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It occurred to me recently that we may be exceeding the speed limit.
Technology creates an illusion of instant communication with people
halfway around the world. Time blurs into abstraction in meetings spanning half-a-dozen
different time zones. (A friend insists it would be easier if we all just switched our
clocks to GMT. There are days when I agree.) Corporations become global in the blink
of an eye. Employees squeeze into a shrinking "Do More with Less" box, as if
productivity could be a bottomless reservoir.
Working lunches expand into working breakfasts, coffees, and dinners.
Teleconferences provide stellar opportunities for multi-tasking, with telephone headset
firmly implanted in the ear (when will they be doing this surgically, I wonder?),
leaving both hands free on the keyboard to answer email and send instant messages.
Blackberries and ever-smaller laptops invade conference rooms, ostensibly
for note-taking but actually for even more multi-tasking. I was horrified a few years ago
by a high-level consultant who sat in a conference with a client — working on a proposal
for another client.
Almost everyone I meet seems slightly panicky, with the wide-eyed expression
of a small gazelle scenting a predator. "Think time," time to just sit and
integrate, assimilate, and synthesize new ideas, is impossible. What if someone
saw you just sitting there?
It's no wonder that companies everywhere are moaning about the death of innovation.
There's tremendous pressure even on kids to act, produce, do, stay
busy. I had lunch with a friend last week who told me she wanted to take her kids on
a camping trip, but they were too busy with school and sports to take a weekend off.
Don't just do something, stand there!
Fortunately, there's a growing counter-culture. The
Slow Food movement has seeded its
ideas into slow cities, slow journalism, slow trade, and even slow management. Yoga and
meditation are becoming mainstream, though I'm concerned about the number of
"quick! easy! foolproof!" meditation advertisements I see.
Like many worthwhile things, slowing down is
simple but not easy, simple but not quick, simple and far from foolproof. The idea of
just sitting and doing nothing — truly nothing —
for even five or ten minutes, much less half an hour or longer, is appalling to most of
us. Even when we claim we're doing "nothing," we're usually doing
something: watching television, reading, chatting with
family or friends. And then there's that fear that if you
slow down, you'll slow to a stop, and suddenly
nothing will get done and you'll be fired for
non-performance.
Nothing could be farther from the truth, counter-intuitive as it may
seem. Some of the corporate world's most successful CEOs and leaders, men and women
with huge demands on their time, routinely practice doing nothing. (Don't
believe me? Read The Corporate Mystic, an eye-opening look
into the ideas and practices of high-level executives in organizations such as Motorola,
Eastman Kodak, Nike, and others.)
Here are three ways you can slow down.
- Schedule time on your calendar to do nothing. Really. Just sit. Let your
mind wander without trying to problem-solve, plan, or figure anything out.
Watch it play, like you'd watch a puppy or a kitten. After you've done this
for a while, you'll be amazed at the images, insights, and realizations that will
come.
- Create a "no-work zone" around your mealtimes. Even if it's just
a fifteen-minute break to eat the sandwich you brought from home, turn away from your
computer, ignore the phone, don't touch that stack of papers. You may be surprised
by the taste and texture your turkey sandwich never seemed to have before. Or
— wait — is it actually tuna salad, and you hadn't noticed?
- Instead of answering email, take a walk down the hall and talk to people. On your
way, see who's hanging out with whom by the printer, notice the management team
assembled in the "fishbowl" conference room (every office seems to have
one of these nowadays), and who's looking particularly stressed — or
especially calm. Noticing these things give you clues about what's going on
in the organization, an added plus along with the physical boost of actually moving
around, and the benefit you'll get from talking face-to-face instead of
electronically.
When you slow down, taking time to pause and re-orient yourself in
the world, you'll find yourself making more considered decisions, responding with
greater insight and compassion, and — paradoxically — being more productive.
And you might even start gaining a reputation for being calm and unflappable.
What ways do you use to slow down, be still, do nothing?
I'd love to learn your favorites, and hear about your experiences.
"The mind, when it is quiet, delivers up phenomenal intuition
which can then be focused to design a next-generation product or to understand
what's driving particular customers."
Ed McCracken, CEO, Silicon Graphics
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About the Author: Grace Judson is an
executive coach and business consultant with more than two decades of experience in
strategic planning, coaching, business planning, and tactical execution. She specializes
in corporate politics and culture issues, and is especially interested in gender politics
and the issues of women and gender role expectations in the workplace. For more
information, go to:
www.svahaconcepts.com.
© 2007 Grace L. Judson. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted here with permission
granted by the author.
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