Leadership in the Century of Suddenly
We Prefer Gradual Change. But Suddenly Keeps Showing Up.
My friend & one of my combinatorial creative mentors, Matt Witt, recently reminded me of this quote from Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises:
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
Hemingway leaves us with:
“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
These lines are emotional diagnostics — bookends for how most of us leaders (and most organizations) are possibly missing something essential.
We assume we’re doing okay. Maybe pretty good even, considering the circumstances. We’re high-functioning, very successful adults for the most part. We assume that we’re saying what needs to be said. That we’re taking care of what needs tending to. That we’ll grow into who we need to be — eventually.
“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
Then suddenly, we’re not doing okay.
Suddenly, something changes/breaks.
Suddenly, it’s too late.
We’re not in Hemingway’s era anymore.
We’re not in “gradually, then suddenly.”
We’re in the Century of Suddenly.
— Then Suddenly Again. Again. Again. Infinty.
Suddenly, doesn’t care about our preference for gradual change.
Change no longer creeps. It crashes. It’s chronic. It’s right on time.
AI. Climate. Markets. Trust. Attention. Culture.
All shifting at once, rewriting what it means to lead.
The shelf life of certainty expired long, long ago.
We didn’t learn that fast enough.
We need to learn faster.
And we’re not fully ready to do that.
Ready or not, here we are.
Leadership is a moment-to-moment decision/choice.
To show up with presence, under pressure & high-stakes.
To say what matters, especially when it’s hard.
To choose when to be patient & when to move fast.
To align what you do with who you really are.
Do you want to be a leader now?
Suddenly. How about now?
The Swamplands of Sometimes, Mediocrity & Meh
And that’s where most of us (I) get stuck in our self-imposed swamplands of sometimes, mediocrity & meh. We forget that we are high-functioning adults built for a context that no longer exists. We are sincere about adapting & growing but we unknowingly make growth harder than it needs to be. We let our habitual patterns keep us stuck in a mediocre life, settling for unnecessary suffering above and beyond the unavoidable & necessary. We seem to prefer it — it’s fascinating. Our own patterns of unconscious, habitual inconsistency perpetuate the farcity of “sometimes.”
We lead with clarity… sometimes.
We speak the truth… sometimes.
We feel like ourselves… sometimes.
But “sometimes” is no longer sufficient.
Not for the mission/ambitions at hand.
Not for your team & not for your family.
Not for the commitments you’ve made to others.
Not for the commitments you’ve made to your future self.
This “sometimes” challenge of inconsistency isn’t a flaw — it’s a baseboard circuitry situation, rehearsed through decades/generations of cultural conditioning & epigenetic markers, reinforced by systems built for transactional/gradual speeds, not depth, value or hyperjerk change. It is fascinating
Our brain is still adapting to this speed of adapting.
And in the Century of Suddenly, that inconsistency and incongruence of sometimes & meh (anything less than full-strength), becomes a personal liability. A liability we don’t have to live with or suffer from. All we have to do is choose to learn faster and bring more_____, more often.
Bring more what?
You Choose. Bring more____, more often.
But don’t over do the MORE thing like a badge of courage and “no pain no gain” BS. Just shift from sometimes to “more often.” Normalize the focus on more intentionality and accelerating the learning progress. Everything you care about is counting on you learning to be a more congruent adult, a more focused and more fully-alive/authentic version of you, sooner.
Here’s my suggestion for what to bring more of:
— More YOU. More “BLUE”. More OFTEN.
- More YOU means more clarity, more disclosure, more authentic expression, more congruence, more real, more human (on all dimensions) more often.
- More BLUE means more unconditionally constructive thinking and behavior patterns and culture norms — rooted in purpose, relationship and achievement designed to help us all learn faster (e.g., more experiments less perfectionism) more often.
- More OFTEN means leadership is an ongoing practice — not a heroic moment of valor/suffering to be glamorized, it is an ongoing practice of being and becoming (maturing/growing) with intention. Make learning how to be more you/blue the norm, more often.
To Clarify — Healthier at Every Stage is Better Than Higher!
Leadership development is about vertical/adult development — mindsets & worldviews ready for the complex challenges at hand. It’s not a mystery re: how that development happens, stage by stage.
The world needs more leaders at higher stages of development, capable of more & worthy of being followed. We need more healthy humans — at every stage of development. We need leaders who know how/when to be even better teammates — knowing how/when to follow without getting in the way of progress.
Getting in the way & slowing the rest of us down is no longer just frustrating. It’s unhealthy. It’s expensive. It’s risky. It’s avoidable.
This is why leadership development can’t be just a program. It has to be a practice-based culture. A system. A community of human beings. An ecosystem. A shared language. A dojo where we are all practicing together in the context of work/life = that’s how we all learn faster.
At Slalom we’re building a global community where gamefilming & feedback are fuel for learning. Where development isn’t extracurricular or episodic — it is the job, all the time. Adaptability is the advantage. Responding more effectively to change is the intent. Co-creating a culture where the creative tension of presence & pressure | humility & determination | centralized & decentralized, etc., sit side-by-side — and we are all learning to hold increasing levels of complex tension (vs. defaulting to hyperpolarization) — that’s the deliberate practice & the higher-ground pursuit. We never do this work alone — always in community, because social learning is our species greatest advantage. Real relationships are required for humans to learn faster. Real relationships are not defined by who signs who’s paycheck.“SUDDENLY” doesn’t care about things like that.
This is Leadership in the Century of Suddenly.
This is how we get past “sometimes” & focus on bringing more, more often. This is how we stop regretting what we didn’t say, didn’t do, didn’t become. This is how we move from “high-functioning meh” to full-strength me/we.
That’s the awareness, choice & responsibility.
That’s the drumbeat of deliberate practice.
That’s the high-quality rep.
Let’s practice.
More YOU. More BLUE. More OFTEN.
