Why We Need To Stop And Think

I like to go where my reading takes me. By that, I mean a book about Lyndon Johnson, for example, will lead to another book about Johnson, perhaps drilling down on a particular aspect of his life, or it might lead to a book about an individual he interacted with, such as JFK or FDR. More rarely, a book will be so good it causes me to seek out other books by the same author. That was the case after listening to Robert Caro’s works on Johnson.

So I went on Audible and start poking around, and I came across “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.” As I perused the information about it, and sampled a snippet of audio to ensure I would enjoy the 66 hours of narration (yes, that’s not a typo), I remembered that my sister had recommended the book as well. So I made the buy, and I have not been disappointed. Almost through audio segment 8 of 10, I just came across a point, a lesson, that I have touched on in a previous column — that work without significant and consistent reflective pause is work that will often miss the long-term or strategic mark. You may be able to steer on a day-to-day basis by putting out fires and handling the busy work, but if you don’t spend some time below deck deciding where you want to go, and then periodically doing a major review of your chosen trajectory, you’ll no doubt hit the shoals.

Robert Moses was a fascinating, if generally unlikable, character. And this book about his life is a must read for anyone interested in city planning, bill drafting, government, power, management and perseverance — or anyone who has been stuck in traffic on a NYC-area highway. Much like the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, some of the best lessons in the book come in the form of how not to act.

Moses rose to power because he was a ruthless and efficient builder in a city where red tape too often thwarted best intensions. At the beginning of his career, he not only accomplished, but did so with creativity, thought and rationality; but, as his power grew, he no longer had time to think, and so the rewards of his success (the power and added responsibility) essentially destroyed the ingredients which had led to them.

“Robert Moses had never, since he had first come to power, allowed himself any time for reflection, for thought. Reflection, thought, is in a sense, no more than the putting to use of a mind; and the unique instrument that was Robert Moses’ mind could conceive wonders when it was put to work in that way. … In the years since (coming to power), he had piled upon him, and had grasped for, more and more power with each succeeding decade. The workload of responsibility he was carrying in the 1930s was too great to allow time for reflection, a fact he mentioned worriedly to his aides. But in the 1940s, he had far greater executive responsibility than in the 1930s, and in 1954, with his assumption to the Chairmanship of the State Power Authority, he undertook in that one job — piled atop all his others — so much work that quiet, reflective thought was a luxury in which he could quite literally indulge almost never. Given a chance to work, Moses’ mind might, despite all the handicaps, have come to grips with the new realities and fashioned a shaping vision to deal with them, but now it had no time to deal with the reality at all.”

Does the concept of having more and more responsibilities thrust upon you sound familiar? Have you also found that with each accomplishment you become more identified with “effectiveness,” only to result in being given more and more to do?

But like a successful restaurant that gets greedy and crams in table after table — only to damage both the quality of the food and the speed with which it comes out of the kitchen — adding duty after duty has its price. And that cost, as it was to Robert Moses, may be your ability to think, to ponder, to make good decisions — exactly the things that brought about the successes that led to you having more to do. And therein lies a vicious circle, leading to a very bad place.

What to do? Schedule daily or weekly time on your calendar to simply think — whether it be during your commute, during the workday or during the weekend. Above all, book the time; for in today’s world, intentions which don’t make the calendar die a quiet death. Remember, walking away from the computer and looking out the window for a while is not the dereliction of your duty, but a crucial part of its fulfillment.