The Do-Say Ratio
I always get the most feedback when people think I’ve missed something obvious (which probably says something about me). So it went after I wrote about the Say-Do Ratio. A lot of people liked the idea, but the consensus fix for my mathematical nitpicking – around the fact that a high Say-Do Ratio isn’t good – was not to ignore the problem and be a dummy about it, but to invert it and make it the Do-Say Ratio.
My first thought was: why didn’t I think of that? But then I remembered that I did think of that and concluded that a high Do-Say Ratio isn’t necessarily a good thing either. See, if you’re doing a lot more than you say you’re doing, it might mean you’re working in secret, stretching outside your zone of competence, or just plain gone rogue. So whether it’s the Say-Do Ratio or the Do-Say Ratio, the optimal relationship between the two is one to one.
In other words, doing what you say and saying what you do is better in all cases (even with good intentions) than not saying what you’re doing or not doing what you’re saying.
Dale M., however, raised an important point here (thanks for writing back). He noted that to actually do what you say you are going to do – in the eyes of others, who are the target audience – you need to clearly articulate what it is you are going to do and make sure they understand. Otherwise, even the best intentions can get lost in translation. And there are few more intractable conflicts than when someone thinks they did what they said they would and the other side disagrees.
– Tim
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