To close, we will return to our narrow road on Bainbridge Island. If you think of the road as your focus, or your client or customer's focus, then the analogy becomes clearer.

There's only so much room on the road. But, if we're in that place, we need the road to get to where we're going.

Regardless, if too many cars are barreling down the road or up the road, collisions, or cars driving off cliffs, would be inevitable. The road would become useless.

We imagine that the urban planners of Bainbridge Island figured out a compromise. If you're driving down the road toward a home on the bottom and a car approaches you from the bottom, you have to wind your way, in reverse, back up the road.

The problem‐solving wisdom of Bainbridge Island serves us well as we recollect the lessons of immediacy. You may want to provide something to your customer right away, but your customer may not be ready to receive it. Someone may have feedback for you, but if you're in the middle of a stressful stretch of work, you might want to delay its delivery for a few days. Sometimes it's your turn to use the road. Sometimes you have to hold off. What's critical, for immediacy to flourish, is to resolve issues by thinking about eventualities before they happen. To work out solutions, pass them around, and test them in the real world. Get what you need, when you need it. Give others what they need, when they need it.

When is the right time to call a meeting with someone?

When should you put in an automated intervention to remind people about company norms or protocols?

When should you offer feedback?

When should you build a platform to connect members of your network or community, clients, and so on?

When you work these things out in advance (like the citizens of Bainbridge Island), when you try to minimize deeply disruptive interruptions (like collisions or arguments on mountains), you allow people to do what they do best …

You give them the kind of optionality that can lead to delight and keep them on task, even when there are too many cars on too little road.

As we move forward, remember the people of Bainbridge Island. They manage their most dangerous and cluttered roads with grace and even joy – it's part of life on the island, not a have‐to but a get‐to, not a hassle but a charming opportunity to solve the kinds of problems that happen when you have the ingenuity and wherewithal to build houses in the wake of glaciers.