Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We don’t want to be slow. Stop all slow processes; be quick. There are, however, slowing processes—things that cause pause for thinking. And thinking is almost always a good thing.

“This is slow. This is too slow. Let’s stop doing this,” said a frustrated person who has a good idea (or in most cases this is a good idea).

We don’t want to be slow at work. Others will “get there first” and take market share or this or that or something that we want. There is no need for slow procedures where we have to have 12 different people sign a piece of paper and with vacations and sickness and all that it takes a month to find each of those 12 people and … you know.

There are, however, slowing procedures and processes. “We won’t do this until everyone looks at it, thinks, and says to go ahead.” We can do this in an hour or half an hour; fast enough? And everyone thinks about it.

That is too slow for some people. Some people are in “too much of a hurry.” Let’s think first. Thinking is good. Right?

One of the problems is that these are all subjective terms and sentences. My opinion, your opinion, their opinion, etc.

Still, let’s pause and think. Even for five minutes, let’s think. That is a slowing process. It isn’t slow, but slowing. I think that is good.