Changing Speeds
The first car I bought myself was a stick shift, which I did not know how to drive.
I got my brother to test drive it for me and my dad came with me to pick it up when I bought it. He was driving it home with me following in his (automatic transmision) car. I was very worried when he suddenly pulled over on a country road and got out of “my” car and walked back to me in “his” car. He tossed me the keys and said “Drive your car home”, took his vehicle and left.
It was a bumpy ride, but I got there.
As anyone who drives standard knows, it’s a skill to shift smoothly. Do it well and you accelerate and decelerate almost subconsciously. Do it poorly and you’ll jerk all over the road, spin the tires, and stall out at the most inconvenient times.
A leader I spoke with recently was struggling with colleagues who were shifting poorly.
The decisions they were making, and the way they were making them was a sudden change in the speed of the organization’s way of working. It was done suddenly, without notice, and with no apparent consideration for how it would impact things that were already underway. They didn’t even explain why it was done so urgently.
Leaders need to be attentive to the speed of their organizations. And that doesn’t always mean going faster. Healthy organizations develop rhythms of work that reflect the different demands of the year. They discern when to push harder, and when to dial it back a little. They understand that “full out all the time’ is a sure path to big mistakes and burn out.
But there are times when we need to accelerate unexpectedly. As circumstances change we may have a special opportunity emerge, we may need to cover for a staff member who is away at a critical time, or something may occur that requires us to call “all hands on deck”.
When these things happen we need to remain committed to our values in how we treat one another. Too many leaders become bullies or manipulators under stress and justify it as necessary under the circumstances. Things are very rarely so urgent that being a jerk is acceptable.
And when a time for slowing down comes, we need to be proactive about helping people adjust in that direction too. Emphasizing opportunities for self-care and stress management are good, as is taking some of that space to do team building and skill development thoughtfully. Reducing speed can be as unstable as increasing.
We need to learn how to change speeds as smoothly as possible, especially when it’s unexpected. (One friend told me her dad taught her to drive stick shift with the idea of not spilling the tea in the lap of imaginary passengers, that’s smooth).
If it really is necessary to act in a hurry it should be presented with an apology for not being able to prepare and inform people properly. And it should be followed with a debrief about why it happened and how to make it unlikely to happen again.
This is true whether your organization typically runs fast or slow. Because it’s not about the speed you travel; its about how quickly you require your people to change speeds.
Contact me if I can be helpful to you and/or your organization.
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