Page 136 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

You Fit In • 117

Slow Down

Even when you’re busy, take time to have a calm presence. Just breathe
in, breathe out, and then repeat.
An “urgent presence” makes you look nervous, unsure, and even
unintelligent and often causes you to speak with unnecessary “uhs” and
“ahs,” stammer, and repeat yourself.
Fear moves fast. One man admitted to me that his rate of speech
depended on the state of his bank account; the more financially desper-
ate he was, the faster he talked.
A man in a hurry is not the image you want to portray. A man on a
mission, okay, but not a man on the run.

Slow down; if you’re worth it, people will wait. There is great motion
in all stillness. As the Willie Nelson song says, “Still is still moving.”
The more time you give yourself, the more status people will give
you. This doesn’t mean that you have an “overt lack of hustle,” as Bronco
Coach Mike Shanahan described a “nonplaying” player he suspended.
Do things on purpose, with and for a purpose. Take your time in a
hurry. Slow down; you’ll avoid the “freedom of Saturday night and regret
of Sunday morning.”
Let the flack pass. To be more effective, calm down; let it go.
A world-class track and field winner explained his performance: “I just
slowed down and relaxed and won.” This happened because in running,
as in business, you don’t strain and tighten up to move ahead—you relax.
Even the gunfighter Wyatt Earp was reputed to say, “Take your time
in a hurry.”
Hal Pittman, chief of staff to General Abizaid, former head of U.S.
central command in Iraq, said: “I learned to slow down my speech pat-
terns when I was a young lieutenant. I had an admiral for a boss who was
from North Carolina, and he spoke slowly, but with oh, so much wisdom.
At first, I thought he spoke slowly and deliberately because of where he
grew up—but I realized that speaking slowly allowed him an extra split
second to formulate the thoughts and ideas, and that is why he seemed
so smart. I’ve tried to adapt that speech pattern to a degree and have had
success with it.”