She Wasn't Taking Too Long—She Was Thinking Ahead

This morning, I was in my office working while my wife and kids were getting ready to head to the pool. I heard the usual call from my wife: “Boys, go get in the car!”

Their response? “OK—but you too!”

I smirked. This is a running joke in our family. The boys and I are always sitting in the car, waiting. "Come on, Mom!" we tease. Eventually, she comes half-running out of the house, saying, “I know, I know!”

But today, I walked into our bathroom and saw what was actually taking her so long.

She wasn’t scrolling. She wasn’t distracted. She was laying out dry clothes for the boys to change into after the pool. Towels, shirts, shorts—everything ready for later. Because later, the boys will be wet, sprinting through the house, yelling about not having underwear. Then comes the mess, the yelling, the wet footprints everywhere.

But not today. She solved the problem upstream.

And it hit me—this is exactly what happens in business.

Too often, the people doing upstream work get overlooked. Worse, they get mocked or questioned for “taking too long.” We reward the person who jumps in to fix the fire drill but ignore the one who prevented the fire altogether.

It’s backwards.

Your best operators are the ones you rarely have to call. They’re laying out the dry clothes. They’re solving the problem you didn’t know was coming. And yeah—it might look like they’re taking a little longer up front. But that’s not wasted time. That’s saved chaos.

Takeaway:

If you’re always praising the hero who solves the crisis, but never noticing the person who made sure the crisis didn’t happen, you’re reinforcing the wrong behavior. Sometimes the person who “takes too long” is actually the one who’s thinking farthest ahead.

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