Pace the Race

Ask a Formula 1 driver what a redline is and they’ll tell you it is the maximum speed an engine and its components are designed to operate without causing damage. The redline is clearly marked on the tachometer which measures the engine’s revolutions per minute or rpm’s. That’s one of the reasons the best drivers always keep a close watch on the tachometer. They want to get as close as they can to the redline but not exceed it for an extended period of time. When you push the engine rpm’s too high for too long you can end up blowing up the engine.

Understanding what an engine’s redline is (and they can vary from a few hundred rpm to over ten thousand) helps the driver to set a race strategy and pace. The driver varies the pace to take into account the engine’s redline, and they want to take advantage of opportunities and use the draft of other cars to conserve fuel. They know when and how hard to push the car, and when to back off.

The concepts of redlining and pace are good ones for faster leaders to be aware of and utilize in managing their team.  As a faster leader you push the outer boundaries of speed to win, to get products to market faster, and to distance yourself from your competition. You take your team to the edge to get the best out of them. But, you have to be careful not to overdo it. When a leader pushes too hard, team performance can begin to suffer. They can end up feeling like they can’t win or nothing is ever good enough. The team can give up and shut down. You can blow up the organizational engine. Just like the Formula 1 driver you need to vary the pace and conserve fuel for when make your move for the checkered flag.

The pace you set for your team is determined by three factors. First, the environment or market you participate in helps set a general pace. Some industries, like high technology have a very fast pace or cycle time while others are slower. Any team that performs in an particular environment needs to equal or exceed the pace set by the industry leaders. The leader needs to track and be aware of the pace for their environment.

The second factor that affects pace is the team’s redline. Think of this as the maximum performance the team is capable of. The leader determines the team’s redline by putting them through drills and sprints, and setting performance challenges for them. By observing the team’s performance over time, the leader can get an accurate sense of the team’s redline, their recovery time, and the amount of fuel they consume. Just like engines, teams operate with different redlines.  Some teams by their nature are sprinters - good at going very fast for a short period of time. Other teams are more like marathoners who can sustain a relatively fast pace for a long period of time. It is important for the leader to remember that the redline of the team may be different than the leader’s personal redline.

The third factor that determines pace is what I think of as race-time events. When you get a bunch of cars on a track, lots of things can happen. Cars can spin out or run into each other. The caution flag can come out and slow the race down. A market leader can make a mistake or a new technology can change the rules of the game. The leader needs to be adaptive and flexible in setting the pace to take advantage of race-time events. Sometimes you need to coast and other times you need to hit the accelerator to take advantage of what is going on in the race.

The key thing to remember about pace is that it needs to be variable. The leader has to hit the right pace by taking into consideration the industry speed, the team’s redline, and race-time events.

The Paradox of the Faster Leader

The central paradox of becoming a faster leader is you have to go slow and invest in the right things before you can become faster. It takes time to become faster. Leadership speed is not an accident. It is the result of planning, practice, patience, and investment. You have to invest in people, you have to invest in systems, and you have to invest in speed-enabling techniques. It’s not just about being quick. It’s not about frantic activity. It’s about being efficient and effective in the things that really matter.

If you really want to become a faster leader, you have to create what I think of as a leadership ecosystem around you. Faster leaders rely upon a strong supporting cast, efficient and effective systems, a well-mapped-out strategy, and organizational structures that are clean and non-hierarchical. The paradox is that it takes time, energy, and patience. You don’t build a leadership ecosystem by just flipping a switch or wishing for its existence—you have to put the work in. The way I look at it, there really is no way to shortcut the process. You have to put in the investment before you can savor the rewards. If you are impatient or need instant feedback and gratification, you will be challenged. While our culture emphasizes the immediate more and more, faster leaders understand that the best investments take time to realize their gains

An effective ecosystem may take months or years to build. It takes time to assemble the right building blocks and to put them in the right order or sequence. It takes time for your ecosystem to get up and running efficiently. It takes time to find the right people. Like an F-14 Tomcat pilot, it takes hours of practice and time spent in the simulator to get really good. You can’t become a faster leader by yourself.

The real challenge for leaders is to budget the time and exercise the discipline to build an ecosystem in environments where time is at a premium. The pace of work makes building an ecosystem even more challenging. Many leaders are under the gun and feel they simply don’t have the time to invest. Organizations make it worse by continually asking us to do more and treating everything as urgent and important. Building a leadership ecosystem has to become a personal priority or it won’t happen. If you invest wisely, you will become a faster leader.