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Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Going Slower to Win More Often

Finding a new and better pace

Have you ever felt like you were drowning in a your tasks, deadlines, and to-do lists? As your deadline approaches, you work faster to accomplish your goals, leading to an exhausted but happy you.

That leads you to believe that if you work twice as hard, you’ll finish in half the time, right?

But research proves otherwise. An article from Harvard Business Review says this:

‘Simply increasing the pace of production often leads to decreased value over time.’  

In the HBR study, organizations that liked moving fast all the time focused too much on how to maximize efficiency. They weren’t concerned on alignment or relationships. They often worked themselves into a big mess.  

But companies with STRATEGIC SPEED focused on alignment with each other… so they were also open to discussion and collaboration. These teams always win in the long run! 

But Dr.Rob, isn’t multitasking a good thing? No, its not. Multitasking hinders your productivity Every. Single. Time.

You’ll be happier and better if you slow down a little and focus on ONLY one thing at a time.

Another Harvard Business Review article notes that ‘slowing down is a route to depth, satisfaction, and excellence.’

Try these:

  1. Keep meetings short. So the reason why people do other things during meetings (emails, answering calls, etc) is because they take too long! Keep your meetings short, focused, and bring out all the disagreements… then people will want to attend your meetings.
  2. Get rid of the ‘always on’ culture. I’m with another executive this week—our families are vacationing together. When a team member texted him, he replied “On vacation this week—can it wait?”
  3. Reflect. Even for just a few minutes you can stretch, take a break, and reflect on your past couple of hours. Intermittent rest makes you far more productive in the end.  

BIG QUESTION: Will you slow down one day? If you’ll take the challenge, let me know how it goes..


Dr. Rob

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