By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you achieve more with less. Reading time: 3:25

Fred Astaire danced his way out onto a golf course driving range in the 1938 movie Carefree.

Without missing a step, he picked up a golf club and swung at six balls each teed up and lined side by side. He swung six consecutive times. All six shots landed on the green. The film crew was amazed. Fred Astaire had a rhythm—a sense of momentum that drives the productivity of all leaders.

With a sense of rhythm, leaders get on a roll where it seems everything can be accomplished and nothing is impossible. With a sense of rhythm, leaders focus more on the task at hand like the military chants at boot camps when the soldiers are marching or running: “Sound Off 1-2, Sound Off 3-4, Cadence Chant, 1-2-3-4.”

That chanting-that rhythm- powers passion and purpose; promise and performance. That’s why Nikos heralds rhythm in Zorba the Greek . Watching the seagulls , he beams : “That’s the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with the absolute trust.”

That’s what leaders do. Leaders find the absolute rhythm and follow it with the absolute trust.

Leaders quickly get into the swing of things. They flow with the action. They “let” it happen as the Zen philosophers espouse. In a rhythm. With a purpose. Practicing the rhythm method, leaders purposely give birth to well-conceived ideas optimally timed and targeted rather than struggle with unplanned consequences they may have to ruefully pursue or regretfully abort.

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