Slow is smooth… and smooth is fast!

It’s not often I reference a television character in my writing, but today I’ll make an exception for Phil Dunphy from “Modern Family.” In one hilarious scene, Phil rallies his family for a fire drill and uses the phrase “slow is smooth… and smooth is fast” to encourage a calm but swift exit from the house. That moment has stuck with me, and I’ve even repeated it to my own family in similar situations. 

Today, I want to explore how this idea can help leaders and teams focus not only on what they do (their deliverables and results) but also on how they do it (the processes that drive those outcomes).

Recently, as executive chair of a thriving private company’s board, I led a quarterly board meeting. The session was productive and hit all our critical objectives. Despite the meeting’s seemingly deliberate pace, we wrapped up 20 minutes and ahead of schedule. Once again, Phil’s motto echoed in my mind—“slow is smooth… and smooth is fast!” Embedded in this saying are two essential principles worth remembering.

Slow is smooth…

By establishing clear, methodical, and repeatable routines for your work, your organization, and your team, you set the stage for reliable performance. Such consistency minimizes errors, reduces unnecessary rework, and limits variability—especially important in today’s competitive, complex environments. As a leader, it’s crucial to create and uphold these disciplined processes and to demonstrate them through your own actions.

Smooth is fast…

It’s easy to envision how streamlined, well-honed business processes can lead to faster achievement of goals. As illustrated in our recent board meeting, executing a process smoothly and methodically enabled us to complete our work more efficiently, finishing over 10% earlier than expected.

My advice to readers is to review your core business processes, or start building them if needed, and continually refine them to be more systematic and repeatable. When your words and actions align in supporting these disciplined approaches, and when leaders model these behaviors personally, you’ll see better outcomes for your teams and organizations.

 

The story of the "Fairview Flyer"

 I started posting essays on this platform over 16 years ago... and from the beginning I wanted to share    lessons of leadership and life. stories, insights and experiences  (literally on the masthead of my blog) that might be insightful to the reader.  Here we are today with this essay being the 297th posted on the blog,  and with well over 225,000 page views to date I have been surprised and humbled by the breadth and impact of my "stories."  Today's essay is focused on a simple tomato, and the pure exhilaration that has emerged through this past gardening season!

For decades, I have been growing two varieties of heirloom tomatoes that have been passed to my by family and friends.  One I have written about that comes down from my grandmother that is a yellow tomato variety, on relatively short plants,  with very sweet somewhat small fruit that she grew for many years/decades, possibly from before I was born.  The second variety was passed along from my friend Dave Carfang's family, who were given this tomato ( "The Carfang Big Pinks) in the early 70's.  It grows on very long tomato vines, and produce large beautiful pink tomatoes, some as large (or larger) as 1 pound. Here is a picture of those two varieties from this past season.  I always knew that heirloom tomatoes were "open pollinators" meaning that they could possibly "cross pollinate" with other nearby tomatoes but over the years/decades I never had that "problem."

Well here we come to the spring of 2025, with tomato seedlings in the garden growing well and I notice an unusual phenomenon.  I had 14 seedlings in the garden that I raised from seeds from last year, seven of Mama's yellow tomatoes and what I THOUGHT were seven of the "Big Pinks."  Well to my amazement, one go the big pinks looks different from the others and ALL of them were from the seeds of one or two tomatoes from 2024.  Mama's tomatoes have serrated ( jagged) leaves and the "Big Pinks" have smooth leaves and lo and behold one of the "Big Pink" seedlings had serrated leaves.  I wrote about this dynamic back in May, you can see that essay here, https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2025/05/innovation-can-come-from-some.html

The reality hit me mid-summer as the plants reached maturity and started putting off fruit.  Mama's tomato plants grew to about 5ft or so and stopped.  The "Big Pinks" grew to about 8-9 ft and stopped but this new "heirloom hybrid" just kept on growing.  As it put on fruit, I realized that the tomatoes were different and unique... larger than Mama's, smaller than the "Big Pinks" and had a touch of yellow/orange on the shoulders.. pictures below!

Well to say the least I was excited and amazed, the plant kept on growing and it prolifically put on fruit. I pulled the tomato plant/vine out of the garden this week and it was over 13 ft long.

 I took one of the best tomatoes it produced this summer and let it "over-ripen" on the vine and used it as my source for seeds.  I am so eager to get to late January when I start my tomato seeds and see if they are fertile and if I can propagate this new variety... which I have named "The Fairview Flyer."  

My focus in the essays that I have posted across all these years has been on the idea of "finding your legacy," the concept that if we can act intentionally in our families, our communities, our companies and our country we can leave all of those environments in a better place than when we found them.  I never thought that this concept might include creating a "new" tomato variety that I can pass along to generations of gardeners that may follow me... maybe someday marveling at the "Fairview Flyer" years/decades after I have passed, wondering about its humble origins as they enjoy the delicious tomatoes, or bemused but the amazing length of the vines at the end of the season.  I promise to add a postscript to this essay early next year once the seedlings get going!!