Light takes approximately 8 minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. This is a distance of about 90 million miles.

The same light takes about 100,000 years to travel from the core of the Sun to the surface of the Sun (about 450,000 miles).

The reason for this huge difference is that light does not always travel at the same speed. It is much faster in a vacuum than in any other materials. In fact, the denser the material is, the slower the light travels. 

In simple terms: the more there is, the slower it goes.

Sound familiar about the way we work? Too many people involved? Too many steps in the decision process? Too many considerations, discussions, meetings to go through?

The more empty space you create, the faster everything moves. Decision speed goes up, change moves faster and productivity goes up.

One of my clients revised their process for approving expenses. From a fairly small amount upward, their process required approvals from two levels in the organization. After lengthy deliberations, they took the leap to remove the second level approval (except from a pretty high amount upward). 

In their discussions, they focused mostly on the risk of making this change. What was overlooked frequently were the benefits that could be gained from this change. In addition to speed, the gains were reduced red tape, more ownership, more trust, higher drive for innovation and increase productivity.

Very often, when we consider an action that seems to be risky, we focus on the (potential) cost of taking the risk and we overlook the benefit of it.

Take the next step

Notice over the next days where something is slower than it should be. What (or who?) can you get out of the way to speed things up? If you don’t have the authority to make the change, think about constructive ways to talk about the benefit of making that change.