To go—and grow—fast, you may want slow down. I realize this is counter intuitive. If you’ve got a big goal and a lot of pressure to get it done, you feel the heat is on, so your natural instinct is to go fast. My best advice is you probably need to put the brakes on and “slow down.”
I am not suggesting you hurry up and wait. But I am definitely suggesting you take the time to realize that nothing big ever gets done by yourself. You have to take people with you. And to take people with you, it means you have to get them engaged in your endeavor so they have their head, heart and hands in it. This means you must take the time to get your people involved. Because remember, no involvement means no commitment.
So take the time to share everything you know about your initiative or business, and then ask your team members two key questions:
- Do you see the reality the same and if not, how does it differ? This will allow you to align on the current situation and need. The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality and if you can do it together, all the better.
- What should WE do? This gives everyone on the team opportunity to weigh in so the plan of attack becomes “our” plan, not just yours. Even more importantly, you get the benefit of everyone’s ideas so you end up with an even better plan. I call the process “1+1=3.”
Taking the time to go from “me” to “we” is the real key to speed, because once you have everyone aligned on the tasks at hand and involved in the plan, you have a fired-up team ready to help you make it happen.
Failing to take the time to do this upfront only means you will most likely have to go back later to do it to get the engagement you need for success, and this ultimately ends up taking you much longer to achieve your goal.
So slow down and speed up!