What We Heard From Our Clients This Week

One of the real joys of our work is helping clients identify and develop high potential internal candidates for critical roles.  Oftentimes, our work on such assignments will span several years, as it has recently with a client planning for an upcoming change at the top.  In this case, the planned successor has well earned the pending promotion.  He has been instrumental in helping the organization reach surprising and transformative results.  But as we have watched him succeed, we have been reminded of another client and another time.  Back in the 1990’s, one of our high tech clients passed out buttons that said, “Speed Kills…the Competition.”  Their lawyers, frightened by SEC lawyers poking around their organization, quickly recalled the buttons afraid that they would be seen as advocating “anti-competitive business practices.”  Well, with or without the buttons, it is irrefutable that the ability to see opportunities, seize them at break neck speed, and get to market first has often been the difference between realizing remarkable success, and being second and irrelevant.  Back to today, the current executive-in-waiting is a poster child for the “speed kills…” philosophy.  But as he approaches his move into the top role, it has become clear that, for him, “speed” not only kills the competition, it has the potential of “killing” essential support for the pending change.  People respect him, and think he ought to get the top role, but they are personally concerned.  In thinking about this situation, another client sent a relevant quote this week from Eknath Easwaran.  She says, “When we go faster and faster, we tend to grow more and more insensitive to the needs of everyone around us. We become dull, blunted and imperceptive. To be aware of others, we have to go slowly and pay attention to what is happening.”

In our final preparation of the executive for the pending change, we have encouraged him to balance his “speed kills” mantra with one that says, “go slow, to go fast.”  That is, it is likely time for the leader to pay much closer attention to building his relationships with the key stakeholders who will ultimately determine his, and his organization’s success.

Does “going slow to go fast” make any sense to you in this situation?  How have you balanced the need to “go fast” – to get things done, seize opportunities, and drive performance to the next level – with the need to “go slow” – to be sure your organization and key stakeholders are with you?  What else would you recommend the leader think about during this period of seasoning and preparation?