When the Long Way is the Shortcut

In the Spring of 2014, my cousin and I decided to travel to the East Coast of Australia. Starting in Brisbane, our goal was to make it to Tasmania over the 30-some days we were there. And while we made it no to Tasmania without a problem, I left with only one regret: I didn’t see the points in between. I had missed the heartbeat of the country.

In Australia, there are a pair of budget airlines: Tiger and Jetstar. Between the two, we could fly nearly anywhere on the East Coast for less than $100, much less than it would cost to take the bus. Go figure.

In hindsight, I felt that I had ripped myself off. Sure, I had saved a few dollars and numerous hours spent on the bus, but weren’t the hours I shaved off by taking the plane instead of the bus that I had travelled across the world to enjoy? After a while, a city was a city. An airport was an airport. From 30,000 ft, it all looks the same. 

Today’s meetings are like my trip to Australia in that we tend to skip the points in between. Meeting after meeting we wait in the waiting room for the session to start, are ‘pressed for time’ and ‘have a hard stop at XX’ and want to ‘dive right in’. In other words, we cruise from place to place without taking a moment to stop and take it all in. We forget that the people we’re working with are people and what they’ve learned and experienced since we last chatted might be exactly what we need to hear to not only get the job done more effectively but enjoy the journey along the way. Our people are our company’s literal heartbeat.

So what do we do?

Get off the plane and take the bus. Sometimes taking the long way is the shortcut.

Think of it this way, if we spent all of our time trying to maximize productivity, cut corners, and just get the job done, how is it that we’re really connecting with our teams? And if we miss the opportunity to connect with our team for a few minutes before or after the meeting is done, are we building relationships across our team or degrading them? I think we all know the answer.

Actually, just last year Google surveyed 5,500 of its employees to find out what was required to build stronger teams. One of the three highlights? Mindless chit chat. In other words, the time in between what we deem important. Googlers know that it isn’t just the meetings and complete work that build camaraderie, it is taking the long way, adding extra stops, and truly getting to know their team. Keep in mind, this was for their in-office team, too. Today, with many of us remote, this is more important than it has ever been.

I know that we’re all busy, but the truth is that the way we connect and interact with each other may be one of the simplest ways to reduce burnout. And while I could enter some staggering stat about burnout, both you and I know it is real and whether we have experienced it or not, we know the severity of it. Instead of trying to take shortcuts and fly through work, consider taking the bus, going slow, truly getting to know the people we work with on a daily basis better.

Questions to ponder:

1. What shortcuts are you taking right now that aren’t getting you to where you want to go faster?
2. What steps could we take to better connect?
3. Can we add 5 minutes of personal connection time in our meetings?
4. Are we checking in with our teams enough?