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That time-taking shows respect for the others in the room. It says that the leadership model isn’t always controlling every minute or filling every quarter of an hour with a purpose.
‘The Speed of Trust’ on our terms or Taking Our Time.
The Speed of Trust is a leadership idea coined, by Stephen Covey, that values trust building but still has more of an eye on productivity – and rapidity – rather than process.
Alex Bulmer is a Sync Alumnus and award-winning writer, director, actor and dramaturg. Amongst other things she is co-founder of Fire and Rescue Arts and was lead curator of CoMotion Festival 2022 (an international Deaf and Disability Arts festival produced by Harbourfront Centre).
In 2020 Alex took part in Sync’s first online intensive program in Ontario, Canada and shared with Sync her piece about the value of inefficiency. Her leadership metaphor – a vinyl record, chosen because it circles and spirals and takes time to reveal itself. She has since then worked extensively across Sync programs in Canada, UK and Australia.
In 2025, Alex Bulmer met with Sync’s Sarah Pickthall, whilst rehearsing to go on tour in the UK with a new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Don’t Look Now, to shape resources for the new Sync Re-Ignite program. Together they revisited the notion of circling and gathering on our terms as disabled leaders and that a vital part of working collaboratively, curating and co-curating, is considering how we foster and facilitate the conditions that allow trust to develop so that we can bring our whole, authentic selves safely into a creative space.
Time is a malleable and complex notion; in a “one size fits one” society which prioritises efficiency and productivity, it is easy to mistrust slowness. Alex has always instinctively understood the value taking time to of circle around and compost ideas, allowing time to gather. She knows that this slow processing time is critically important to the creative process.
The very notion of a ‘leader’ implies to Alex a figure ahead of the pack, moving that bit faster: “I think it’s taken me a long time, and I am still learning, to trust the virtue of inefficiency, the value of gathering, and the discoveries gained from circling as opposed to going quickly from A to B.”
Rushing to outcomes can be so counterproductive. Experience has taught Alex to be confident in claiming the time to bring a group together: “I’m running a project in Toronto with 3 writers who are blind and we started with a meal together. You know that was in the grant – it’s in the grant that we will have two meals together! Because it’s absolutely part of the creative process. Having that meal together, before we start working as a group, (allows) things to unfold and unfurl.”
It is also a key part of building trust, committing to the people in the room and to taking time to ‘unfurl’: “That time-taking shows respect for the others in the room. It says that the leadership model isn’t always controlling every minute or filling every quarter of an hour with a purpose. It is also time that enables everyone to become part of setting the dynamic, creating the tone and engaging in the conversation.”
For Alex, blindness can create its own time zone: “I have often found myself comparing my way of participating in a group to others, and I can conclude that I’m not ‘keeping up’. The very idea of keeping up immediately suggests that there’s some kind of a competition, or that there’s one way and that you have to keep up with that one way.”
Alex has worked to reframe that notion of ‘keeping up’ into something that works positively for her: rather than keeping up with someone else’s standard, she thinks of keeping up in literal terms: keeping the physical body upright, and in terms of values. “How do I keep upright in these environments? How do I go at my own pace, and establish my own values in a way that that will keep me up?”
Part of this is being aware of what is in her control, and what isn’t.
“I can’t control the level of romanticism or exceptionality or box ticking that’s going on in a space, but I can decide how I am going to enter that room, what I’m bringing into that space… taking a moment before entering a room, just to breathe and imagine oneself in your own body, to feel your feet on the floor, these are simple things but they actually help – when things go wrong just take that moment, take that time, feel your feet on the floor, feel your breath, feel your feet on the floor.” When people put barriers up or make assumptions that knock you, Alex suggests taking a step back and keeping yourself up: “Don’t keep up with them – keep up with yourself!”
Being the only disabled person on a project can make this harder. “There can be so much pivoting around my needs. And that can be a benefit, or it can actually go in the opposite direction, for example there may be an assumption of needs which aren’t there. There’s definitely a real focus on me. Whereas if I ‘m working in a with other disabled people for me that’s where the really beautiful, brilliant navigation and negotiation of peoples’ differing access needs, differing way of working, to me that’s where the magic really exists.”
When it comes to trust, Alex also recognises the importance of allowing time and space for participants to move in and out of activity, allowing them privacy and quiet time within the group as well as full engagement. It can be hard to not allow previous negative experiences to impact on the here and now. “If you’re ready to be here but not ready to expose too much too soon, that HAS to be okay.”
And when we allow for the speed of trust on our terms, creating a pace which moves with our own self and the participants and honours the creative process? Then we can change the assumptions that give speed primacy, and make our considered, considerate ways of working the typical ones. And that, says Alex, benefits everybody!