Power of Slowing Down

Power of Slowing Down

• August 28, 2023
• Posted By Adrienne Guerrero

It’s that time of year again, the kiddos are going back to school. While many parents are breathing a collective sigh of relief, they are also facing challenges with hectic schedules. Every transition is an opportunity to slow down to take account of things and adjust our plans (and expectations). Be kind to yourself and others as we all find our new rhythms. I invite you to listen to my conversation with Tom Rosenak for a Leadership Beyond on the Power of Slowing Down. This article was originally published at A Leadership Beyond. See the original here.

A Leadership Beyond is a collaboration between Positive Delta Founder, Adrienne Guerrero and Tom Rosenak of Diamond Mind Enterprises. Published bi-monthly, it features articles, interviews, and videos that will connect you with a diverse panel of experts who share strategies, tools and techniques for leadership.

Listen to Adrienne and Tom discussing the benefits of remembering the power of slowing down:

You’ve heard it said, “sometimes we must slow down to speed up”.

The clearer we get, the greater our capacity to handle a steady pace.

First, we need to catch our breath, step back, get centered, anchored, and focus on the people engagement and alignment. A rational business strategy without the team behind it is unlikely to have successful execution, and certainly not quickly or effectively.

As an experienced change leader, and a Talent Optimization specialist, Adrienne knows the principle, in fact teaches it, practices it, and works to instill this principle in leaders as they navigate the people side of change.

Tom asks, “What do you do when things get out of control and just want to scream -Ahhhhh!?”

Adrienne shares an example: new people, people leaving, a change management team experiencing rapid people transition – And yet, expectations for rapid progress creates frustration and a cycle of more people transition.

It feels as though there is no time to step back and do real work on team dynamics rather than keep pushing our to do lists.

Back to the fundamentals! What did Adrienne do?

“I stopped”. “Without that pause, we would have kept running the race and we didn’t even know what the race was for, and we were running anyway, with no direction.”

Adrienne did not discover something new here. She rediscovered something that became suppressed by the pressure of the pace and a desire to “make progress”.

We need to frequent reminders of what we already know! Reactivity is ignited by our rapid-fire doings.

As a reminder, Adrienne keeps a post it note that paraphrases Brené Brown: “Notice it. Sit with it. And then put it in perspective.”

A Leadership Beyond variation –

Notice it, sit with it, put it into perspective through authentic conversation.

This recent example reminds us that better leadership is a process, not an event. Enduring p provide our compass; and rest assured we will get off track, so alignment, and realignment is the continuous process. This example also illustrates three of our top ten values. People first, Generative conversation, Collaboration for talent optimization. (Stay tuned for the publishing of A Leadership Beyond top ten values).

This conversation naturally led Adrienne and Tom to remember why we founded this community of conversation in the first place. To support fellow leaders (and ourselves) to remember to model leadership principles as we struggle to regain our footing and recreate ourselves and our organizations for success and fulfilment in the decades to come.

As always, we desire to hear your voice in our conversations!

Tom & Adrienne.