Is Everything! Timing

I'll admit it: timing isn't my strong suit. I have a very strong bias for execution. Do the thing now. If it's broken, no big deal. We'll fix it. Make moves fast. It's better now than later.

Funny sidebar: in my own personal life, it's the opposite. Ask my laundry. Or mail that hasn't been opened. Or the myriad things that fall into "executive function disorder."

Understanding time and timing is so important. A ticket to Super Bowl LVIII this morning is a lot less expensive than it was last night. Wishing someone happy birthday two days late is less impactful than on the day. I believe it was Professor Rogers who said it's important to know when to walk away, and also know when to run. That's timing.

Breathe

In coaching, I can't tell you the number of times I've handed out the annoying-to-receive advice of "breathe." For all kinds of probably primal reasons, we humans tend to ramp up our energy and suddenly feel a strong urge to act immediately. But this pulls us away from what Viktor Frankl taught us: Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.

Often, if we take a moment to breathe, our response is better than what we say when we respond to something quickly.

But I think where the challenge comes into play is when we have to understand the different timing needs between "in a heated moment" and "we have to fix this." Because those are two different time horizons.

Timing is About Resources, Too

Maybe you want to think about which cave to swim through now that you're underwater and have no oxygen tank, and which one's the best route back to the surface, but oh right. You're out of oxygen.

In business, timing can be a matter of money. Do you have enough money to stretch out a decision or do you have to act now? If you have your money in hand, you can take this action, but maybe that will be bad given what's coming up. See what I mean? Timing is about resources.

With our thinking, we have to know whether our resources impact our timing. People, money, materials, all that. A lot of business and life success comes down to understand that formula a bit better.

Sequence

I forget where I read it, but someone said that most of us know what the right things to do actually are, but few of us know the best ORDER to do them in. It's stuck with me ever since that the concept of "sequence" is vital to better timing. If we do this, then we must do that, but not before we handle this other thing.

I like to cook. Nothing fancy. But one of the things I love the most involves that sequence detail. For instance, let's say I wanted to make a burger with grilled onions and cheese. What's the sequence for cooking all those things?

1. Bun first - get it toasted while I...
2. Chop the onions - doing this while I pull the bun off, so I can ...
3. Grill onions - ahead of the burger so they'll cook up a bit and flavor the pan. Season the burger meat while the onions grill. Then onions out so I can ...
4. Cook the burger - this feels like the fastest part, especially because I do smash burgers more often than any other type. Make sure I've got the cheese ready after the first flip so I can..
5. Add the cheese - this is super fast because I'm just getting it to melt. I can throw a few condiments on the bun if I want at this moment and then...
6. Assemble everything on the plate while shutting the burner off.

Sequence. A lot of overlap in here so that I'm efficient with my time and so that everything comes together for that Avengers moment. Assemble!

Reflections

I had a great reminder lesson about timing today at work. I should have thought about this more before I made the first recommendation I delivered. A lot of my strategy work ignores or downplays this element, and as I'm frequently reminded, timing is rather important. I need to respect it more, embrace it, work with it. Maybe that's a sticky note for my monitor. Timing is a core element of decisions and strategy.

Besides, the other part of the reflection is that the big win is understanding when people are lagging with action versus when they're moving too hastily. There's a ...cough.. time for everything, after all.

I'll show myself out.

Chris...