La Pausa
Give yourself space for new opportunities to emerge.
Firstly, I think I’ve done really well to hold off on the football references so that’s good. I really do think I deserve credit for that.
However, now’s the time to blow that run.
In football, la pausa refers to when a player waits an extra split second before making a pass or playing the ball.
It’s a simple idea, but it requires a lot of awareness for a player to try it, and a cool head to even consider it.
This coolness in the face of pressure does a number of things, but it’s mainly for the benefit of either letting your teammates to get into better positions, or your opponents to get into worse positions as a result of reacting to your pause.
It’s way too tempting to react in the heat of the moment and make things worse, or react too quickly and not have the full picture.
The best example of this in work is when you receive some bad or unexpected news, especially if it happens by email or some other form of delayed communication.
The pause can give you a major advantage. It can help prevent self-sabotage, but also become a coping mechanism for when things are starting to feel overwhelming.
You make bad decisions when you’re mad. This doesn’t need telling, but maybe reminding from time to time.
Reaction Time
You don’t always need to react. If someone’s given you bad news, they’re probably sat there waiting for your reaction. Don’t give them the pleasure.
Reaction time is the term we use for assessing the period between which a stimulus happens and our response and action, but I’d also suggest we think about it in the sense of knowing when the time is right to react.
You don’t have to respond to everything, and you don’t need to respond right away.
Knowing the right time to respond can help deliver a different message. I’ve always hated how common it is that when bidding for a big contract the outcome is often shared at 4pm on a Friday afternoon. Whether the news is good or bad it crashes into your weekend and can take your mood along with it.
The other way of looking at it is that it could be seen as a gift - there’s nothing you can do until Monday anyway, so put it to the back of your mind and let future you deal with it.
On the bit of not giving them the pleasure, it might not be that sinister - it could be just them lashing out themselves. Giving some breathing space might be the pause they needed to realise their own mistake.
Blow Over
Sometimes, things just sort themselves out. This isn’t about burying your head, this is about assessing whether everything has played out. If you react too soon then you might make an even bigger mess.
The trick with this is assessing whether things have played out or not.
If we go back to the football analogy you might have taken possession after a corner, and people are moving back into position having been set up for a set-piece.
This moment creates a lot of chaos, as there are defenders up front and players have switched flanks, which might be the opening that allows you to counter - but if you spring forward too fast you might leave gaps open of your own that can be exploited.
When the moment to react comes, choosing to not react is a valid choice, especially if you’re 1-0 up and don’t need to add the pressure. Context matters.
If there are multiple stakeholders or moving parts then someone else’s reaction might defuse or alter the situation altogether, saving you from causing more damage by taking the wrong action.
There will be occasions where this is akin to burying your head in the sand, but it’s more likely to be an effective tool to settle down a chaotic situation.
More Information
Going back to the football analogy, la pausa enables you to verify that a player is indeed making that run, not just shaping to make a run. If you’re playing as a number 6 or 8 in the centre of the park and it looks like your winger is about to run into space, giving yourself an extra moment can give them another yard and confirm they’re taking that action.
It can also suck the defenders closer to you, giving you more of an idea of what might happen next.
Learning is a bit like this. On the surface a situation might look like one thing until you unlock a new insight or perspective.
Sometimes you have to think and act fast, but unless you have a defender bearing down on you, try to get a new perspective or wait for more information to come.
Golate
Going back to that number 6 passing it to the running winger, there’s one final aspect of this: going too late.
If you wait too long, things might get worse. If that winger was making the run all along, by the time you’ve decided to make the pass your teammate might be offside.
Daniel Kahneman taught the world in Thinking Fast and Slow that often our instinctive, rapid response is the answer. We build this up over hours of practice, and over time we can really hone our gut reaction.
The memorable example that’s given, from Gary Klein, is that of the firefighter who uses his expert intuition to command his team to exit from a building before he even knew why. His sixth sense was right - the floor collapsed immediately after they cleared the scene.
In that instance it was realising that the fire was unusually quiet and the room unusually hot - he knew something was wrong even if he didn’t know exactly what. In the end it turned out that the fire was raging in the basement below their feet, his quick response saved the lives of his colleagues.
Luckily, most of us don’t face these kinds of life or death decisions in our day to day lives. Which is why we can afford to take a pause more often and assess what’s really going on.
But we can send the wrong message about whether something is urgent or an important priority to us by dwelling on the point.
I hope the football theme hasn’t alienated too many of you, I promise I won’t write about football again this year.
I’ve got one more regular post left for the year, and a list of about ten things to get into that one slot - keep letting me know if there are any topics you think I should be giving more airtime to. Thanks for all of the love this year.
Climate change
The last post ended up being one of the lowest read of the year. I wouldn’t be surprised, if it wasn’t so predictable.
Whenever I post about climate change this happens.
I don’t know if it is because of how mentally exhausting it is, or whether it was just a bad post, but it’s a pattern. Low engagement on socials, low read rates.
This isn’t meant to be a rant, I just want to share how this stuff happens. This is the cycle, this content doesn’t get engagement so doesn’t get created again.
I enjoyed writing it, took a swing and it turned out to be a miss. But if you didn’t read it already, or if you did and it really didn’t hit the mark, I’d love to hear why.
Loss Aversion & The American Dream
It’s no surprise that so many people are unwilling to believe in climate change when you consider two things: How massive it is, and how much it is due to take from them.
Read More
Loss Aversion & The American Dream
If we’re serious about addressing climate change, we need to consider reciprocity…
This weekend we had our annual team get together. I wanted…
When was the last time you listened to a Coldplay album?
Don’t worry about the person who told you it couldn’t be done.