Leading Through Transitions: Why Slowing Down Is the Fastest Path To Innovation

There’s a few concepts from Japanese culture that have been embraced in the business world, Kaizen being the most popular one.

But in context of leading through transitions, I’d like to talk about a lesser-known Japanese concept called Ma.

The Japanese Secret That Changes How Leaders Think About Transitions

Ma is typically referred to as ‘the space between things’ or as a ‘pause in time’. It refers to the idea that without these spaces, music would just be noise, and words would lose their meaning or impact. As a professional speaker, I know personally the power of a strategic pause to help your audience connect with the message you want to convey.

In terms of leading through transitions, we can appreciate how Ma speaks to the possibilities that can arise when we move from what was to what might be.

Why We’re Wired to Rush Through Change (and Why That’s the Wrong Instinct)

For most people, periods of transition are treated like something we have to endure than an opportunity to explore. There’s this inherent and palpable desire to get past this uncertainty so that things can ‘return to normal’.

But what if we are missing the point of this transition bridge between where we were to where we need to go? What if the bridge itself presents the greatest potential to do things differently and find opportunity in those spaces?

A Real-World Example: What Happened When Leaders Embraced the Bridge

Consider this story about a manufacturing team dealing with the news that their company was shifting to an automated production system.

As you can imagine, the initial reaction from employees was one of fear, resistance, and concerns about their job security.

But the company’s leadership took a different approach from what we’ve been seeing in the headlines. Specifically, they encouraged their employees to reframe this transition from a threat to an opportunity.

How were they able to accomplish this? By helping their employees to see this bridge as an opportunity to use their years of hands-on experience to help design the new processes that would be the foundation of this new automation system.

Consequently, the transition period became a period of experimentation and innovation. Employees who before were more task-oriented workers were now leading design sessions, pointing out hidden needs, and necessary limitations.

And issues with outdated processes held over because “that’s the way things are done around here” were finally addressed and in some cases, removed altogether.

So in the end, the manufacturing plant not only ended up with a more effective automated system, but one that was built on the collective knowledge and expertise of the people who would now be overseeing and managing it.

This is what Ma looks like in action.

What Ma in Action Looks Like for Your Team

When we lead through transitions by embracing the bridge, by helping our employees to see and explore the possibilities within these spaces, the anxiety that often accompanies change is replaced with curiosity and wonder.

We become less fearful over what we might lose, and instead become excited about the opportunities to make things better than they are today.

Our ability to succeed in leading through transitions is not dependent on how fast we can cross that bridge, but in how effective we are in guiding our employees to discover the opportunities to be found in the spaces in between.