The Power of the Pause

Last week I was in Johannesburg facilitating a strategy session with a high-performance team with a significant quantum of impact. It was important to stay laser-focused, especially as it was one of those sessions with lots of moving parts, ambitious outcomes, tight deadlines and a high-powered executive team.

Whew. I'm happy to say we got where we needed to go. But we didn't get there 100% as planned.

There were moments when we had to change the timing, adjust an exercise or abandon something I had planned because the room needed something different. One of the smartest things we had done beforehand, however, was deliberately build enough breaks into the agenda. Those pauses gave everyone a chance to step away, grab a coffee, gather themselves and come back to the problem with a slightly different perspective.

They were useful for the facilitator too. Because when you're in the middle of something, it is remarkably difficult to see the thing you are in the middle of.

I was reminded of that again this weekend, although in a rather different high-performance environment. Between the boys, Caroline and I watched or played in about ten different games across hockey, rugby, and soccer before we even got to the main rugby event on Saturday afternoon. At some point I began to feel less like a dad and more like Schalk or Shimmy, hustling from game to game to add our flavour to proceedings.

Talking about Schalk. Ran into him at the start of the year before all this craziness happened at the airport. His kids are in SACS, playing in a big sporting day. He was on his way to Durban to cover a Stormers Sharks event, and what looks like so much glamorous fun from the outside often still comes at a cost. These are the compromises...

I get it now. There's no place I'd rather be. Matie and AJ, along with their teammates, have come so far in a remarkably short period of time. I credit the exceptional coaches, as well as the kids' slightly disturbing focus and ambition to perform. There's also something else, though.

The breaks and pauses. There is half-time. There are substitutions. Coaches get opportunities to intervene. Players regroup after mistakes. Coach Rems takes a moment to gather the troops and redirect efforts because of that fleet-footed little bugger on the other side that is to be avoided.

And in live sports, this is not negative feedback to be tiptoed around. It is not failure on anyone's part, but framed differently. Real-time feedback: It is simply part of getting better.

On a similar level of importance to mini-soccer and rugby, of course, is the national obsession: The Springboks. And after the Ellis Park disaster, the questions were out. Has Rassie been outsmarted? Is Sasha too windgat? Are we back to getting regularly pummelled by the All Blacks?

Hold your horses, people. Rassie has a plan. Sasha is still a generational talent. And the Bomb Squad misfire can be corrected by a bit of tactical player rotation. We won the return bout, and executed. Took the kicks. Played it close up front, stayed patient. Spared our Bomb Squad big guns for the impact bench. You know? The stuff that got us here. We might have gotten ourselves too distracted by the Haka last time...

Sasha hey. I was as worried as the rest... but Rassie and his coaching team had clearly reflected on what hadn't worked. They made tactical adjustments, changed how they deployed their forward resources and were prepared to make further changes right up to kick-off. This time, Sasha didn't need to manufacture something extraordinary every time he touched the ball. He played within a clearer structure and allowed the considerable toolkit around him to do its job.

Cheslin Kolbe returned and contributed 18 points from the kicking tee. Malcolm Marx was immense around the breakdown. The Boks were more direct, more clinical and more effective in the areas where they traditionally create pressure. They hadn't suddenly become better rugby players in seven days. They had become better at solving the problems exposed seven days earlier.

Perhaps the most telling part came afterwards.

Despite winning, Rassie was already talking about what they still needed to fix before the third Test. The reflection didn't stop because the scoreboard looked better. That, I think, is something businesses can learn from. Most leadership teams don't suffer from a shortage of meetings. They suffer from a shortage of meetings in which the real problems actually get discussed.

This is why I remain such a fan of the IDS section of the EOS Level 10 Meeting: Identify, Discuss, Solve.

The discipline starts with identifying the actual issue rather than the symptom. Sales are down. A deadline has slipped. Someone isn't performing. Customers are complaining. Those are observations. IDS asks the more uncomfortable question: why? Then you discuss it. Not endlessly, and not as an opportunity for everyone to deliver their favourite TED Talk. You keep digging until you understand what is really preventing the team from moving forward.

And then you solve it.

The distinction I find particularly useful is between the weekly correction and the quarterly correction. Your weekly Level 10 creates a short feedback loop. What is getting in our way right now, and what can we change this week? Your quarterly pulse gives you permission to zoom out and ask whether the system itself needs changing.

One fixes the tackle. The other asks whether our defensive structure is wrong.

High-performance teams need both.

PG's Pro Tip: Build Your Own Half-Time

This week, look at your Level 10 and ask three questions.

1. Are we identifying issues, or merely reporting symptoms? If the same problem keeps appearing on your Issues List, chances are you haven't yet identified the real issue underneath it.

2. Are we creating enough space to reflect? Don't confuse constant activity with momentum. Sometimes the most productive thing a leadership team can do is stop long enough to understand why something isn't working.

3. Are we separating weekly fixes from systemic fixes? Use your weekly IDS to remove immediate obstacles. Use your quarterly pulse to identify recurring patterns that suggest something deeper in your people, process, strategy or structure needs to change.

The Springboks didn't spend the week pretending Ellis Park hadn't happened. They looked at what went wrong, adjusted the system, and went again.

And after winning, they immediately started looking for the next problem.

That's not negativity.

That's high performance.

If you'd like to do the same in your business, we've built a free EOS Starter Kit analysis to help you assess where the gaps are and where your leadership team's attention should go next.

Start with the analysis at pgtops.com/eos-kit