Power Play: Master the art of timing

Gifted Power Players can smell good timing before they need to work with it.

The art of timing is a tough needle to thread. Learning to hold one's tongue is usually impossible for most of us. Not speaking too soon, not speaking too late or not speaking at all, are all incredibly hard gauges to measure. Power Players know how to dance with timing. It's smooth and effortless.

It's poetic and beautiful. They hold back when others would dive in and ruin the moment. This is perhaps one of the toughest skills to master.

It takes years of looking, listening and learning. It also takes the ability to recognise a quiet moment when it is needed. Or when to give an idea the room to breathe and grow before the idea is critiqued.

Time has a terrific way of fixing things, healing things or blowing things up when detonation is required. Learn to let time do its thing and learn how to stay out of its way. Power Players always do.

Entrepreneur, strategist and author Rose Herceg co-founded Pophouse, specialising in social forecasting, market research and business strategy in 1998 before selling it to STW in 2006. Until recently Rose was strategy director of the STW Group, working across 70 companies on strategy, social forecasting, trends analysis and innovation. She is currently developing several online start-ups in media and media content.