Proximity & Speed How Businesses Lose Their Pace
(and How to Get It Back)
In business, very few problems are purely about speed. Most problems are about mismanaged proximity to complexity.
I’ve seen it repeatedly, especially in complex functions like performance marketing, product development, and engineering. Leaders often lose control of their organization’s natural pace because they operate at the wrong distance from the actual work.
The Two Common Leadership Extremes
The Distant Leader
They manage by metrics and dashboards.
Their understanding of the operational complexity is limited.
They default to: “Just give me the simple answer — why did revenue drop?”
The Hyper-Close Leader
They embed themselves inside every detail.
They sit in meetings, review granular reports, and stay involved in execution.
Yet, even with all this proximity, they still expect: “Just tell me the simple fix.”
The Hard Truth: Complex Problems Can’t Be Solved With Simple Answers
When you're operating inside complex environments, you encounter:
Multi-market dynamics
Conversion volatility
Technical edge cases
Payment gateway failures
Platform fragility
In these situations, there are no single-variable answers. Instead, you're debugging systems of systems, where:
Multiple factors interact
Causes don’t immediately surface
Data is often incomplete
Hypotheses take time to validate
The real challenge is not speed of decision, but speed of investigation.
The Leadership Friction Point
This is where businesses get stuck:
Leaders expect quick solutions.
Operators require time to properly investigate.
The communication gap widens.
Anxiety grows.
Escalation replaces investigation.
The Real Solution: Aligning Proximity and Speed
The solution isn’t more meetings or more reporting. The solution is structured transparency.
Leaders don’t need final certainty. Leaders need clarity on:
“Where are we looking? What are we seeing? What’s emerging?”
When everyone aligns on the investigation process itself, speed and stability coexist. Even without having the full solution yet, the organization stays synchronized.
The Rule I Now Live By: Communicate Thought Process, Not Just Conclusions
This became my personal leadership shift.
I used to communicate only after I fully understood the problem.
Now, I share my evolving thought process early:
“Here’s what we’re seeing right now.”
“Here’s where the investigation is focused.”
“Here’s what we know vs. what remains unclear.”
This approach allows leadership to stay informed, without forcing premature conclusions.
The Role of Psychological Safety
But to create this kind of transparent communication, one condition must exist: Psychological safety.
When psychological safety is missing:
Teams hide uncertainty.
Operators hesitate to share early signals.
Leaders receive only filtered or polished updates.
Problem-solving slows down because everyone is managing optics, not truth.
When psychological safety exists:
Teams feel comfortable sharing hypotheses.
They surface incomplete findings early.
The focus remains on solving, not managing leadership emotions.
Without psychological safety, complex problem-solving becomes political. With psychological safety, it becomes operational.
How I Apply Psychological Safety in My Own Business
Even outside my corporate role, I apply this principle to my own ventures, whether it’s my podcast, my content work, or future projects I’m building.
In my own small teams:
Mistakes are fully allowed.
Progress takes priority over perfection.
Every contribution matters.
We constantly align around the same North Star: “What are we building? What are we learning?”
The result? Problems surface early. Feedback flows faster. The system self-corrects without fear.
If You Lead: Check Your Proximity and Safety
Are you close enough to understand the complexity?
Are you far enough to let your teams solve?
Are you receiving real-time signals or demanding conclusions?
Are you creating safety or creating fear?
Proximity and speed aren’t opposites. They are twin levers that, when managed well, create calm, scalable organizations.
Gamal