Latest / Humanity Working / Go Slow to Go Fast

Transcript

Go Slow to Go Fast · Humanity Working

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, Paul, I know you wrote recently about slowing down to speed up.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I want to unpack it.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by it?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when does going slow actually make you faster?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, this was a concept that was first introduced to me uh by the president of Microsoft US when I was doing some uh some work for her.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um it was really interesting.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: She took me into her office.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote about this in a in an article recently.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: We'll put a link to it in the show notes.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But but I went into her office and and we talked about the nature of the work, we talked about what the project was and all this kind of stuff.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then right near the end, she just looks at me and she just goes, Paul, slow down to speed up.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it was one of those things where it's like, you know, it felt it felt like something you would hear on karate kit or something, you know, and and and that there is some kind of like wisdom inherent within it, but I couldn't like in the moment I couldn't exactly, exactly get what she was getting at.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I kept I kept thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about like how relevant it was for uh for me as an individual.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and after a bit, I got it.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what it really was centered around the idea was that if we were gonna solve something, if we were gonna do something different, if we're gonna do something innovative, um, and if we were gonna do something that that produced good results in a in a meaningful time period, then rushing to get there probably wasn't gonna do it.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and in a sense, it sort of reminded me of the of the story of the tortoise and the hare.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um whereby I think when you when you're a kid and you think about the story of the tortoise and the hair, you think about it as purely being um, you know, slow and steady wins the race.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But there's another element of that story, which is really that the the tortoise had a strategy and the hair didn't really have one, right?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and slowing down enabled the tortoise to execute the strategy, or being slower, yeah, in a sense, allowed uh allowed the tortoise to execute the strategy.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, in the context of that project, that's exactly what we did do.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: We start, we we decided to slow down, we decided to think about what we were gonna do, how we were gonna do it, why we were gonna do it in the particular way, um, and kind of think around the problem, take the time to think around the problem before we went to solve the problem.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we just recorded a podcast, funnily enough, uh with Shannon Plum that was that was after uh I wrote the article on slowing down to speed up, and Shannon mentioned it um during the uh during the podcast as well.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and that got me thinking about something other interest uh another interesting aspect of it, which is that I suspect the need to slow down to speed up has never been greater because um we if you think about it, we have been spending years investing in things and doing things to s to speed us up.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it is um investing in technology that allows us to do things more quickly, the and the hypothesis of that being the tech that we're using right now, GPT and stuff like that, which is all about faster for you know, for many people it's all about.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I used to do this in an hour, now I'm doing this in five minutes, what I used to do in five minutes, now I'm doing it in five seconds.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we're even doing it to our brains, right?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: When we load ourselves up with caffeine, or in some cases, are even um are even using other forms of of all kinds of different substances to try to uh to try to make our brains work faster.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: All of that is sort of living by the god of speed.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the result might be that we're not doing things the right way.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way in which you can, in many cases, arrive at the right way is by consciously slowing down.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's hard, it's a hard lesson to learn, but once you get it, you're just like, yeah, that totally makes sense.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think about it when I'm doing any task around the house, too, is like as you get older, I don't want to fall off the ladder.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I need to slow down.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: If I slow down and pay attention to every step, I will finish this job quickly, as opposed to rushing to climb up the ladder, fall down, sprain your ankle, and now you can't, you know, like it's all of it's all it's everything.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's yeah, gosh, that's so important.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's uh and I and I will say that for me anyway, it's become a bit of a mantra, right?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the time anything is challenging, like the first thing that I put in my head is slowdown.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then I can accelerate into something, but start by slowing down.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it sounds counterintuitive, but it really works.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so for a single day, uh let's like what does a smart slowdown look like?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: How do you avoid the guilt that could come with it?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there's a few things that we've seen um that work well for people, and they're and this is like a lot of stuff is gonna be very uh is gonna be very individualistic.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'll start with with one obvious thing, which is that before you jump into the work that you're gonna do, you spend a little bit of time framing out the work that you're gonna do.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so you will be tempted, particularly if the day is really busy, to be like, okay, I've got X number of hours to get this to get uh to get this stuff done, I better get started now.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: The sooner we get started, the sooner we'll get finished.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um but we have seen time and time and time again that if people can spend 20 minutes, even 15 minutes at the start of the day evaluating all of the things that they plan to do, evaluating which of those things are the most important things to get done, and making a plan A in terms of when they're gonna uh of when they're gonna do those things, that time basically pays back for itself in no time.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then of course it's the mini breaks, the stuff that we've been talking about previously as well, like having the discipline to like stop and then take uh and then take the mini break to allow yourself to recharge and then uh and then going back in.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: These are all sort of conscious slowdown efforts that aside from anything else sort of create uh create contrast.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: But then the other one, which works for some people, but not for all, is that for some people the idea of like easing into a day or easing into a week um is quite important.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And for others, not not so much, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So some people when they start on a Monday morning, for example, they wanna they want to hit the ground running, they want to really go with, they really want to get something done to give them a sense of momentum.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: But then for other people, the idea of like sort of, okay, the first two or three hours of a Monday morning, I'm gonna kind of take it gently and then I'm gonna accelerate from there.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um that can be that can be really important.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So understanding for you as an individual, sort of how starting slow is gonna translate to increase momentum later on in the week can be, you know, can be a really important thing.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it might be different for you on different days.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, um, I'll give you an example.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're recording this on a Monday.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning, I kind of e I did kind of ease into my week, but actually it was probably wrong for me this morning.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I probably should have, um, I should have like hit the ground running and felt that I uh that I got some momentum versus starting slow and now getting out of first gear.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's uh um it'll vary.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's not just the task to slow down, it's also just like you slow down.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like you were saying, even that, like just take a break and breathe for a minute, slow down so you can do the next thing that you're going to do.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: It it applies at every little micro decision, too.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um my goodness, yeah.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the and this is the interesting thing.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we talk about like a lot of the feelings that people that people tend to get as though um regarding work or anything else, as as though they're like individual people things.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'll take anxiety as an example, right?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So so there is obviously the the medical condition that isn't that is anxiety, but there is there is a feeling of anxiety that almost all of us will have at certain uh at certain times in our lives when or when associated with certain tasks or associated associated with certain things that that we don't like.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it might be a flood of adrenaline that's happening associated with something, and it's making us it, it's making us feel bad.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, in those moments, right, we can have that feeling, like our heart is racing and we and we must continue, we must, we must move forward, or it can paralyze us, which is if you think about it, a kind of a way of describing a fight or flight uh response.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: But in many cases, just that is like, okay, live um, you know, live with it, live with the feeling and absorb the feeling, understand the feeling, take the time to let that uh to let that happen, take the time to understand it, and then when you're ready, uh move back into your what.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So where does speed quietly destroy value, docs, reuse decisions, and how do you spot those hidden costs?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think I think in many cases whatever it is that you're uh whatever it is that you're doing, um you'll find that if you're if you haven't paused, if you haven't taken the time, then you so many times miss the opportunity to be able to um to find the shortcuts that you would find otherwise.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so a really good a really, really great example that we have seen many, many, many times is a situation where somebody is presented with a large task and it is so big and it launches them into, well, I must get this done right away.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result of jumping into it right away, they forget that maybe somebody's already done it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't even take the step to find out if somebody has uh if somebody has already done it, and that that's work that the potentially they could build upon.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you think about it, right, if you're rushing into this, uh into this sort of stuff and you uh and you basically launch into the you know act then think thing, which is very popular right now, right?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Just make a decision and uh make a decision and go with it.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you do that too much and too excessively, your decision is likely to be, okay, I better get on with this, I better do this to the best of my ability, and I'll get this to the to the human that I need to get them to as quick as quickly as possible.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the pause and the let me ask the five people around me if they've got something that potentially I could reuse and build upon.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let me look into uh our um document repository and see if there's something that potentially I could uh that I can reuse there.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then having and then knowing that, let me then make the right decisions as to how I'm gonna approach this.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: All of that is potentially gonna take some time, but it's gonna pay back so much more on the other end.
• 12:53
  unknown: Yeah.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if a team wanted to test this next week, what's the smallest experiment you'd run?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: How would you judge if it worked?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that you bring it up at the at the team level, actually, because I think that this is this is as it so often is, it's one of those things whereby we can do this sort of stuff as an individual, but then we could then the the effects can really be amplified at the uh at the team level.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the um the easiest way is actually, like you say, kind of through through experimentation.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um you could have, for example, a team meeting um that is centered around accomplishing a uh a particular thing, and you shift the flow of the team meeting so that instead of jumping into um to the topic, you consciously time box the first period, the first period, and that first period is centered around nothing other than planning how you're gonna accomplish the thing.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second period is actually accomplishing it.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you include times like, okay, we're gonna break this down into uh different activities that different people are performing, who's good at this, who's not so good at this, how do we want to team together in order to be able to make it work?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we time bucks all of those, all of those sets of activities, and then you jump in to actually doing it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And um and then you look and you check and see the results that are associated with that.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then uh you compare that to how you would normally do it, which is let's just jump in and go, you know, that kind of thing.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then once you start to see positive results associated with that, you start to apply it to all of the different aspects of what you do.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's good.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had a really good example of this where we had a team where, because inherently I like to say I'm really, really lazy.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get everything done so I have nothing to do.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get to nothing to so as a result, I'm pretty productive because I get the stuff done so I don't have anything to do, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we've talked about that paradox.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's very important.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: We have this uh project that we're doing that requires us to check a lot of things, like very manual work, right?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we because I didn't want to do it, like I just I just didn't want to do it.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we spent two hours figuring out a way that I wouldn't have to do it, and then it was a rep it was a repeatable thing that we could now apply forever.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we wouldn't have to do it, but we really slowed down and actually missed the window to do the task in doing so, yeah, right.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it was like I'm purposefully, we're gonna slow down and figure this out because this is dumb and I don't want to do it anymore.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: How can we make this an automatic thing?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Let's build, you know, and so that was really, and that's facing a deadline too, right?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it was this whole like, and this is gonna save us time in the future.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that's an interesting aspect of it too, is that slowdown, that that really analyzing something that becomes a habit, and you just get used to doing it and you accept it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: You've heard it a million times.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: People are like, oh, that only takes me a minute.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, but you got to add up those minutes.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so uh longer term, how do leaders set a cadence to make people uh so people can pause without losing urgency when it's really time to sprint?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in a sense, um in a sense, this is more of a non-problem than you might than you than you might think.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um in most cases, unless your the team or the organization is completely dysfunctional, hard deadlines tend to take care of themselves, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: If we know that we have like, for example, I know that you were speaking recently at a conference, right?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you know that you are gonna be standing on stage speaking at a conference on a particular date, you're not gonna be like, oh, I forgot that.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh and so in reality, um the urgency part of it takes takes care of itself, right?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Urge it's either urgent or it's pretend urgent.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if it is urgent, then then the work gets done, yeah.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: One, you know, one way, shape, form, or the other.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, um the the key here is not so much to think of pausing or slowing down as the enemy, but to have the courage to do it when it counts, to have the courage, to have the courage to do it when you are this far away from uh from the deadline.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where these these tests, these experiments can can really help.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So so you can blow through consciously, like you chose, but you can also do the we've got an hour to accomplish this, and we're gonna have the courage to spend 20 minutes of that hour planning what to do.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I might have mentioned it on the podcast before, but it's that Abraham Lincoln quote, you know, the if I had six hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend the first five sharpening the axe.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is that.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it's it's that thing, right?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the wisdom that is in uh that is inherent in that.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the way that I would think about it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: If I'd had more time, this letter would be shorter, that one.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Same kind of thing, too.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's great.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so basically it is you don't have to worry about deadlines or urgency.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: That will that will take care of itself.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Usually does.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Paul.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks very much.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to you next time.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matt Neo.
• 19:02
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• 19:06
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• 19:08
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