Seize the moment.

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: Reprint

From TouchPoints by Douglas Conant and Mette Norgaard. Copyright 2011 by John Wiley and Sons. Published by Jossey-Bass (www.josseybass.com).

TOUCH POINTS TAKE PLACE any time two or more people get together to deal with an issue and get something done. In fact, each day is an elaborate sequence of TouchPoints: interactions with one other person, a couple of people, or a group that can last a couple of minutes, a couple of hours, or a couple of days. Those TouchPoints can be planned or spontaneous, casual or carefully choreographed. They take place in hallways, on factory floors, in conference rooms, on the phone, via email or instant messaging. Some deal with straightforward, relatively minor issues, while others involve complex challenges with wide-ranging effects.

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Sadly, leaders often see these interactions as distractions that get in the way of their real work: the important work of...