The Rhythm of Change

When I look back at my work, one of the things that shows up again and again is pace. How fast, how slow, when to push, when to pause.

In networks, I’ve noticed there’s always a natural cadence. Energy swells and then recedes. People get excited, then life pulls them away. A network breathes. If you try to force it to be steady and linear, you end up burning people out. If you ignore its rhythms completely, the work drifts. Attending to pace means noticing that cadence and learning how to work with it.

I’ve also come to see that groups can only move as fast as their developmental capacity allows. It doesn’t matter how urgent the issue feels, or how elegant the strategy is. If the people involved aren’t ready, the work won’t hold. Sometimes that means slowing down to build skills or relationships before moving ahead. Sometimes it means sitting in the discomfort of waiting until the ground is ready.

There’s also the truth that change happens at the speed of trust. You can’t rush trust into existence. You can only create conditions where it has a chance to grow. And trust doesn’t grow evenly. For some, it comes quickly. For others, it takes time and consistency. Trying to skip that step usually backfires.

I used to think urgency meant moving faster. Now I think urgency means moving at the right pace for the work to last. Sometimes that looks like sprinting together toward a deadline. Other times it looks like slowing down long enough to bring the right people in, or pausing to let a new idea sink in.

Attending to pace has meant learning to hold both urgency and patience at once. Urgency, because the challenges we face are real and pressing. Patience, because people and systems don’t transform on command.

When I can sense the right rhythm, things click. A meeting ends at just the right moment, leaving people energized instead of drained. A network call lands in sync with the energy already moving in the system. A group that seemed stuck suddenly takes a step forward because the trust is finally there.

Pace isn’t fixed. It can shift when we engage it directly. By leaning into the existing rhythm, hooking into it, we can help the work move differently. Sometimes that means slowing things down so people can catch up. Sometimes it means nudging the tempo forward when energy is ready to be released.

Attending to pace is about entering the flow that already exists, and then helping it change from the inside.