Our executive team is addicted to constant back-to-back meetings and Slack chatter. How do we build white space and strategic pauses into our execution cycle between our quarterly sessions with you?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

We combat the culture of constant digital distraction by teaching your team to build active white space into their workweeks. A leadership team that is constantly in meetings or responding to Slack messages cannot think strategically. Between our quarterly sessions, we implement the strategic pause to help your executives step back and reflect. First, we mandate that every leader schedules at least two hours of uninterrupted thinking time each week. This is time with no assignment, no emails, and no Slack. Second, we establish clean communication boundaries, such as requiring descriptive email subject lines that state whether a message requires immediate action or is just for information. This reduces the cognitive load on your team. We also use the weekly Level 10 Meeting to consolidate issues. Instead of interrupting each other with ad-hoc questions throughout the week, your team learns to save non-urgent issues for their weekly meeting. This simple discipline dramatically cuts down on digital noise, giving your team the mental clarity needed to execute their Rocks with high velocity.