Slow down to speed up: Build perspective and generate tempo

The other day I was talking through an issue with one of my clients. He'd become so busy that he felt like he had lost perspective. They had a cost-saving issue at his work place (seems de-rigour at the moment) and were so busy chasing pennies that they had lost sight of how far they had come already; but as a result they were doing the business equivalent of kids chasing the football around the pitch, not looking for space into which someone can pass the ball.

So, we talked about slowing down to speed up.

And we talked about "Tempo"

So, let's examine Tempo for a little bit. You will have heard the term before, but you might not know that in the military it is a defined term. To put it into plain English, it's how quickly an organisation can cycle through its operations relative to the enemy.

Tempo is important to the military, because in combat, tempo generates momentum, and momentum dislocates an enemy so that they just cannot do what they want to do - they are forced into being reactive.

Let me just explain it a little bit more so that it is clear how this manifests itself in combat.

Let's look at an Infantry Platoon. It's made up of three sections of eight, plus a HQ element. Each of these sections can manoeuvre independently of each other. When operating in the platoon context, certainly in an offensive operation; each section will normally rotate through three roles; Assault, Suppress (i.e. fire support) and Reserve (they are going to be available to be used next.)

In any assault, what happens is that a section will provide fire support for the next section to assault an enemy position. As soon as they secure that position, the assaulting section will re-organise and then provide fire support for the next section to assault the next identified enemy position - and so it goes on. Assault, suppress, reserve....

Now in this time, the enemy isn't just waiting for you to roll over them. A good fighting force will immediately seek to counter attack any objective they have just lost - they need to regain the initiative.

So tempo is how quickly one side or the other can move to their next phase (be that the next assault, or the counter-attack.)

But here is the critical thing. Speed is just one factor. Tempo, is relative to the other side.

Do you need an example closer to home?

Let's look at some commercial examples. Apple in the period 2006-2014 had a tempo that far outstripped its competitors. From the introduction of the IPhone, they maintained a tempo of innovation and product launch they simply outstripped competitors. Just as their competitors were forced to react to the IPhone, they were already about to launch their next product, forcing competitors to react again.

In 2008/9 if you were in the market for a smart phone, it looked like you were going for an IPhone or taking a risk on something that wasn't as good, or exciting or (insert your reason here.

Sometimes you need to slow down to speed up

Now why would that be the case?

Combat is confusing. It can feel like a whirlwind. Nobody really knows what is going on (certainly not in its entirety)

You would think that speed is all important. And whilst physical speed is, tempo trumps speed of decision. Let me explain.

When soldiers first come under contact, they have a drill to keep them alive and put the enemy on the back foot. What this does, is build space to think about the problem and respond (rather than react).

A commander will extract themselves from the immediate contact battle and will think. They will conduct what is known as an estimate - 7 questions that they ask themselves to develop a simple plan to be executed.

This is so well drilled by training that most commanders can go through this quick estimate in a couple of minutes (you are actually tested on this on command courses - you have 30 minutes normally for a full estimate).

By slowing down just a bit, we become deliberate in what we are doing. We respond rather than reacting. We achieve a greater chance of success.

So, what are the factors in tempo?

• A Process that everyone knows. The best organisations follow simple processes and drills that enable them to slow down to speed up. They don't have to invent process for each situation, they think through the situation whilst going through a standard process.
• Shared Understanding. Everyone one works toward the same aim and they share information about the situation. They attempt, as one former boss of mine said "to aggressively over-communicate"
• Training. Difficult in business, but in sport and the military time spent training is really where tempo is developed. teams that know each-other, know the processes and become slick in their drills can cycle through their operations in a way that lesser trained organisations cannot cope with.
• Experience. I think here is where businesses thrive. Shared experience, the collective endeavour and a desire to keep teams together has the same impact as training does with sport and the military. Apple's teams generated more and more experience the more they innovated and released products. They just got better at it than their competitors. Arguably, this forged something similar in their competitors - now you might say that the likes of Samsung worked out how to generate a tempo exceeding Apple through hard won experience.
• An 'offensive' mindset. I don't mean on a personal level. I'm talking about a winning, healthy competitive mindset. A mindset that says 'we are going to do this again and again and again until we win. We aren't going to stop, once we have success - we re-cycle the process and do it again."

So I'd lay this challenge down to you.

How do you generate tempo in the areas of life in which you want to achieve more? Where do you need to slow down in order to achieve it, rather than charging around like a kid on a football field who can only chase the ball?