Do you want to to rethink who you are and what you can do? This is dangerous!

Then again, maybe there are very distinct advantages to taking action. Your small busines grows into what you meant it to be. You discover you are powerful and talented. People acclaim your actions. Your ability to cope with change is strengthened. The possibilities are endless since our actions bear all kinds of fruit. Our perception that something would be too painful to manage turns out to be a complete nonevent.

This is where you sing the chorus to REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”

                                                                    “It’s the end of the world as we know it

                                                                     And I feel fine.”

The thing with taking action is it triggers our fears, our hopes, and our beliefs about our efficacy and our self-worth. There may be inertia because we’ve tolerated some kind of discomfort for a long time. There may be very good reasons to choose inaction. If you avoid decisions, do you avoid life as proposed by Jeff Stibel?

In this week’s #kaizenblog chat, we’ll be exploring “The Dangers and Advantages of Taking Action” so join us on Friday, August 20, 2010 at 12 pm ET/9am PT/5pm BST. Come join in on this conversation!

What does taking action mean to you?

What dangers or advantage do you see in taking action?

What keeps you from acting on what you desire most?

 iStockphoto BookMama