Talk ain't cheap. It's expensive — and destructive.

Companies often confuse talking with doing.

They think that talking about doing something is the same as doing it. That planning is the same as doing. That giving presentations is the same as doing. That making reports is the same as doing. Or even that making a decision to do something is the same as doing it.

All these errors occur with alarming regularity in companies today.

Mistaking talk for action is no simple error - talk can drive out action. Studies into the way meetings work show that negative people are perceived as smarter than positive people. In other words, that being critical is a sign of higher intelligence.

You see this attitude in business all the time. The fastest way for me to seem smart is to cut you down. You come up with an idea, and I come up with a thousand reasons why that idea won't work.

Everyone now sees you as dumb and me as smart — and we've created an environment where no one wants to come up with ideas.