Slow Is Smooth And Smooth Is Fast

Today I want to make an introduction about efficiency versus thoroughness. In my mind, I think of these two things as not necessarily mutually exclusive, but also not necessarily mutually supportive of each other.

I have always thought of efficiency as being fast, it implies a speed to something. It implies an impartiality and certain experience. You are very efficient at that because you have done it so many times.

On the other hand, thoroughness implies speed on the opposite end. It implies a slower, more methodical process.

You are potentially inexperienced. That doesn’t necessarily mean that somebody that is thorough is inexperienced, not at all, but generally an inexperienced person tries to take things slower to ensure they don’t miss anything.

However, this can be frustrating as a business owner. As business owners, we want efficient people. We want people that get the most bang for your buck.

That’s just a natural aspect of being a business owner, because it is all about productivity and getting the proper return on your investment.

However, you cannot ignore the thoroughness aspect of it, because there is a point where efficiency will sacrifice quality, where efficiency will maybe sacrifice some break time.

That may be sustainable for a little while, but it’s not sustainable long-term by any stretch because people need to be able to give their brain that break to step away, especially if it’s something that requires some mental prowess.

There’s a balance. This happens a lot too in how people relate to each other. There are some people that are very thorough, they are very methodical and they are very intentional in how they talk to each other.

On the other hand, somebody that typically talks faster will have a little bit higher tone, they are moving a little bit faster and moving a little bit more.

There’s one speaker that we run into a lot in our world, and I’m not going to name his name at all, but he is a much slower talker, he’s more methodical. He’s more thoughtful in how he communicates.

He is not a fast talker, but there is a balance. He’s moved more towards the spectrum of tilting to the “Man, get to the point”. I get it, the dramatic pauses, use them to an effect, but stop using them after every sentence.

Now all I’m hearing is my analysis of how he’s talking versus what he’s actually talking about. It is something you need to be aware of, especially you as the leader of how you are communicating to your people and knowing how they are hearing it.

I’m not talking about attitude or things of that nature. I’m purely talking about modality, tonality, pace, all those things of how you communicate.

This is something if you are learning and growing as a leader, you need to become aware of this, even if it’s to the point where you may need to take a class, you may need to take some sort of instructional program.

I would argue against your community college-level speech class, because that’s teaching more mechanics and not necessarily applicable to most scenarios.

If you are in an industry where there are conferences and maybe you hope to be a presenter someday at these conferences, or seminars, or do your own, this is something that is well worth your investment.

That may be something you need to work into your budget if that is a goal of yours. If you have no aspirations or no opportunity to get on these stages, Toastmasters is a great local, community-type organization that is known for this.

It is very similar to if you have got a big sales call with a company that you are hoping to land as a client. How you do your presentation to them and pitch your offer to them is very similar to somebody that would do a TED Talk or something of that nature.

You have to be pretty self-aware, know exactly what you are going for and what type of thing you want to learn from that.

There’s a famous military quote that sums up the concept of efficiency versus being thorough: Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

The point of it is, and I think this comes from the aspect of reloading your weapon, for example if you are in the middle of a firefight and you are just going trying to jam that magazine back in there and you miss the magwell, you are not fast anymore.

Even in a time-critical situation, there’s a concept of slow is smooth in the sense of if you take that extra second to make sure that everything is going as it’s supposed to and you ready your weapon for that response, then that in itself is fast.

So take that extra couple seconds and see how that applies to you and your business.

Please share with us if you are naturally more on the efficiency spectrum or on the thoroughness spectrum.

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