Running Too Fast

I’ve written before about the benefits of going slow to go fast, but I’ve had several reminders of the importance of this in rapid succession recently.

It’s hard to learn or to change course at 100mph. 

This past week, as part of my culinary school homework, I was reading the memoir of famed chef Marcus Samuelsson, titled Yes, Chef. In the book, he describes the challenges of opening a new restaurant in New York. 

He explains: “The thing about starting a new restaurant [...] is that it takes time to settle in and find your groove. We weren’t going to get things right out of the box; no one can. We needed time to develop and refine our dishes, to respond to how they were received, to correct mistakes.”

The problem was that he could never slow down enough to fix the opening problems. Samuelsson writes:

“I wanted to cut back on reservations, to slow down the pace so we could tighten up the front and back of the house. Our waiters needed time to develop expertise about the food so they could present it effectively, and our kitchen needed time to fall into a steadier rhythm. When you’re slammed every night, you can’t do either, but my investors had a big nut to cover, and they didn’t want to turn anyone away. We were packed every night from six to midnight and waiters were ordered to turn over tables quickly to accommodate the crowd, which meant the service was never where it needed to be.”

There were other problems, but the restaurant ultimately failed because it couldn’t tinker its way into the signature dishes and loyal audience that it takes to make a restaurant work.

Ironically, they couldn’t slow down enough to hit their stride. 

It’s hard to build trust at 100mph. 

I recently worked with the board and senior leaders of a nonprofit. A survey of the staff and some discussion indicated that the organization was facing a challenge from people feeling overworked and experiencing a lack of trust. 

These two things may be related. For example, when there’s an avalanche of work to be done, it’s easy for even the most well-intentioned managers to focus their conversations with subordinates on just the task, squeezing time for relationship building and development—i.e., what helps us build trust. 

And for a team, having too much work can manifest in a belief that it needs to have shorter or fewer meetings. Everyone’s looking to get in, get out, and get on to the next item on their agendas. But just like with the individual meetings, that focus can mean that the team spends less time on trust-building interactions like aligning agendas and getting to know one another.

Of course, all of these things are harder when everyone isn’t physically together on a consistent basis. 

For the nonprofit I recently worked with, closing the trust gap—really, getting back to many of the practices the team had before the pandemic—is high on those leaders’ agendas. However, I argued that, as long as there’s a mismatch between capacity and activity, the team will continue to be stretched thin. The only ways to achieve sustainable improvements were to slow down and to eliminate activities. 

The most common response I’ve heard to that suggestion is: I hear you, but now isn’t the moment to slow down. What about all the critical things we have to do?

Yes, there is a lot to do! But in an organization, there will always be a lot to do. And for a nonprofit, there will always be more people to serve than they have capacity for. 

Circumstances won’t provide the opportunity. The only way to slow down is to make that choice—today.  

Luckily, going slower doesn’t mean going slow. An example: I was recently crunching some numbers from my treadmill challenges at Orangetheory. What’s striking is that by going at a pace 92% slower than my one-mile time, I can go more than twice as far before hitting my limit. And when going at 92%, I still have room to kick it up to 100% when needed.  

(All of the speeds were 60-70% as fast as I could run in high school.)

Here, 92% is a random benchmark. I use it to illustrate that when you back off an “all out” pace, you can still move fast, but gain much greater sustainability.  

The experience at 92% is also categorically better. Rather than having all your focus inward, trying to avoid falling off the treadmill, you can breathe a little easier, you can look around, and you can think. 

The same goes for the work treadmill. 

There’s a connection between slowing down for agility and slowing down to build trust. 

It’s like driving a convertible with a full set of passengers. If you take a sharp corner at 100 mph, all of your passengers will get thrown out of the car.  And even if they’re wearing seat belts, they’re thrown hard against the door, spilling their stomach contents all over the fine leather you paid extra for when you bought the car. 

For leaders, this underscores their role in driving change by proactively shaping the reality of everyone on their teams. Continuing with the convertible scenario:

In two blocks, I think there might be an issue. Do you all see that? Ideas for what we should do? 

Now it’s in just one block. We need to prepare ourselves for a change in course. What do you all need? 

Having that conversation is in contrast to taking the turn without telling anyone, or even announcing the change right before it happens. It’s the long process of helping people change their own minds. 

However, that requires looking ahead a few blocks and engaging the team on topics beyond what’s just in two feet in front of them. The conversation itself is trust-building because it demonstrates to everyone that they are partners whose perspectives matter. Everyone becomes a leader, not just a passenger. 

There’s a common analogy about change in organizations that goes: “You can’t turn an aircraft carrier on a dime.” That’s true for the physical limitations of moving a big ship. But what’s left out in that statement about the ship is the experience of the passengers. 

You could try to turn on a dime, but you might make everyone sick (of you) in the process.