Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences:

We have become highly capable of publishing ideas, values and advice, yet the speed and reward of sharing can create the feeling that expression itself is meaningful action. The more useful question is whether what we publish changes how we decide, behave and lead when there is no audience to affirm us.

---

A lot of our time these days is spent publishing.

We may not call it publishing because we are not writing books or producing newspapers, but every time we post an opinion, share a quotation, comment on an issue, recommend a practice or tell someone what they should do, we are publishing. We are making something public and attaching ourselves, however briefly, to the idea it contains.

Make no mistake, we have become very good at it.

We know how to find the right quotation for the moment. We can speak about leadership, accountability, emotional intelligence, kindness, boundaries, discipline, justice, health, faith and almost every other aspect of living. We can identify what other people are doing wrong, explain what society needs and describe the behaviour we wish to see from those around us.

This is not a critique on sharing because much of what we share is valuable.

An idea can help someone name an experience, reconsider an assumption or make a better decision. I would find it difficult to argue otherwise when writing and publishing are such a large part of my own practice.

Still, I find myself wondering whether our ability to publish has begun to outpace our willingness to practise.

The tools make publishing almost effortless.

We can encounter an idea, agree with it and share it within seconds. The response may be immediate. People like it, endorse it, add their own agreement and confirm that we have said something worthwhile. The whole exchange can leave us with the feeling that something meaningful has taken place.

Perhaps it has. The more uncomfortable question is whether anything changed.

Did the leadership article affect how we treated the person who challenged us? Did the post about accountability alter the way we responded when we made a mistake? Did sharing a message about kindness cause us to become more patient with the person who regularly tests our patience? Did our public concern about injustice lead us towards any form of private examination, sacrifice or action?

Or did publishing the idea become the action?

I ask this as someone who writes regularly and who has also mistaken thinking deeply about something for having sufficiently dealt with it.

There is a particular satisfaction in finding the language for an issue. Once we have explained it well, we may feel as though we have gained some command over it. Yet understanding a principle and living by it are separate demands, and the second tends to be slower, less visible and far more inconvenient.

Practice rarely offers the immediate reward that publishing does.

It asks us to return to the same principle when there is no audience, when applying it will cost us something, when we are tired, defensive or convinced that the other person is more at fault. There may be no likes, praise or public recognition. Often, nobody will know that we chose differently.

This gap becomes especially important in business because leaders are publishers too.

Every mission statement, staff meeting, company value, customer promise and public declaration communicates what the organization claims to believe. Employees and customers then experience the decisions that reveal what the organization actually practises.

A company can publish that people come first and continue making decisions that exhaust its people. A leader can speak about trust and still require approval for every minor action. A business can promise exceptional customer care while maintaining systems that make it difficult for employees to solve a customer’s problem. In each case, the published belief may be sincere. Sincerity, however, does not close the distance between intention and experience.

That distance can remain invisible when we evaluate ourselves by what we have communicated rather than by what other people repeatedly encounter.

The same thing happens outside business.

We can publish compassion while being merciless with anyone whose politics we dislike. We can promote open-mindedness while listening only long enough to prepare our response. We can advocate peace while feeding every argument that gives us another opportunity to prove that our side is right.

Social media allows us to participate in almost every issue without asking much of us beyond expression. Expression has value, especially when silence protects wrongdoing, but it can also give us the emotional satisfaction of involvement without the responsibility that genuine involvement may require. We have said something, taken a position and made ourselves visible. The question of what we are prepared to practise remains.

I don’t think the answer is to stop publishing or to wait until we have perfectly embodied every idea before speaking. None of us would have much to say if perfection were the entry requirement. There is room to share what we are learning, what we are trying to understand and even what we are struggling to practise.

Perhaps we could become more honest about that struggle.

Instead of presenting every insight as something we have mastered, we might allow our publishing to expose the work still required of us. We could treat what we share as a commitment that asks something of our behaviour. We could occasionally return to the advice, values and convictions we have published and examine whether our decisions bear any resemblance to them.

The real test of an idea begins after we press publish, when the opportunity comes to live it and nobody is watching.

Strategic Reflection Prompt

Look back at something you have recently advised, advocated or shared publicly. Where is that same idea asking to be practised more fully in your own decisions or behaviour?

About Giselle

Most costly decisions begin with an inaccurate understanding of the situation.

I’m Giselle Hudson – writer and Pre-Decision Diagnostic Advisor. Most advisors offer solutions before carefully diagnosing the situation. I diagnose first — looking for what isn’t completely visible yet. Once we identify that, everything else becomes clearer, and confident, right action can follow.

Through my daily Strategic Alignment Journal, I explore leadership, decision-making, and the patterns that shape organizations, helping leaders make sense of complexity before committing significant time, money, or resources.

What’s the one thing about your business that frustrates you most — the thing that, despite your best efforts, you can’t seem to resolve?