Comments on: Paradox of success: Speed.

By: Paradox of success: the Stockdale Paradox -- Hoover’s Business Insight Zone

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:38:28 +0000

[...] thought of Stockdale’s Paradox while I was writing about the paradox of speed several weeks ago, but it came to mind forcefully earlier today. In the wake of yesterday’s [...]

By: Tim Walker

Tim Walker — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:45:08 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Roy. I like Honore’s point that it’s about doing things as WELL as possible.

In some cases, that *implies* doing them quickly: I’m thinking of turning a double play in baseball, or offering to help a patron as soon as they walk into your store.

In many other cases, it’s far more important to slow down for the sake of precision or deeper thought. I’ll leave examples of *that* as an exercise for the reader . . .

By: Roy

Roy — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:32:34 +0000

Tim, another great post. When I read it, I thought about a video I saw and wrote about a few weeks ago. Here’s a link to the post, http://tinyurl.com/3g7s9w. The short video in the post by journalist Carl Honore does a great job of conveying just what you have written about.

As you have stated, I believe that we have to use our judgment on when we apply speed. Sometimes it makes all the difference, other times it can be fatal (literally).

Keep up the though provoking blog posts!