The power of slowing down...

The view from my living room:

What you notice when you slow down

He who has ears, let him hear...

As business leaders, it is amazing how easily we sometimes forget the advise we get?  It's even more mind boggling when the advise came from mentors who have already walked the paths we're now treading.  One advise we frequently get but hardly take is that of SLOWING DOWN....

It's difficult to imagine ourselves being in any other mode besides the "getting it done" mode.  We have convinced ourselves that in today's volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) competitive market space, we cannot afford to slow down.  That's flirting with losing out to the competition.  We have to get things done!  We need to execute! But execute what?

In their book, Strategic Speed (Mobilize People, Accelerate Execution), the authors make an interesting but obvious discovery.  Their studies show that many factors that are associated with achieving speed in execution require some slowing down.  As they put it, "it sometimes takes slowing down to speed up."  That's because when we slow down, it is amazing what we discover.  We miss the very obvious opportunities that stare us right in the face when are constantly busy.  To highlight this fact using a non-business example,the picture above shows a view I have from one of my windows at home. I decided to spend a couple hours this past weekend, doing nothing...that's right nothing.  I just sat in a chair and stared out of that window.  Then it hit me, wow! I actually have a very nice garden.  And I just realized how inspired I get just starting out into this garden...This is a garden I whisk through at least twice daily, on my way to work and back.

Imagine the business opportunities and potential breakthroughs we miss by just being in constant execution mode.  Slowing down allows us to think, dream and ensure that our teams are in sync with us.  Patrick Oduro, CEO of Hephzibah Christian Center, highlighted the power of thinking for his ServLed talk.  To effectively slow down and do the kind of thinking that radically transforms our organizations, one needs to retreat.  One needs to completely withdraw from the everyday routine of doing to spend a few hours, days, even weeks just thinking and daydreaming.  Believe me, it does wonders.

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Thanks and God bless...