By Sénamé Agbossou

The Strategy Meeting That Changed Everything

Raphael sat in the corner of the conference room, watching his colleagues rapid-fire through decisions that would impact the next six months of product development. As Head of Strategic Planning, he’d prepared extensively for this meeting; analyzing market trends, competitor movements, and potential risks.

But every time he tried to raise a strategic concern, someone cut him off with “We don’t have time for analysis paralysis” or “Let’s just move forward and adjust as we go.”

Three hours later, the team had made decisions that Raphael could see would create problems down the road. But in that fast-paced environment, his natural Sensemaker energy (the deep thinking and pattern recognition that made him invaluable), felt like a liability.

Sound familiar? If you’ve ever felt like your thoughtfulness is seen as slowness, or your strategic perspective is dismissed as overthinking, you might be experiencing what I call energy misalignment.

Understanding the Sensemaker in a Speed-Obsessed World

Sensemakers are one of the five Work Energy Types I’ve identified through decades of leadership coaching. They bring clarity to complexity, see patterns others miss, and provide the strategic insight that prevents costly mistakes.

In our Ubuntu philosophy, Sensemakers serve as the navigation system for the collective journey. While others focus on speed and immediate action, Sensemakers help ensure the team is heading in the right direction.

But in today’s business environment, with its emphasis on “fail fast” and “move quickly and break things,” Sensemakers often feel like they’re swimming upstream.

The Real Cost of Speed Without Wisdom

Here’s what I’ve observed in organizations that consistently prioritize speed over strategic thinking:

Short-term gains, long-term pain. Teams move quickly in the wrong direction, creating expensive course corrections later.

Decision fatigue. When every choice is made rapidly without proper consideration, teams burn out from constantly dealing with the unintended consequences.

Strategic blindness. Organizations lose the ability to see around corners, missing both opportunities and threats until they’re unavoidable.

Sensemaker exodus. Strategic thinkers leave for environments where their contributions are valued, taking critical institutional knowledge with them.

Raphael’s experience illustrates this perfectly. His team’s rapid decisions in that strategy meeting led to three major product pivots over the following year; pivots that Raphael’s initial analysis could have prevented.

The Sensemaker’s Dilemma

Maria, a senior analyst at a consulting firm, described her frustration this way: “I can see the patterns that lead to client churn, but by the time I’ve done the analysis properly, my colleagues have already moved on to the next fire drill. Then six months later, we’re dealing with exactly the problems I predicted.”

This is the Sensemaker’s dilemma: their greatest value often lies in preventing problems that haven’t happened yet, but fast-paced environments reward visible action over invisible prevention.

Creating Ubuntu Teams: Balancing Speed and Wisdom

The solution isn’t to slow down every fast-paced team or to speed up every Sensemaker. It’s to create what I call Ubuntu Teams: environments where different energy types can contribute their gifts in service of collective success.

Here’s how the best leaders I’ve worked with create this balance:

For Leaders: Honor the Sensemaker Voice

• Create decision checkpoints. Before finalizing major decisions, build in a “strategic review” moment where Sensemakers can share their perspective.
• Distinguish between urgent and important. Not every decision needs to be made immediately. Learn to identify which choices benefit from strategic input and which require quick action.
• Value prevention as much as solution. Recognize and celebrate when strategic thinking prevents problems, not just when it solves them.

For Sensemakers: Translate Your Insights

• Lead with the business impact. Instead of diving into detailed analysis, start with the conclusion: “I see three risks that could cost us €200K if we proceed as planned.”
• Offer quick wins alongside long-term thinking. Provide both immediate actions and strategic considerations to meet the team’s need for progress.
• Share partial insights. Don’t wait until your analysis is perfect. Early observations from a Sensemaker are often more valuable than complete analyses from others.

Raphael’s Transformation

Working together, Raphael learned to reframe his strategic contributions in terms his action-oriented colleagues could appreciate. Instead of presenting 20-slide analysis, he started leading with three key insights and one critical recommendation.

His breakthrough moment came when he prevented a product launch that would have failed by presenting his concerns as “three customer feedback patterns that suggest we should delay launch by two weeks to capture the full market opportunity.”

The team listened because Raphael had learned to translate his Sensemaker insights into Driver language; focusing on results and opportunities rather than just risks and analysis.

The Ubuntu Integration

Six months later, Raphael’s team had achieved something remarkable: they maintained their fast pace while making consistently better decisions. How?

They learned to see Raphael’s strategic input not as a brake on their momentum, but as a GPS system that helped them move quickly in the right direction.

As Raphael put it: “I used to feel like I was slowing them down. Now I realize I was helping them speed up by making sure we didn’t waste time going the wrong way.”

Creating Space for Strategic Energy

The most successful teams I work with have learned to create what I call “Strategic Spaces”: regular moments where Sensemaker energy is not only welcomed but actively sought.

This might look like:

• Weekly “What are we missing?” sessions where strategic thinkers can share observations
• Pre-decision strategic reviews for major choices
• Monthly pattern recognition meetings where trends and insights are shared
• Post-project reflection sessions where Sensemakers can share what they learned for next time

Recognition Signs: Supporting Your Sensemakers

Your team might have underutilized Sensemakers if:

• You frequently discover problems that “no one saw coming” (but someone probably did)
• Projects succeed in the short term but create unexpected long-term complications
• Strategic team members seem disengaged or frustrated
• You’re solving the same types of problems repeatedly
• Decision-making feels reactive rather than proactive

The Energy Alignment Opportunity

Here’s the profound truth I’ve learned: when Sensemakers feel valued and heard, they don’t slow teams down; they help them go faster by going in the right direction the first time.

And when fast-paced teams learn to create space for strategic input, they don’t lose momentum; they gain precision and sustainability.

This is the essence of Ubuntu in action: recognizing that our individual energy types become most powerful when they’re in service of collective wisdom.

Your Reflection Challenge

Whether you’re a Sensemaker feeling exhausted by the pace around you, or a faster-moving type frustrated by “analysis paralysis,” I want you to consider this:

What would change if you saw different work paces not as obstacles to overcome, but as complementary energies that could strengthen your shared results?

How might the “slow” thinker on your team actually help you move faster in the long run?

And if you’re the strategic thinker feeling unheard, how could you package your insights in ways that meet your team’s need for actionable direction?

Looking Forward

In our next post, I’ll be sharing something I’ve been working on: an assessment that helps you identify your Work Energy Type and understand how to optimize your natural patterns for maximum impact.

But today, I want to hear from you:

Sensemakers: What helps you contribute your strategic perspective in fast-paced environments?

Fast-paced leaders: How do you create space for strategic input without losing momentum?

Everyone: What’s one pattern you’ve noticed about energy and pace in your current team?

Your insights help all of us understand how to create teams where every type of energy can thrive.