As I’m writing this, I’m still at the conference in Oslo. An interesting observation is that quite a big part of the talks here were quite abstract.

And that got me thinking: how do we deal with abstractness? Abstract thinking and abstract ideas are complex to deal with, because you have to translate the idea onto your own situation. As with any translation, there is quite a chance that some of the details of the initial idea gets lost along the way.

As a leader, you might have the tendency to talk in abstracts as well: “shorten communication lines”, “work smarter”, “stimulate innovation”. While this might be good ways to kickstart a conversation, I really believe you never should end there. For one, you might end up frustrated because the reality never meets the image in your head. Secondly, people need a leader to show them how things are done. Abstract ideas are hard to follow.

Take the lead in moving things over from abstract to concrete all the time. I don’t see any other way to really get things done.