Statue of the Roman Emperor Augustus from Prima Porta, Rome, 1st century BC. (Colorised artwork ... [+]
Augustus Caesar created the Roman Empire. His impact was so titanic that, to this day, we name a month for him. After the assassination of his uncle, Julius Caesar, he helped defeat the assassins then made himself the sole ruler of Rome. He replaced the decaying remnants of the Roman Republic with new institutions that gave him essentially total power and became the Roman Empire. He ruled for 40 years, and for two centuries afterwards the Empire’s heartland saw unprecedented peace and prosperity, even as its armies brutally expanded its territory.
Throughout his long reign Augustus had one motto. He emphasized it to his generals and thought it so important that he had coins minted with an image symbolizing it: festina lente. Make haste, slowly. The fastest way to get something done is to do it right the first time. Even – especially - when you’re feeling the crunch, take your time.
Augustus’s advice is backed up by today’s science. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, described two systems for thought. System 1 is fast and emotional and relies on stereotypes. System 2 is slow and difficult and relies on calculation. The more you hurry – and even more importantly, the more you feel that you are hurried – the more you rely on System 1. There are situations when you need to do that. But most of the time, you’ll be far better served thinking your way through a crisis than letting your emotions govern your decisions.
This ancient wisdom is applied today by the best transformational leaders. General Stanley McChrystal led American Special Forces in Iraq and transformed the way they fight. When he took command, American forces were losing the war. That’s a crisis if anything is. When he took over, he didn’t do what most leaders would have: ask for more resources or order his people to redouble their efforts. Instead, as he described in his book Team of Teams, he and his team decided that what they needed to do was…think.
McChrystal stepped back from the war effort and reimagined how his forces should operate. He drew on ideas from academia and business to create something entirely new to the military. That new approach hugely increased his forces’ agility and operational tempo, which vastly improved their effectiveness without needing new resources.
FORWARD OPERATING BASE WALTON, AFGHANISTAN - OCTOBER 7: ISAF Commander General Stanley A. ... [+]
Similarly, when Dov Seidman, the author of How and the founder of LRN and the How Institute, counsels leaders who are transforming their organizations, he tells them that “the most effective way to start is to pause.” Only when leaders and their teams deliberately stop and think can they be at their best when the stakes are highest.
Right now if you lead a business, you probably feel like you’re under the gun. The economy is collapsing and the whole world seems to be falling apart. Augustus knew the feeling. He took over his era’s superpower on the point of collapse and brought it centuries of prosperity, and one of the keys to his success was knowing the importance of taking his time. The easiest thing in the world is to react too quickly to a crisis. You will have to move quickly. But before you do, remember the words of the first Roman Emperor. Make haste, slowly.
