This is a tactic I have long used in my work, including in training. This is a great way to think about learning and getting the most for each participant. Thank you!
Thank you so much, Ricki. I really appreciate you sharing that.
It’s great to hear this resonates with your own practice, especially in training contexts. I love how you put it: getting the most for each participant. That’s exactly the intention... creating space where different rhythms, voices, and ways of thinking can genuinely contribute.
Your comment is a really nice confirmation that pause, when designed with care and intention, isn’t absence of learning but often where learning deepens. Thanks for taking the time to reflect and add to the conversation.
This is brillant stuff on async facilitation. The framing of pause as a cognitive requirement rather than wasted time is something I wish more team leads understood. I've noticed in my own work that the best insights from distributed teams come days after workshops, not during them. One thing thats often missed tho is how to actually convince stakeholders that "unscheduled thinking time" is productive when they're obsessed with utilization metrics.
Thank you! I really appreciate this reflection. You’re touching on one of the hardest (and most important) tensions here.
That insight often arrives AFTER the workshop is exactly why asynchronous work matters, yet it’s also why it’s so difficult to legitimize in metric-driven environments. What I’ve found helpful is reframing “unscheduled thinking time” not as idle capacity, but as delayed value creation, the place where synthesis, judgment, and quality actually form.
Utilization measures activity. It doesn’t measure insight. And leadership work, especially in complex systems, depends far more on the latter. Your comment captures that gap beautifully, and it’s a conversation many more team leads need to have. Thanks for adding this layer to the discussion.
This is a tactic I have long used in my work, including in training. This is a great way to think about learning and getting the most for each participant. Thank you!
Thank you so much, Ricki. I really appreciate you sharing that.
It’s great to hear this resonates with your own practice, especially in training contexts. I love how you put it: getting the most for each participant. That’s exactly the intention... creating space where different rhythms, voices, and ways of thinking can genuinely contribute.
Your comment is a really nice confirmation that pause, when designed with care and intention, isn’t absence of learning but often where learning deepens. Thanks for taking the time to reflect and add to the conversation.
This is brillant stuff on async facilitation. The framing of pause as a cognitive requirement rather than wasted time is something I wish more team leads understood. I've noticed in my own work that the best insights from distributed teams come days after workshops, not during them. One thing thats often missed tho is how to actually convince stakeholders that "unscheduled thinking time" is productive when they're obsessed with utilization metrics.
Thank you! I really appreciate this reflection. You’re touching on one of the hardest (and most important) tensions here.
That insight often arrives AFTER the workshop is exactly why asynchronous work matters, yet it’s also why it’s so difficult to legitimize in metric-driven environments. What I’ve found helpful is reframing “unscheduled thinking time” not as idle capacity, but as delayed value creation, the place where synthesis, judgment, and quality actually form.
Utilization measures activity. It doesn’t measure insight. And leadership work, especially in complex systems, depends far more on the latter. Your comment captures that gap beautifully, and it’s a conversation many more team leads need to have. Thanks for adding this layer to the discussion.