Up popped a seasonal image on my daily Facebook scroll yesterday.
In one half of the image was a golden brown turkey, cooked to perfection and surrounded by fresh, green rosemary sprigs and crispy roast potatoes. On the other half of the image was a charcoal crusted turkey, scorched to within an inch of its life.
The caption underneath?
3 hours at 300°F vs 1 hour at 900°F
Ain’t that the truth and then some.
In his office field guide Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff At Work, Richard Carlson wrote about something similar when he suggested absorbing the “speed bumps” of your day.
By that he meant, if you’re driving merrily along in your BMW and you spot a speed bump up ahead, you can step on the gas if you want to. But you might end up with a bruised bumper and your coffee splashing the ceiling.
Alternatively, you can ease up and approach that speed bump with
the calm it calls for.
Carlson’s point is that when we think of problems like speed bumps rather than emergencies, we absorb the shock of the problem and tend to find the best, most objective solutions.
Perhaps this sounds
like a fluffy, half-baked metaphor.
But actually, you can apply this in very literal and practical ways.
Toyota were one of the first companies to use this principle when they installed something called an Andon Cord on
their production lines.
Up until then, most factories operated on the premise that if something went wrong, the line keeps moving whatever happens.
So speed is what counts.
But Toyota gave every single worker the power to pull a cord that STOPPED the entire multi-billion-dollar production line the moment that person spotted an issue. And it worked. The numbers showed the Andon Cord led to fewer defects, lower costs, faster overall production and a calmer workforce.
Certainly not something you’ll see in most corporates where the ethos is faster, harder and everything needs to be delivered by yesterday. And where the unspoken rule is that more speed and effort is what creates progress.
But I daresay it pays to know how to pull your own Andon Cord.
It pays to know how to leave your frantic, frenzied thinking alone and open your mind to a wiser, less reactive headspace.
Sure, you can crank up the heat in your head to 900° if you want. But chances are you’ll end up with an absolute turkey,
blistered on the outside and raw in the middle.
Or you can take your foot off the gas, let go of everything that doesn’t matter and slow down to the speed of life.
If you’d like to learn how to settle your mind and
let your life flow:
https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com
To fulfilment,
Tom