Slowing Down To Go Fast

When a business grows, that which once flowed easily can become congested over time—when systems don’t keep up with increased work volumes. I experienced this first-hand today but in a different setting. Ten years ago, Kingsford Smith Drive in Brisbane used to be a fast flowing thoroughfare. As the city has grown and the traffic volume has increased so has the congestion. Today, I find the speed reduced to 40 km/h and it’s painfully slow and frustrating at times. Construction crews are now creating new lanes to re-establish speed and flow. It’s a case of slowing down to speed up. In business, sometimes it’s critically important to intentionally slow things down temporarily, minimally lowering performance outcomes if required in order to focus our efforts on constructing a new road. These new roads can represent the employment of new staff; the reorganisation of divisions, management, roles and responsibilities; the documenting of processes and procedures; implementation of a new job management software platform; culture change and so forth. This kind of decision, to intentionally take a hit on performance and speed, takes courage, but in the long run, congestion will ease, flow will resume, speed and outcomes will rapidly increase and your employees and customers will be significantly better off for it.