How Can We Slow This Race Down?
Is it our imagination, or does everything seem to be speeding up?
No, it’s not your imagination. It’s real. And the faster the pace, the more stuff comes hurling at us. The more stuff coming at us, the more decisions we must make.
And the more decisions we make, the greater the risk that we make a poor decision.
So is there a way out of this conundrum?
Let me share an experience to draw a comparison. I love to ride my motorcycle. A couple of years ago I thought it might be fun to try my riding skills on a race track. I found a motorcycle group that sponsored a “Track Day” on the Portland International Raceway. It looked good, so I signed up for it. Obviously, I was a novice. So I was required to attend a chalkboard discussion class on how to safely get out on the track and have some fun. Afterwards they took us around the track in the back of a pickup to show us each turn, and how to take it.
To safely ride on the track, I learned that I had to focus on forcing my eyes to look further “up the track,” and through the turns. The effect of doing that was astonishing. When I kept my eyes up, it actually slowed everything down. When I saw a turn or a problem on the track ahead, I had plenty of time to make the changes needed to safely navigate through the turn, or avoid the problem.
On the other hand, when I kept my eye down and right in front of the bike, I found myself overreacting and making many more course corrections on the track and on my bike controls.
But when I kept my eyes up, I was able to ride both safer AND faster.
Have you ever gone past a picket fence while driving? If you look at the fence as you’re going by, the pickets seem to blur. But if you look at it further up the road, you can see the individual pickets.
In business, it’s so easy to get wrapped up in day to day activities. Things are moving so fast that everything goes by in a blur, just like that picket fence. But if we force our vision to look “up the track,” or further down the road, we literally slow everything down.
How can we effectively do that? It’s simple (but not easy).
- We get clear about our destination
- We keep our eyes “up the track” and on that destination
Doing this keeps us focused on the destination. It forces us to think strategically.
Of course, we can always count on our friend Murphy (remember Murphy’s Law?) to show up from time to time. But if we keep our eyes upon our destination it slows everything down and we have time to make good tactical adjustments and safely navigate around the daily/weekly challenges that show up.
How about you:
- Do you have a clear destination?
- Is everyone in the Company bought into it?
- How often do you evangelize it so it remains a shared priority?
Important questions, indeed, the answers of which allow us to travel both safer AND faster on the road to greater success.