Exact quote from a client last week: “We’re moving so fast, and we’re not making the time to connect.” The unspoken part?
“And it’s hurting our ability to get results.”
They’re not alone.
Leadership teams, especially distributed ones, feel the pressure to maximize every minute. You’re in back-to-back calls with tight agendas and no room for anything that doesn’t look like “real work.”
And then you wonder why alignment is so hard, trust feels thin and decisions keep getting relitigated.
As the maxim goes, you need to slow down to speed up.
Years ago I facilitated a multi-day offsite at a remote location for a distributed executive team. This team was highly dysfunctional – two entrenched camps that had been trying to bridge the divide for months. They had bits and bobs of connection time here and there, but it wasn’t working. Tensions were high, and it would be a stretch to say that anyone assumed positive intent.
My co-facilitator and I designed every element of that offsite with intention, focused on trust, connection, and alignment.
It was a tall order for 3 days, but we did it. They did it.
They spent the entire first day getting vulnerable with one another… seeing each other as humans with rich backgrounds, complexities, and experiences. They cooked meals together. They stayed together in the evenings. Then they spent two full days building strategy.
That intense, intentional time together built bridges that months of scattered efforts couldn’t.
Was everything perfect afterward? No. They still had challenges to work through. But they walked away with something they didn’t have before: a genuine sense of team, closer relationships, real appreciation for each other, and a north star for where they were going.
Connection doesn’t mean icebreakers and virtual happy hours, or taking 3 minutes for chit chat at the start of a call.
It means getting into the pit together. That’s learning each other’s context, pressures, and working styles, and understanding what shaped the person across the desk or screen.
Do this regularly, and then the chit chat becomes meaningful furthering of connection.
And the connection drives speed. You work more effectively, understand the system connections, and are aligned on your goals.
You slow down to speed up. And you can’t build that in your weekly video call.
Hey there! I’m a leadership team whisperer, executive coach, and speaker. I guide leadership teams in high-growth companies to achieve rapid growth in a healthy, sustainable way. I coach senior leaders to discover the path to lead with ease.
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