Slow means fast...

Last year I posted about one of the phrases commonly used by the U.S. Navy's elite special warfare units, the Navy SEALs, "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast".  My wife was teaching about the transitive property of equality to some of her mathematics students the other day, and I was reminded of this phrase (don't ask me why - my brain acts strangely at times).  Even if the term "transitive property" doesn't mean anything to you right now, I guarantee that you will remember it if I tell you: If a=b  and b=c, then a=c.  In other words, if slow is smooth, and smooth is fast, then slow means fast!  By deliberately taking your time, being careful, minimizing mistakes, and doing the job right the first time, you save time in the long run.  It's all about deliberate action and precise execution!

I came across a post by the American author Daniel Pink that made a slightly different point, although it's equally as important.  Pink called it the "Pottery Class Paradox", but I've also heard the story as "The Parable of the Pottery Class".  Either way, the story goes like this.  A pottery class teacher split his large class into two groups.  The first group was told to make a single perfect pot by the end of the semester.  The second group was told to make as many pots as possible - quality didn't necessarily matter.  The pottery class teacher called the first group, "Quality" and the second group "Quantity".  

At the end of the semester, the pottery class teacher graded all of the pots that were made by the two groups.  Which group do you think made the better pots?  Would you be surprised if I told you that the best pots, in terms of creativity, beauty, and actual quality were made by the "Quantity" group?  What happened?

The "Quality" group obsessed over building the perfect pot, while the "Quantity" group learned to build a better pot through trial-and-error.  They made many mistakes along the way, but each time they made a mistake, they learned.  They changed their approach, ever so slightly, to refine their technique.  By the end of the semester, their pots were exquisitely crafted.  In other words, they learned from their mistakes and became experts at their craft.  Meanwhile the "Quality" group obsessed over every detail in their design.  They planned and planned and planned.  Rather than learning by doing, they tried to learn and practice by drawing up the perfect design.  They never perfected their craft, and so their pot was inferior to the "Quantity" group.

It's an interesting paradox and perhaps a little difficult to reconcile with the first part of today's post, which emphasizes that "slow means fast".  I think the key is that we are already dealing with experts in the first half of the post - certainly the U.S. Navy SEALs are an elite group of experts at their jobs.  In this situation, careful planning and preparation, followed by deliberate action and precise execution leads to a superior result.  Admiral (retired) William McRaven, whom I've mentioned a number of times in recent posts, apparently wrote his Master's thesis at the U.S. Navy Postgraduate School ("The Theory of Special Operations") and found that the key to success for any special operations mission involved extensive preparation and practice.  In other words, rehearsing the mission over and over, learning from any mistakes, and honing and refining the plan until the special forces unit is ready.  That sounds a lot like the "Quantity" group in the "Pottery Class Paradox" to me.  However, once the mission begins for real, slow and deliberate execution is the order of the day - "slow means fast..."