Slow Down to Speed Up

Have you ever wondered why you suddenly get that “Big Idea” when you’re sitting at a beach on vacation?  Or while hiking in nature? 

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with my clients around this phenomenon lately - a trend that people seem to be warming up to. Did you know both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are both famous for taking retreats where they totally detached to come up with their biggest ideas?

"Steve would be on vacation, and he would be pondering where the next product, the next direction for Apple, new technologies, things he's reading,"...He used that vacation as a time to kind of expand his thinking and get outside of the Apple day-to-day." - Tony Faddell, who invented the iphone.

His team shared that they expected not to hear from Jobs for the extent of his trips. But while that was true for the first 24 to 48 hours, vacation proved to ignite Job's creative juices more than anything else and they’d end up getting calls from him 5-6 times a day to research or brainstorm the big picture ideas he was coming up with.

So This Week’s Gianna’s Gem, just in time for summer is: Slow Down to Speed Up. 

Slowing down to speed up could mean being conscious of the many distractions that bombard you and keep you from getting to where you want to go in a shorter amount of time. 

Slowing down to speed up may mean eliminating a lot of unimportant things you do so you have more time for the important things.

It can also mean taking time to plan an event for your team, your leadership team, or your entire company to connect, spend time building relationships, and coming up with moonshot ideas or solutions to increase organizational efficiency and flow. 

What this looks like for companies: 

Spending just 2 days together at an offsite can end up generating your next big breakthrough product, eliminate major inefficiencies and improve team communication so that your company can improve how it works and drives business results (AND, a great morale booster)!  

Some might protest it’s too costly from a budget/team/resource perspective to invest in these kinds of events for their own teams, but I argue that’s a penny-wise, pound foolish approach. 

By slowing down to build the foundation RIGHT, you can build a higher building (or skyscraper if you have big dreams) on top. But a weak foundation will cause any new additions to your building to crumble, or at a minimum be unstable or unreliable. There are plenty of creative solutions if budget, time, location, etc. is daunting to you (just reach out and I can help you optimize what you are solving for).

What this looks like for events: 

Events have so many tasks and deliverables, it’s easy to get caught up in getting them all done and as quickly as possible. But when we move to “execute-mode” too often with events, we sometimes fail to see creative solutions and ideas that might end up saving us a lot of pain/budget/time and improving the attendee experience. 

I recently helped a client shave hours off their weekly planning and hundreds of thousands off their budget by auditing their event (EVERYTHING, I mean budget, team structure, timeline, contracts, staging and creative…) and rebuilding the foundation of the event for them even though they were midway through planning.  

We had to pause on the forward-movement and rebuild the foundation (estabish clear team structure, ROI measurement, budget structure, operating process, exec reviews, etc), but after two weeks of building a strong operating structure, we started flying! 

Decisions were being made swiftly because we had operational efficiencies in place, clear structure for reviews and clarity on which ONE person was the ultimate decision maker and which ONE person was performing the task, and clear objections which allowed us more focus and prioritization and ultimately a much more successful event.

What this looks like for you:

Many of us are Type A’s (guilty as charged) and never seem to have enough hours in a day to do it all. We are often overloaded these days with so much content, noise, activities, that it becomes distracting to our bigger-picture vision and ability to see clearly our real priorities each day, let alone each year. But like the slow-food movement, which encouraged people to stop eating on the go, and savor food with appreciation, I think people are finding the same to be true with how they are approaching how they connect and engage with the world and eachother.

Here are some tips if you can’t take a vacation TODAY (because honestly, that R&R is a good investment in your future success!)

Ground yourself in nature: Even 10 minutes walking in nature can reduce cortisol and help you take a step way from your screens and have space for creative solutions and ideas.

Sleep: You will probably be more efficient, creative and effective if you get an extra hour of sleep rather than spend an extra hour on emails (and we all know you’re also on social media - not helpful before bed!)

Meet: Spend time getting out with friends, going to events, museums, whatever nurtures your soul and connects you with others. It will pay off to take a break from your screen and share ideas and get inspired from being in a new environment. That’s why we all love events ;)