At the weekend I saw the oldest tree in Great Britain, an ancient yew in the churchyard of the village of Defynnog in Wales which is 5,600 years old. This tree which must be one of the oldest living things and has been in existence for as long as Defynnog, and many other places in the country for that matter, has been inhabited - which kind of puts day to day working life into perspective.
 
By complete contrast one of the perils of the modern digital always on 24/7 world is the temptation to deal with issues immediately and respond instantly to every situation or message, sometimes just because we can. Text and IM’s lend themselves to, and almost require, an instant answer. Emails can seem to demand that they are answered quickly and at the very least on the same day.
 
However, an over rapid response may not be the most effective means of achieving a desired outcome - even if it may seem so at the time and help clear your inbox. Firstly, a reply or taking some resulting action may require or at least benefit from further consideration or consultation with somebody else.  
 
It may also be the wrong time to approach a colleague or manager with some business proposition. They could be extremely busy, or have just returned from holiday, or have a multitude of other priorities at the time so your request is unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing or maybe even listened to at all.
 
This Wall Street Journal article suggests that “Rushing creates anxiety and resentment among co-workers”and quotes a leadership development coach who advises rushers to visualize themselves on video. "What would you think of that person who ran into every meeting late, spent half the time on their cellphone with their email, and had to ask, 'Could you please repeat that?' because they weren't listening?"
 
Acting too hastily can often impair the quality of decision making in management. This LinkedIn articleDo You Have Enough Time to Just Think? says LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner schedules up to two hours of empty space on his calendar a day. That may seem like an indulgent thing to do, but Jeff says, “If you don't take the time to think proactively you will increasingly find yourself reacting to your environment rather than influencing it. The resulting situation will inevitably require far more time (and meetings) than thinking strategically would have to begin with.”
 
Acting more carefully and taking more time can pay dividends. See this Forbes blog What's The Rush? Take Your Time And Gain An Advantage which comments:  
 
Messages scream at us (or so we feel) to respond “now, now, now”, rather than taking our time, or thinking things through. We keep answering but the messages keep coming ... we'll never be finished.
 
Sometimes, in a racing world, we need to slow down, take a step back, and breathe.
 
Taking your time in a culture where everyone else seems to be rushing can also give you a distinct advantage.
 
As the entrepreneur and inventor James Dyson said There is nothing wrong with things taking time.
 
In this context I also like the Chinese proverb Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.

Described in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams as Probably the oddest thing in the Universe the Babel fish is a small, bright yellow fish, which can be placed in someone's ear in order for them to be able to hear any language translated into their first language.
 
This book was first published in 1979 but as Oscar Wilde says Nature imitates art and now Google Translate started in 2006 and from 2016 using Neural Machine Translation is helping remove language barriers. On holiday in Croatia I could point my phone’s camera at text on some obscure supermarket item and have it appear on my phone in English. And this is field is developing fast – see this article and this blog. In the future we will be able to wear a headset that will translate what someone is saying to us contemporaneously.
 
Yet for all of this we may be able to communicate between different languages but still not understand each other. Cultural and behavioural differences will still make negotiations and discussions involving people from different countries challenging. We may well hear and understand the language but still not appreciate the meaning. As the American economist Alan Greenspan said I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
 
Siting round a table or on a Skype call with colleagues and competitors from different countries presents a whole new range of challenges, of which actual language barriers is just one. Here is a blog Negotiation across Cultures which discusses some of the issues citing examples like In the US, UK, and much of Europe, eye contact is a sign of strength and confidence. In places like South America, it’s a sign of trustworthiness. In Japan, however, prolonged eye contact can be deemed impolite. In the Arab world it’s uncomfortable and you would especially take care if working across genders.
 
See also this Harvard Law School blog Overcoming Cultural Barriers in Negotiations and the Importance of Communication in International Business Deals which suggests some strategies for handling cultural differences at the negotiation table.
 
One thing I have noticed by way of another example is that generally in the UK we are polite and let the other side speak when it is their turn. In some other European and Middle East countries everybody wants to have their say to the exclusion of everybody else so you cannot get a word in edgeways. One chairman of a European “industry wide” discussion I attended would only let people speak if they first put their hand up, like in kindergarten, but he did give everybody their turn.
 
An old African proverb says The stranger sees only what he knowsmeaning that when confronted with another culture in business we unconsciously primarily pay attention to those elements that are already familiar to us. If you go to Japan and travel on the transport system in Tokyo it is bewildering to navigate with a plethora of train and metro lines and few signs in English. However, if you stop expecting a relatively simple London underground plan or French metro map and start taking it at face value in the context of the geography of the city the Tokyo system starts to make sense.
 
As the American singer Beyoncé said Y'all are so cute and y'all talk so proper over here. I love England. Or perhaps more profoundly to quote Audre Lorde the American writerIt is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognise, accept and celebrate those differences.

I was privileged to see Bob Dylan and Neil Young playing on the Great Oak Stage at Hyde Park in London this week. They are both great individual artists but the thing that struck me watching, particularly Neil Young, is that these performers are supported by some of the best backing musicians on the planet. That is what makes their performances.
 
The same is true at any level of professional life with the teams we all work in. Get a great team around a great leader and anything is possible – if not quite so musical. As the American author and management consultant Jim Collins said in his book Good to Great good leaders start not with “where” but with “who.” They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. See this article Leaders of great companies ask: First Who, Then What.
 
This short blog 10 Characteristics of High-Performing Teams suggests that Most members of high-performing teams report that it’s fun and satisfying to work on collaborative teams because they are asked to contribute at their highest potential and they learn a lot along the way.But you have to have the right leader who will allow this and a team that responds.
 
I also heard a great analogy about team leaders recently. If your team’s task is to pull a stone up a hill, the best leaders pulls with his team from the front providing support and direction – while the worst stand on the stone with a whip and a megaphone and just shout at their team! 
 
At the same time the team members have to understand and contribute and enjoy and appreciate their tasks. As this blog The 7 Characteristics of a Great Team Player suggests Being an effective team member requires individuals to have the right frame of mind backed up by consistent actions. Effective and great team membership is characterized by how you think and feel about your role and the actions you take to support the team.
 
Here is a good Harvard Business Review article The Secrets of Great Teamwork which identifies some of the challenges and answers to effective teams in this fast moving digital age commenting Today’s teams are different from the teams of the past: They’re far more diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic (with frequent changes in membership).
 
I think it is all about working selflessly for each other. As the American president Harry S. Truman once said It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t not care who gets the credit.
 
And returning to music for the last word, or note, Britt Daniel the American singer and guitarist commented I love bands that can collaborate, and I feel like the Rolling Stones wouldn’t be nearly as great as they are if it wasn’t for them having a real group.

A New York taxi driver once told me to “go with the flow” as he transported me to a downtown hotel from the airport on my first trip to the city. It’s good advice in both the personal and the professional world.
 
In management or negotiations or business generally having a plan is great but being too rigid in following it may not be. A Prussian field marshall with the grand name of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder once said “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.”
 
But more than this the flow of events and interaction with others just naturally throws up new opportunities and perhaps a beneficial change of direction that had not even been contemplated. The American author and coach Tony Robbins recommends that you “Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.”
 
There is even an article, in wikihow, about How to Go With the Flow which suggests that Learning to go with the flow will help you deal with moments when things don’t go the way you planned. A person who knows how to go with the flow can adapt to any situation and still come out successful.
 
Thinking about it, most businesses benefit from flexibility in decision making as everything ultimately changes. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.Or staying with the classical for the moment All things change, nothing is extinguished. There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement– the Roman poet Ovid.
 
There is even a book The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World by Michael Wheeler which is cited in this Harvard Blog. The author was interviewed and suggested that  Negotiation cannot be scripted. Your goals may change during the course of negotiation, a little or a lot. Unexpected opportunities and obstacles may pop up.It also unexpectedly compares negotiation with music - Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis said, “The real power of jazz—and the innovation of jazz—is that a group of people can come together and create art, improvised art, and can negotiate their agendas with each other. And that negotiation is the art.”
 
As the Sun Tzu (545BC – 470BC) the Chinese general, military strategist, writer and philosopher advised “Don’t flail against the world, use it. Flexibility is the operative principle in the art of war”.