Reflecting on the feast of stellar performances during the Olympics and with similar to come with the Paralympics, so many of the sports are focused on pace – how fast, how much they have improved, whether pace matters or whether winning a medal is the goal.
Pace is a word we hear consistently, daily in most businesses and organisations these days too. People having to cope with the much faster pace of decision making, of solution finding, finding agility to respond to the multiple demands in the right way as well as coping with the sheer volume of activity. Pace is also used when there is just too much work for the available resources – with people questioning whether they can handle the relentless pace (meaning volume). Athletes we might argue have it much easier in many ways – they have a single goal; a single focus and they can channel all of their efforts towards that.
Leaders are seeking to find pace within a broad spectrum of factors – human, psychological, financial, operational, strategic, innovation, growth demands, problem solving…the list goes on and on. But what does pace really mean? What is meant in the relentless call for ‘more pace’? It’s beyond the hamster wheel analogy because at least that’s going in the same direction continuously – and so in that case we might say it’s about going faster. And of course, whilst it might feel like a hamster wheel in truth it’s much more like a multi directional rollercoaster. Faster in multiple directions.
But is it really all about speed? In modern leadership when we speak about pace, upping the pace, moving more quickly, we are, or should be far more discerning about its application. For example, is it really about doing everything more quickly? Isn’t it more about taking the right amount of time to identify the priorities and, within that, determine which need to be progressed quickly (at pace) and which can adopt a slower pace. Holding 5 ‘priorities’ all with the same urgency only works if you have enough resources to allocate to each of them – in which case great, fill your boots.
If we speak of ‘pacing ourselves’ then we are applying the right pace to the right degree to get the ‘best’ outcome. Which raises the question about the purpose of the pace, meaning in reality, pace can only be considered in the context of the goal. What are we trying to achieve and what’s the most appropriate or necessary speed at which to achieve that?
C-Suite leaders who generically call for more pace without refining the messaging risk creating a frenzy of action that implodes and sets up future issues – not least of which serious well-being consequences. Within the complexity of the issues under consideration, in truth, a slower pace may be more appropriate to allow time for reflection, discussion and review. If a change of gear is needed because a higher performance is needed, most athletes would have a step-by-step plan for how to achieve that increased speed. They don’t just ‘run or swim or cycle faster’. They build toward it.
So the question to all C-suite leaders calling for more pace is what is the goal you are really trying to address and how do you support your team to step up their performance in intelligent and planned ways?