I love my profession. A business coach and mentor, primarily in the Jerusalem region, I have the opportunity to meet so many varied and interesting businesses and their teams.

As I have written before, one of the subjects that comes up with great regularity is procrastination. It is amazing how many people I meet who claim to be the best ‘putter offer’ in the world.

There are so many blogs explaining how to ‘cure’ or get over the problem. Here’s one from the Harvard Business Review earlier this week.

….next time you find yourself mystified by your inability to get important tasks done, be kind to yourself. Recognize that your brain needs help if it’s going to be less short-sighted. Try taking at least one step to make the benefits of action loom larger, and one to make the costs of action feel smaller. 

Not bad. However, for my clients the problem is often much deeper. They are full of seemingly genuine excuses – a.k.a politically correct language – why they do not have to do whatever by whenever.

An equivalent for politically correct in this case is “red herring”. We all understand what the phrase means, but few actually know what a red herring physically is. And the answer?…………….A red herring does not exist! There is no such fish.

In contrast. look at these two brief case studies in the world of procrastinators:

1. One of my clients this week claimed that she could not move ahead in the company, because she did not have the correct qualifications. How did she know, I asked her. “Well, it’s obvious”, came the reply. And despite pushing, she could not supply any proof to her statement. She repeated the mantra.
2. In another recent situation, the client insisted that their work day had to be structured in a set manner, because that is what others around them wanted and needed. When I asked, how they knew that, their only response was one of digging in their heels. “That is the way it has always been”.

My point? People place red herrings in their lives for a reason, usually totally unrelated to the immediate subject in play. It is seemingly that bad that they are prepared to place in jeopardy future progress rather than handle the issue. The core problem may be something much deeper.

In other words, they will eat a ton of red herrings – a.k.a. hot air – rather than do something constructive.

By the way and with some irony, you can create a red herring by smoking fish, which is probably what should happen to the preconceived notions that we all walk around with.