Hello there! 

Here’s a little thing we observed over the last weeks and months: Sometimes, your biggest strength can turn against you.

Sounds trivial when you type it out, and most certainly we’re not the first ones experiencing this — but it was an essential lesson for us as a still relatively fresh company (by the way, fellow kids, what’s the official threshold before you need to stop calling yourself new/young?).

So then, what did we experience and learn?

At Ponder, we’re keen and proud to do things properly. Meaning: Rather than just diving into things aimlessly, we always want to make sure to really understand the issue at hand, define a proper process, define success criteria, look into scenarios, make sure that all voices are heard, and plan ahead. We also like to think in scalable systems, avoid one-off solutions and ensure our solutions can grow flexibly over time.

And all those are great things, right?

They sure are, and it’s also what most of our clients keep highlighting as our biggest strength. So what’s the issue then? The issue is that this strength can sometimes become a giant blocker for ourselves. 

We’ve experienced that – especially when working on our own stuff (our goals, our hiring efforts, our processes, our tooling) – we often overthink things massively. In an honourable attempt to do things properly, we can get caught in rounds and rounds of discussion to define the best approach to tackling the issue.

And while a certain level of that is healthy and important, overdoing it can sometimes be a massive waste of time.

Instead of writing a newsletter, we love to nerd out on newsletter tooling, ponder on audiences, work out an editorial calendar, optimise processes and tools to collect newsletter materials at scale – to end up with plenty of (usually unfinished) infrastructure – and still no newsletter. Frustrating!

So, how did we solve it?

We didn’t – at least not entirely. However, understanding where the frustration came from and identifying the issue is an important first step. 

For now, we try to be extra aware and zoom out from time to time: Are we making progress here, or do we keep discussing the hows, whys, and what-ifs? Does the issue at hand actually require this highly sophisticated, scalable solution, or should we just wing it and move forward instead?

It’s a fine line sometimes, and both extremes are wrong – but we are getting better at understanding that it’s a spectrum, and sometimes (!) winging it is the perfectly appropriate approach, even – or especially – if your company name is Ponder :)

Any concrete next steps?

Next week, we’ll have a work session to create a new type of workshop – extending our offering with a dedicated format that focuses on maximising positive impact in client projects. ✨

It’s a perfect topic to fall into our old habit of questioning ALL the things. But maybe #newponder will manage to focus and stay pragmatic?

Let’s see, and please hold us accountable! If we do well, we should be able to tell you more about the format in our next newsletter …

Cheers!