Procrastination and intelligence. Sounds like a contradiction, right? Hear me out. Intelligent people often procrastinate, but not in the way you might think. They might delay starting a task, but during that delay, they could very well be processing information, planning, and coming up with new ideas. Basically, working smarter, not harder.
 
Sure, it’s only natural to think of procrastination as the enemy of productivity, but it can be a resource for creativity. All of us know people who seem to be chronic procrastinators but for whatever reason, they always seem to deliver great results. While they may not work at my pace or your pace, at the end of the day, they deliver. In fact, some of the smartest people I know are habitual procrastinators. Of course, this drives me crazy, but when they deliver, I just smile, scratch my head, and thank them, once again.  

We had one consultant who was one of the smartest people on our team. He was also a procrastinator. He drove his project managers crazy as well as the client until they understood what they had with him. We would be on calls with the client where he would be asked questions and there were these long uncomfortable pauses. Knowing this about him, I would try and wait it out, but there were those times where I would say his name and ask him what he thinks or if he was even still there. He would rejoin the call and say, “yeah, I was just thinking.” Then he would come back with an ingenious solution to the problem, and everyone would be thoroughly impressed.  

I even had a few clients who became frustrated early on and wanted to escort him to the door. My comeback was always the same. “Sure, we can replace him, but it will take at least two people to fill his shoes, and if you walk him out the door, you are essentially allowing Einstein to leave your project.” The Einstein part always seemed to get their attention. 

I learned a long time ago that I bring me to every situation and that people are complex and very different from one another. So, I’ve made a habit of taking a step back and trying to fully understand the people and situation I am working with prior to making a hard assessment. That’s the great thing about the consulting services business, it’s a people business, so never a dull moment.