Working in the IT industry, the concept of “slowing down” isn’t something you hear often. If anything, the industry is a constant push to move faster. While listening to The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett, an episode with Ed Zitron, CEO of EZPR, made a comment that stuck with me. He was talking about the urgency surrounding AI, and specifically the constant message that companies need to adopt it immediately or risk being left behind.
… it was early 2023, [Sam] Altman said, “we’re a little bit scared about what we’re creating.” … he wants to say that so you’ll invest in his company and buy the software so you’ll be scared that if you don’t use AI today you’ll be left behind in the future which is their continual narrative that if you don’t get on the train today you’ll be left behind.
By the way, every single scam and con starts with rushing you. Every single trick in history begins with saying, you must do this now.
And best piece of advice I ever got was, if anyone tries to rush you, and it’s not literally a mortal thing like you are bleeding or on fire or the house is on fire, slow down.
This sparked a bit of debate, particularly around the implications of the word “con.” For the record, I don’t believe AI is a con, but his broader point was that urgency itself should sometimes make us suspicious, because people who want us to act before we have time to think usually benefit from the fact that we have not thought very much.
The advice he had been given was wonderfully simple. If someone is trying to rush you, and nobody is bleeding or on fire, slow down.
That principle applies to a lot more than AI.
Organizations create urgency remarkably easily, and rarely purposefully. I would regularly refer to it as the tyranny of the urgent. A competitor announces something new, a customer makes an unexpected request, an executive attends a conference and comes back excited about an idea, or someone discovers a piece of technology that promises to transform the business. Before anyone has really had time to understand the opportunity, meetings are scheduled, budgets are discussed, people are reassigned, and someone is already asking how quickly we can implement it.
Sometimes speed is appropriate. There are real emergencies, deadlines that cannot move, regulatory changes that require action, customers who genuinely need immediate attention, and opportunities that disappear if you wait too long. The problem comes when rushed pressure becomes the default way an organization makes decisions, because eventually everything begins arriving with the same instruction attached to it: we need to do this now, or else.
This can raise a useful question: What actually happens if we wait?
If the answer is that a customer will leave tomorrow1, a legal requirement will be missed, or a production system will remain unavailable, then you probably have genuine urgency. If the answer is that somebody might feel uncomfortable because a competitor announced a new product, or because an executive thinks everyone else is adopting a technology faster than you are, then you probably have enough time to think. It’s okay to come in second.
AI is a particularly good example because fear of being left behind has become part of the sales pitch. Companies are being encouraged to develop AI strategies, add AI capabilities, restructure operations around AI, and in some cases eliminate people because AI supposedly makes their work unnecessary. As I wrote in What Do You Think About AI?, I believe AI will become a normal part of business, but that does not mean every organization needs to reorganize itself around it this afternoon.
This is why it’s equally important for leaders to know when to just slow down. Slowing down does not mean ignoring an opportunity or spending eighteen months studying something that could have been decided in a week. It means creating enough space and time to ask questions before bad momentum makes the decision for you. What problem are we actually trying to solve? How does this support our strategy? What value should it create? What assumptions are we making? What will this require from our people? What happens if we do nothing for thirty days?
Those questions are difficult to ask when everyone has already decided that speed itself is proof of leadership.
Strategic thinking creates a different rhythm. It gives leaders enough time to understand what they are committing the organization to, while still allowing them to move quickly once the direction is clear. It is the same principle behind Strategy Before Technology: understand where you are trying to go before you decide which tool, system, or trend should take you there.
When something feels urgent, I think there are a few simple questions worth asking before everyone starts running.
- Who is creating the urgency, and why?
- What evidence says we need to act immediately?
- What becomes materially worse if we wait?
- What decision would we make differently if we had another week to think?
Sometimes those questions will confirm that you need to move now. Good. At least you know why. Other times, you may discover that the deadline was artificial, the fear was exaggerated, the opportunity will still be there next month, or the person insisting that you act immediately happens to be the person selling you the solution.
If you’re bleeding, deal with the bleeding. If something is on fire, put out the fire.
Otherwise, slow down. The few minutes, days, or weeks you spend thinking deliberately may save you months or years unwinding a decision you made because somebody convinced you there wasn’t enough time to think.
1 Be careful with this one. I’ve heard it too many times, “if we don’t do this, we’ll lose this customer.” Usually that comes from someone in the company whose motivation isn’t altruistic. Losing the customer affects their rating, commission, reputation, or performance. Companies need to be honest enough to ask, does it really matter? Is this customer legitimately a good customer? Or are we hanging on to a toxic relationship? This isn’t always true, but companies should be aware of when the motivation may need to be qualified with data.