It can easy to believe that talking about our work pace and including the attributes of quickness, speed, and busyness can make us sound important.
“How fast can you get that back to me?”
“I’m really busy and can’t get back to you right now.”
“I’m working as hard and as quickly as I can!”
Similarly, it can be easy to believe that talking about our work pace and including the attributes of pausing, or deliberateness, or taking a break can make us sound lazy or not a team player.
“I’m taking a break and I’ll respond to you/your request in a just a moment.”
“I’ll be on a vacation/holiday and won’t be able to participate on that zoom call.”
“I won’t be able to meet that deadline because I’m already stretched thin during that week.”
We mythologize work speed and busyness because those concepts are carry-overs from the days of the assembly line. When we are making widgets and efficiency is the goal, speed, quickness, and busyness are honored.
But we’ve never been in the business of making widgets.
We are in the business of building trust with humans and building trust quickly is far less important (and sometimes impossible) than building trust deeply. Building trust deeply takes time and thoughtful practice.
The good things that happen in advancement work when we honor and practice “pausing” as opposed to “rushing,” are numerous:
- When we pause in interpersonal communications we allow others to talk;
- When we pause in responding to others we communicate that we are taking their request seriously;
- When we pause to develop the right program, design the best invite, create the most compelling annual fund messaging, we typically end up with a better end product;
- When we pause to think further about the best strategy we might use to invite a donor to give significantly, we typically end up with a more compelling strategy;
- When we pause to take a break/vacation/holiday we align our personal lives with what we know makes the most compelling advancement work – steady progress is far more valuable than short bursts of activity.
In just about all we do in advancement, purposefully pausing, slowing down, taking a break actually helps us.
Maybe its time we start talking that way.
