Business leaders are often rewarded for speed. They are expected to make decisions quickly, respond to problems, manage competing priorities, and keep teams moving forward. Yet speed alone does not produce good judgment. In an environment filled with meetings, messages and constant demands for attention, knowing when not to rush may be one of the most valuable leadership skills.
Alexei Orlov has spent nearly 30 years working with that challenge. A global CEO, CMO, founder, and strategic adviser, he has led businesses and brands across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia. The Alexei Orlov MTM chapter of his career is particularly relevant. As founder and CEO of MTM Choice, Orlov secured $35 million in growth funding, expanded internationally, and built the company to approximately 200 employees and roughly $55 million in annual revenue before transitioning it to new leadership. His career also includes senior roles at Volkswagen, Omnicom and Wunderman/WPP.
Across those experiences, Orlov developed a leadership principle that sounds almost contradictory in a business culture focused on speed. He calls it “slowing down to gather pace.”
The idea is not about moving slowly. It is about creating enough space to determine where you should be going before accelerating.
Modern Leaders Have an Attention Problem
The pressure to move quickly is not imaginary. Today’s workplace can make uninterrupted thought difficult.
Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index drew on a survey of 31,000 workers across 31 countries, as well as workplace activity data and LinkedIn labor market information. Microsoft reported that employees were interrupted by a meeting, email, or message about every two minutes during core working hours. Separate analysis found that 48% of employees and 52% of leaders described their work as chaotic and fragmented.
That matters because activity and progress are not necessarily the same thing.
A leader can spend an entire day answering messages, attending meetings, and making decisions while giving very little uninterrupted attention to the few decisions that could have the greatest effect on the organization.
Orlov’s approach begins by separating urgency from importance.
“The most important thing I do when setting and prioritizing is to ask a very simple crucial question of myself and those that I’m trying to help,” Orlov says. “The question is simply, ‘What matters?’”
It is a basic question, but answering it honestly can change what happens next.
Slowing Down Is Not the Same as Being Indecisive
There is an important distinction between thoughtful leadership and avoiding decisions.
Strong leaders still have to act. They sometimes have to act with incomplete information. The purpose of reflection is not to remove uncertainty before making a decision. That is rarely possible.
Instead, reflection can help leaders identify what they know, what they do not know, whose perspectives are missing, and which consequences deserve more attention.
Orlov learned this through years of operating in complex organizations. As Group Chief Marketing Officer for Volkswagen across China and ASEAN, he oversaw eight consumer brand portfolios and helped deliver five consecutive years of record sales. He later served as a Divisional CEO within Omnicom, where his responsibilities included integrating and transforming businesses and creating a more unified operating model.
Working across markets also taught him to question certainty.
“Truly understand the markets that you serve, but don’t believe you know it all,” Orlov says. He argues that experienced leaders still need to leave space to remain “a student and a discoverer.”
That is particularly important when a decision involves people or markets that a leader may not understand as well as they assume.
The Alexei Orlov MTM Experience Put the Philosophy to the Test
It is easier to advocate reflection when advising someone else’s business. The stakes change when a founder is responsible for the company.
MTM Choice gave Orlov that experience.
He founded the multidisciplinary creative and advisory group and built it to approximately 200 people. The company worked with upscale consumer brands and civic organizations, including work involving the 9/11 Memorial, the McCain Institute, and the UN Geneva Visitor Experience. Orlov secured $35 million in growth funding, expanded the organization internationally and grew annual revenue to approximately $55 million.
Scaling a company requires hundreds of decisions about capital, hiring, priorities, clients and leadership. The answer cannot always be to move faster.
Orlov’s experience reinforced the importance of asking other people for their views and recognizing the limits of individual expertise.
“I do not have the license on brains,” he has said.
That phrase captures an important part of his approach. Seniority gives a leader authority. It does not automatically give that person the best answer.
Orlov says his ability to “learn, to listen, to debate” became an important part of how he approached difficult situations. He has also come to view humility as a strength rather than a weakness.
Reflection Can Protect Decision Quality
There is also research behind the broader case for protecting a leader’s capacity to think.
A 2025 review published in Sleep Medicine Reviews examined how sleep loss affects decision-making, including risk, reasoning and cognitive flexibility. Another 2025 meta-analysis covering 79 publications found that sleep loss impaired several components of executive function, including aspects of working memory and cognitive flexibility.
The lesson for leaders is broader than sleep. Judgment depends on cognitive capacity. Constant interruption, exhaustion and pressure are not automatically signs of productive leadership.
In fact, Microsoft reported that the average employee receives more than 100 emails and more than 150 Teams messages per day. Nearly one in three employees surveyed said it was impossible to keep up with the pace of work.
Creating time to think therefore should not be treated as an indulgence. For leaders responsible for high-consequence decisions, it can be part of the work itself.
Leaders Should Know Which Decisions Deserve a Pause
Not every decision needs lengthy reflection. Treating every minor choice as a strategic exercise would create its own problems.
The skill is knowing which decisions deserve more time.
A useful approach is to pause when a decision is difficult to reverse, affects many people, commits significant resources or rests on assumptions that have not been challenged. Leaders can ask what matters, what information is missing, who sees the situation differently and what happens if the central assumption proves wrong.
That approach fits Orlov’s idea of slowing down to gather pace. A short pause before a major commitment may prevent months of effort from being directed toward the wrong objective.
It also connects with what he calls the “5% of magic.”
“5% doesn’t sound like a lot,” Orlov says, “but in most things it is that fine a touch that makes the world of difference.”
That final five percent might be another question. It might be listening to someone who disagrees. It might be reconsidering an assumption before approving a plan.
The point is not perfection. It is attention.
Better Leadership Is Not Always Faster Leadership
Modern organizations need leaders who can act quickly. They also need leaders who understand when speed creates unnecessary risk.
Orlov’s advice is practical. Identify what matters. Remain a student. Ask for other perspectives. Do not confuse authority with having every answer. Most importantly, create enough room to think when the consequences justify it.
After decades of leading brands, transforming organizations and building MTM Choice, Orlov’s philosophy is not an argument against ambition or urgency. It is an argument for directing them more carefully.
Sometimes the fastest route to a better result begins with knowing when to slow down.
