Act quick! This has to be done right now!
Such is often the message – but rarely the actual case.
Why do we so frequently fall into this trap? Why do we often needlessly put ourselves under the pressure to act quickly? What is this need to perform tasks without enough time to process? We are then forcing ourselves to ignore crucial pieces of relevant context which rarely results in positive outcomes.
Speed of change, speed of action, speed of decision and rate of growth is generally revered in the business world. “Bias for action” is considered a virtue.So, no wonder urgency is a base state of mind in most teams.
However, the tendency of letting urgency and speed stand in the way of the quality, causes collective harm. The damage caused is only surpassed by the one its extreme counterpart – inability or procrastination to make a decision or take any action at all.
We’ve all at some point blurted an answer to incomplete or poorly understood questions. At one point or another, dealt with an aggravating situation right there and then – while aggravated, just to regret it later! Perhaps jumped on an overdue task, not realizing the world moved on in the meantime and it was no longer relevant to proceed. Or acted without sufficient forethought and missed a much more effective way.
No wonder. We are wired to react instinctively from the jungle. It takes conscious effort, training and practice to adapt to our everyday reality which has arguably less situations concerning our own mortality while working with our teams.
In flight school, we were taught to face any crisis with first counting calmly to ten before taking any decisive action. The wisdom lies in avoiding the fight / flight reflex, taking stock of the situation, and handing the decision making over to more snap-decision-resistant parts of our brain.
The practice of “jumping to conclusions” has a bad name for a very good reason.
How to break the habit? While the right recommendation is of course heavily dependent on the situation at hand, there are a few widely applicable tips:
- First, before jumping into solutioning, assess the timeline – How much time is there? Seconds? Hours? Years? Answer this honestly and clearly, otherwise you may just open the door to procrastination and non-action. Plan to use the available time effectively for the best outcome. Sometimes (albeit more rarely than one would think), the time frame is not enough for a sufficient degree of confidence. That’s OK. Do the best with the time you have.
- Second, gain clarity before action – Do you fully understand the circumstances, ask or context? Do that before deciding or acting.
- Last but not least, deal yourself the best hand you can to handle the situation. Can you choose your state of mind? The right place and time to act? The best people to involve? Often, you can. Give yourself that advantage whenever possible!
The Heath brothers go into much more detail in their “Decisive“, advising to create (well, they call it “Attain” to fit that into their WRAP acronym) a distance, whether temporal, physical or psychological, in order to remove the pressure of “here and now” from the decision process.
How often do you wish you took more time before acting on impulse without sufficient thought?
