Three ways to balance speed with strategic patience
1. Create mental space for strategic thinking
Clarity needs quiet. I use yoga and meditation to slow my thinking, and this is particularly useful before major decisions. I find even small pockets of mental space improve my judgment.
2. Respond, don’t react
If something needs strategic insight, I take one deep breath before responding. That pause prevents premature decisions and poor sequencing.
3. Bring people in early to compress execution time
This one is really important and less intuitive. Some executives are reluctant to consult too widely, as they fear this will slow them down or they will lose control over the process. So they stay in their strategy war room with a small group of experts – I call this “dark room strategy”. Then they throw this over the implementation wall, announcing it staff, and are suprised when it takes a long time for staff to absorb, understand and implement. Resistance happens when staff aren’t involved in developing the strategy. Neuroscience theory describes this phenomenon perfectly.
Alternately, if you use the strategy-shaping phase to help others understand the direction, I’ve found this significantly speeds up implementation and compresses the overall time frame. Especially if you include AI in iterating solutions.
When the decision lands, people are aligned and ready to move.
Strategic patience isn’t slow. It’s how leaders move fast together with people.
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Get out of the “dark room” of strategy and compress time
“Information isn’t truth. If you flood the world with information, the truth sinks to the bottom.”
Yuval Noah Harari, Author, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
PS More Ways to Accelerate your Strategy
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About Lisa Carlin
Lisa Carlin is a Strategy Execution Specialist. Most of her work is guiding transformation leaders in B2B Tech and Knowledge Services to design and implement strategic AI programs that deliver tangible results at scale. She accelerates strategy with Culture Intelligence and AI.
Lisa is author of the globally acclaimed newsletter, Turbocharge Weekly, read by 8,000 business leaders.
Lisa’s career includes roles at McKinsey and Accenture, then running her own business since 1999. Over this time she has delivered over 50 implementations with a 96% success rate.
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