Spend time now, save time later - A leadership mantra
How leading an ICT team and a love of investing shaped my mantra, “Spend time now, save time later”, and why helping people solve their own problems pays off.
LEADERSHIPTRUSTLEARNING TO LEADCOACHING
Roland Lewis
11/10/20263 min read
Spend time now, save time later
One of the mantras I lean on most in leadership is "Spend time now, save time later." It has an interesting genesis story, and it starts with a lot of computers that weren't behaving.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
One of my first leadership roles was leading the ICT team (yep, ICT, that's how long ago it was). Unofficially, this made me the first port of call for all problems IT related.
I got a lot of practice with The IT Crowd's go-to punchline: "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
The quick fix was always tempting. Lean over, take the mouse, click a few things and move on. It felt efficient, but the same problems kept finding their way back to me.
What I found was, if I spent a little bit longer with people and walked them through their problem, they learned how to solve that problem themselves. The important move was not touching their computer. When I took over the mouse, the problem became mine. When their hands stayed on it, the learning stayed with them.
Put in the yards now
I was just starting to get into investing in the stock market seriously at that time too. Lots of listening to The Motley Fool, David Gardner, Scott Phillips and Anirban Mahanti, PhD, and loads of reading by Ray Dalio and Warren Buffett. The list goes on.
What stood out to me was that we invest now and let the investment reap benefits in the future. Put in the yards now, get the benefits down the road. The returns rarely show up straight away. In the early days it can look like nothing much is happening, but given time, those returns start to build on themselves.
That's exactly where SPEND time now, SAVE time later came from. Every person who learned to solve their own problem didn't just save me the next call. They took that knowledge back to their desk, and sometimes to the person sitting next to them.
Beyond the laptop
It has served me well throughout my leadership journey. The meaning has evolved, but the leadership lesson is the same.
When someone walks into your office with a question about implementation or how to get their team to buy into their KPIs, it can be easy to answer them and direct them. The more effective move is to pause and ask them a question: "I'm curious, what are your thoughts on this?" or, if it's a problem, "What solutions do you see here?"
I almost always discover something interesting when I take the time to listen to what is in the answers. Most of the time, their ideas are great (even if they're different to what I would do or say). Eventually, people will come to you with a question and a solution that they've already thought of.
Or, even better, one day you might even hear someone calling down the corridor - "Think of a solution too! He always asks you for one!"
It isn't always the easy choice. When the to-do list is long, doing it yourself is quicker today. Spending time now means accepting a slower today for the sake of a better tomorrow.
An investment in your future
So when someone brings you a problem, it's worth pausing to ask whether this is a moment to fix it or a moment to spend a bit of time helping them learn how. That time doesn't disappear. One day you'll see them helping someone fix their laptop, recommending they turn it off and then on again, or maybe emerging as your top performing staff member with leadership potential.
Every moment you spend is an investment in your future, for better or worse. You decide what future you'd prefer.
I'd love to hear yours. Where have you spent time now and seen it pay off later?
Lead on. Lead well.
Contact
Phone
© 2025. All rights reserved.