I’ve had many conversations this week about the speed people work. Is it fast enough? Could we achieve more than we’re laying out in our strategy? How fast do other people get these basics sorted out? Should our plan be five years long or should we work in fast sprints?

George Carlin once said of New York:

“Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac.”

Speed is as personal a perception as it is cultural or institutional.

And over the past three weeks, in visits to through New York, Hong Kong and now Cartagena, I’ve realised that speed is also a completely made-up story we tell ourselves.

In New York, you might argue that Carlin’s story is worn like a badge of honour. Car horns, fast-paced dodgems on the sidewalk, caffeine-induction at all hours. You walk quickly because everyone else does. Movement equals competence.

In Hong Kong, with its high density and performance, I expected the same. But we found that people moved actually walked slowly. Really slowly.

Partly it’s the heat and humidity, but that doesn’t explain the calm. The elevated walkways, the winding paths, even the way public spaces are designed, all encourage you to take your time. In Cantonese culture, and in Daoist thinking, reflection and balance matter. Flow over force.

And now, in the same week, I find myself in Cartagena, Colombia. It’s a city with rhythm in its bones: dinner accompanied by son clave, serenades down the street from young rappers who can create verse upon verse with where I’m from, Escocia.

The old town pulses with conversation, music, and heat. The streets are alive, but not rushed - everything seems to be a constant 80 bpm. You don’t get the impression that anyone is running late, but they’re never behind the beat, either.

Three continents. Three weeks. One lesson.

It’s not the cities that are too fast or too slow.

It’s me who keeps arriving at the wrong speed with all my preconceptions of the way things should be.

That’s also a leadership lesson. In schools, strategy often becomes a race. Deadlines, objectives, key results, goals, meetings, reports, benchmarks. Keeping up with the Joneses, and always responding to the latest crisis or the latest innovation.

We equate pace with progress. When people don’t move quickly, we assume they’re resistant.

But none of that is necessarily true. Sometimes, they’re just thinking, reflecting, finding rhythm.

What if we planned for that?

What if our teams had time to think, not just time to act?

Here’s what that could look like:

Slow walk-and-talks instead of stacked meetings.

One-question meetings that let ideas breathe.

Community co-design campaigns on topics that really matter, a process that values rhythm over rush.

Moments of stillness in the workday, not as a luxury but as a protected practice.

Slowness isn’t the enemy of urgency.

It’s what allows clarity to appear.

Sometimes, the most powerful move is simply to walk at the right speed.