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Key Takeaways
- Pressure to move fast can lead to costly decisions and unnecessary course corrections.
- Brief pauses help leaders challenge assumptions and distinguish urgency from importance.
- Reflection should sharpen decisions, not become an excuse to delay them.
How many times over the past year have leaders been told to “move fast or get left behind”?
The race to keep up with AI has created a powerful sense of urgency inside many companies. Leaders are being asked to make consequential decisions about technology, talent and investment more quickly than ever.
We’re already seeing what can happen when organizations act before fully considering the implications. Nearly one-third of U.S. hiring managers whose organizations eliminated roles due to AI have since added some of those positions back.
While leadership will always require the ability to act decisively, it also demands knowing when a decision needs room to breathe — and that’s not always easy. It may mean gathering more information, hearing from those affected or thinking through how one change could ripple through the rest of the organization. And yet, one study reveals that only two in five leaders say they reflect weekly.
When the goal is to minimize unnecessary course corrections and wasted investments, leaders sometimes need to override the pull of urgency and simply make room to think.
Here’s why that can be difficult and how to do it productively.
Leaders build their reputations through action
Most leaders begin their careers as individual contributors. They are measured by the amount of work they produce and the results they deliver. Faced with seemingly never-ending tasks, they learn to solve problems quickly, seize opportunities and get things done — and those who do so consistently develop reputations as high performers.
That bias toward action can serve leaders well when a problem is relatively straightforward or well-understood. But the equation changes when people, processes, technology, systems and information must all work together.
For example, nearly two-thirds of CEOs say their boards are rushing AI transformation. The pressure that creates can push leaders to start before they know what effective implementation will actually require. And while some decisions are easy to adjust later, others can create costs, dependencies and organizational complexity that can take months or even years to unwind.
The key is knowing when to act and when to give yourself more time to think. Yet I’ve experienced firsthand how challenging this can be. Over the course of my career, I’ve had to become much more comfortable saying, “I don’t know yet.” But I’ve also witnessed how sitting calmly with a decision, gathering more insight and properly considering risks and opportunities can pay off.
There is also a point at which reflection stops improving a decision and indecision starts holding the organization back.
Experience can help leaders better gauge how long they can remain in that state before ultimately choosing a direction. If I end up in the same place after returning to an issue, pressure-testing my assumptions and actively trying to reach a different conclusion, that’s usually a sign it’s time to move.
Creating the distance to think clearly
I’ll never forget when one of my mentors, a former Navy SEAL, asked me a simple question as I was dealing with a difficult business situation: “Did anybody die?”
Nobody had, which was precisely the point. His question reminded me to separate what felt urgent from what was genuinely important and assess the actual risk.
That’s where reflection starts for me: opening the aperture and asking, “What is the issue? How did we get here? What else is happening that I need to take stock of?”
I’ll also sometimes use the inversion technique popularized by investor Charlie Munger. Instead of beginning with “How do we make this succeed?” I ask, “What would guarantee that this fails?” Working backward from failure often makes the conditions we need to avoid much clearer.
None of this requires a formal process or hours of uninterrupted time. Some of my best thinking happens while driving, taking a short walk or standing at the whiteboard in my office at the end of the day. Sometimes all I need is what I call a “thinking espresso shot”: a short, concentrated burst that interrupts the flow of doing and helps me take an aerial view of an issue.
Reflection is also important at the group level. Three or four times a year, my leadership team steps away from the day-to-day to work on the business rather than simply in it. That dedicated time and mental distance from our regular working environment helps us escape familiar routines and examine the business from a different vantage point.
Every one of those sessions has helped us radically improve our velocity on at least a few core issues, including some we had been wrestling with for months.
Reflection pays off now more than ever
The benefits of reflection extend beyond any single decision. At an organizational level, it can strengthen a company’s ability to adapt as circumstances change. McKinsey research found that 30% of the most reflective leaders reported their organizations could adapt quickly to a changing landscape, compared with 17% of the least reflective leaders.
Reflection can also help organizations move faster over the long run. You can move quickly and still take longer to reach your destination if the path is riddled with false starts and course corrections. A brief pause at the outset to think through the route can prevent months of doubling back later.
It also helps leaders separate activity from impact. In most organizations, a relatively small number of decisions and priorities will drive a disproportionate share of the results. Creating space to think makes it easier to identify that vital 20% rather than simply doing more.
The stakes will only rise as AI continues to change the relative value of doing and thinking. Distinctly human capabilities such as judgment and creative intelligence are likely to command a greater premium. As more companies gain access to similar tools and agents, the differentiator may well be the discernment to know which problems deserve their application and when their output can be trusted.
The faster organizations can move, the more important it becomes to choose the right direction. Reflection gives leaders the space to make that choice.
Key Takeaways
- Pressure to move fast can lead to costly decisions and unnecessary course corrections.
- Brief pauses help leaders challenge assumptions and distinguish urgency from importance.
- Reflection should sharpen decisions, not become an excuse to delay them.
How many times over the past year have leaders been told to “move fast or get left behind”?
The race to keep up with AI has created a powerful sense of urgency inside many companies. Leaders are being asked to make consequential decisions about technology, talent and investment more quickly than ever.
We’re already seeing what can happen when organizations act before fully considering the implications. Nearly one-third of U.S. hiring managers whose organizations eliminated roles due to AI have since added some of those positions back.