You’ve probably heard the Navy Seals saying, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” It means that when events are most pressurized and the stakes are rising by the second, you still take the time to do things right.
In reality, this is when it matters most NOT to rush.
When the pressure gets extremely high, pretty much every bone in your body is screaming at you to do the opposite. Imagine a movie in which a panicked individual is yelling at the bomb disposal expert, “Cut the wire! We’re all going to die.” The expert stays calm, and realizes it’s the other wire that needs to be cut.
In our line of work, we often encounter pressurized circumstances. An entire production line may be shut down, or close to that status. A lot of money is at stake. Customer orders are at risk. This is when we need to stay calm.
“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast” doesn’t mean we lose our sense of urgency. We still understand that the goal is to resolve the situation as quickly as humanly possible.
Experience teaches that the fastest way to do this... is to go slow.
