Pausing the Spin

I know I’ve focused on football the last few weeks, but for years at every Esks game (now of course the Elks), an endzone contest occurs during one of the breaks. A target is dropped in one part of the endzone and the blindfolded contestant is spun before marching off in search of the prize. To orient themselves, contestants will point in a direction until the crowd’s boos turn to cheers to confirm they’re facing the target. And with this, they’re off.

The clock ticks, inevitably they’ll meander off course and the boos will return. Here’s where it gets interesting. Some continue moving, erratically pointing, and giving the crowd no way to help with a boo or a cheer. Fans are helpless to guide, and the contestant aimlessly wanders the endzone until the 30 second clock expires, often ending up a Trevor Harris bomb away from the prize.

Some take another tack. Once off track and hearing those same boos, they’ll stop. Then they point again and slowly turn until the applause sets new coordinates. With that, they start walking again. Usually once or twice more, they’ll angle off course, the fans will boo, and they’ll repeat the process to get back on course. But almost always this person wins.

Organizations also often operate in one of these two ways. Those like the first are in a race, and in a race you keep moving never stopping to re-evaluate. Time is ticking and it feels like pausing only creates risk. The partial info they’re getting, and not evaluating, combined with the inherent skill they feel they have is deemed enough to hit the goal.

An organization that follows the second strategy is one that’s comfortable pausing. The breath enables them time to absorb incoming info. They assess it against what they already know and determine if it sets them on a new course or on one that’s a small deviation from the original. Yes, the pause temporarily slows them down, but it quickly gets them on a clearer path.

For good or for bad, pace is a core element in our world today, making a pause more valuable. In the moment it can eat at us to slow down and gauge what to do next. And, while we have more data available to us than ever, instantly acting on each new insight can send us spiraling in uncoordinated directions, much like the ever moving contestant. So slow down, listen, use the info you need, discard what you don’t and keep moving to the target. The prizes at the end are usually pretty good!