Slow Down To Go Fast

Dr. Robert Cavagnol is the president of St. Luke’s Clinic in Boise, ID. He recently shared his leadership lessons and perspective below with our CEO, Mo Kasti.

I was out for a weekend run and was glancing at this sign (Slow Down, Share the Path) when it hit me. I had seen it several times on prior runs but never gave it a second thought. Suddenly, boom! The message crystalized right in front of me. There are two distinct lessons embedded here for my leaderships and how I can be an effective leader for my team.

Upon sharing the picture with my coach Mo Kasti, he did what great coaches do: ask me thought-provoking questions. My coach has been helping me think about my leadership and the ways I need to adjust my style to coalesce the team.

Through anonymous and candid 360 feedback that my coach collected from my supervisor, peers, and direct reports, there emerged the following theme:

Rob has a strong bias for action and driving results, but sometimes he just moves too fast and is on to the next thing while we are still trying to work on the current initiatives.

This sign, with two distinct leadership lessons embedded in it, became a great and timely reminder for me of how to be an effective leader of teams:

Slow Down

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb

John Maxwell, one of the most highly respected leadership gurus of our time, often says, “If you are out front leading and you look back and notice no one else is following you, then you are just out for a walk.” That’s my problem. I am a pace-setter type of leader. The high expectations I set for myself and others drive some to get frustrated and demoralized by my constant pushing and their inability to keep the pace. They aren’t under-performers. They simply think, process, and act at a different pace than mine.

Slowing down, ensuring the team understands the task at hand, the resources available, what success looks like, and how we plan to get there are the key elements so that everyone can keep up. “Slow down to go fast” never made sense to me until I became a surgeon. Some of my best mentors taught me that efficient movements, no wasted steps, and careful dissection allow a surgeon to avoid excessive bleeding or getting into the wrong plane. Those errors can be the result of hurrying and in the end, the operation takes longer. Slowing down allows for good questions to come out, questions that highlight the level of understanding that the team has and their level of confidence. Slow isn’t lazy. Slow is deliberate and smart.

Share the Path

The path is a metaphor for the space we each occupy in our organizations. In many situations, as leaders, we think about ourselves as problem solvers waiting for team members to bring problems and challenges to us and for us to provide solutions for them to execute. That is not sharing the path! Leaders are not automatons, blindly carrying out orders from their genius boss. Sharing the path is about sharing the burden of leadership through effective delegation and engaging the team members in co-creating the strategy and tactics to drive a successful outcome.

To share the path and engage our team effectively is to engage the individual’s three intrinsic motivators that Daniel Pink outlines in his book, Drive.

I used to get frustrated whenever I have a leader miss my expectations. Now I start with self-reflection and self-interrogation:

• Purpose:
  • Have I provided enough context and background to make the purpose clear about my request?
  • Have I provided a clarity of vision for success?
  • Was I clear in my expectations and articulating what success looks like?
• Mastery:
  • Did I provide the appropriate resources to accomplish this task or goal?
  • Does this leader have the training/knowledge/skill set to make it happen?
• Autonomy:
  • Do I trust them enough to be less prescriptive?
  • Is there a conflict of motivation with this leader? (Am I asking them to do something that has the potential to conflict with other priorities they are working on with their team?)
  • Have we ensured clarity and alignment of roles, goals and priorities using line of Sight. Line of Sight allows guardrails for alignment and accountability.

Accountability is often confused with blame. Some leaders wield accountability like a weapon, looking to pin failures on individuals, and by doing so, they are holding that person “accountable.” Blame culture is the fast track to toxicity and losing your best people. Instead, accountability is saying to someone, “I am counting on you,” and is always reciprocal. The people I lead likewise count on me to remove obstacles, be available and approachable, and provide assistance when needed.

Think about your own leadership and your team. Are you moving at a pace that brings everyone along? Or are you leading like I was – way out in front, oblivious to the teammate’s pace? How are you sharing the leadership path and creating space for your team to have the room to learn and grow with your mentorship? Are you using a coach to take your leadership game to the next level?