You ever been in a situation, as a leader, that you didn’t have time to do what needed doing? Like, you had too much to do to really do that one thing, but it needed to get done so you did it anyway…as fast as you possibly could. But shortly thereafter, (it’s always shortly thereafter) you realized that you did it wrong. Wrong enough that you had to do it again. Now, you REALLY didn’t have time to do it. And you were mad at yourself for having wasted the time you did doing it the first time. But you got 'er done. Quickly. Wrongly, but quickly.
Back in my day, maybe yours if you’re an Old Fart like me, there was an STP commercial that proposed, “Pay me now or pay me later.” STP was an oil additive that supposedly made your car engine run smoother and longer. The premise of the commercial was that you should invest whatever it cost to add STP to your engine now so that you wouldn’t have to pay to have it repaired later. I guess that’s a good idea, as long as it actually works.
Basketball Coach Extraordinaire, John Wooden, once said, “If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” Sometimes, slowing down to do something and doing it right, will be a lot faster than doing it over and over again. I served for fifty years in the United States Air Force. When something went wrong, the first thing we’d do is do it faster and harder. That should work! But if it didn’t work, we’d do it even faster and even harder. We’d always get it done quicker even though it would take a lot more work. Most often, it still didn’t work. Because the way we did it was wrong. But we figured it out very quickly. If we’d slowed down and done better analysis, we would have realized how to do it correctly the first time. Sometimes, slower is faster.
I know that I’m speaking to the choir. You take the time you need to think about how to do whatever you do correctly before you start, kinda like the carpenter’s rule, “Measure twice. Cut once.” Or maybe you don’t. If you aspire to be an Effective Leader, do that. Make sure to take the time needed to ensure that you do it right the first time. As Peter Senge said, “Go slow to go fast.” Sometimes, slower is faster.
Until next time,
Be GREAT!
You ARE!
HEIRPOWER!
