Build vs Optimise: Knowing What Phase You Are In

This is the transcript of The Refreshing Leadership Podcast episode: Build vs optimise: knowing what phase you are in, published on 6th April 2026.

It's the end of Q1 and we are looking at Q2 - the start of April, which I think is always an interesting time of year.

Q1 tends to carry a lot of New Year energy. There are plans, intentions, quite a lot of optimism. And by the time we get to April, spring is underway, and it can be useful to pause and ask a few questions. What's working? What isn't working? What might we need to let go of for the next season?

Over the next few episodes this month, I am going to be looking at where we can subtract, where we can prioritise, reduce, and let go - so that we can get the outcomes we want, and hopefully even better ones, but without adding to our plate. Because this always starts to become a busier and more fast-paced time of year.

Over the course of this month I'll be looking at the energy of your workspace - whether that's a home office or a physical one - decluttering your work calendar, and thinking about the concept of fierce prioritisation. But today I wanted to do my own little stock take of Q1 and talk about a theme that has stood out for me as I reflect back on this quarter.

Build phase vs optimise phase

What I've been reflecting on is that this is what I would call an optimisation phase rather than a build phase in my life.

When I look back at my twenties and thirties, a lot of time was spent in build mode - building a career, going through a lot of change and transition. In fact, I spent most of my twenties and thirties in transition. It wasn't status quo. There was renovating a flat, renovating a house, having babies, doing a master's degree, getting published. There was just a lot of transition. I never really felt like I was in equilibrium - that one year was similar to the previous one. There was momentum, and it was energising.

But every single build overran. Becoming an executive coach was not an overnight thing. Academic work getting published took years longer than expected. Renovations always run over. Children - well, that one's still ongoing.

Build phases typically overrun. They require patience. You are creating something that doesn't yet exist, and you often don't really know exactly what the outcome is going to be. You're probably doing something for roughly the first time. You only transition into a particular new career once. You only renovate that particular house once. So there's a lot of second-guessing that comes with newness and build.

Exploration vs exploitation

There's a well-known organisational theory idea that describes something similar - it talks about exploration versus exploitation. There's even an assessment that helps you figure out which part of the curve you are best suited to. Are you one of those explorer and builder types, or are you somebody who, once something has been built, is really good at looking after it, caretaking it, and optimising it?

Exploration is where an organisation would experiment, try new ideas, launch new initiatives, and build new capabilities. Exploitation is when you take the thing that's working and focus on really getting the most out of it, making it better.

Too much exploration and things become chaotic - everything is new and shiny, lots of new initiatives, maybe not enough follow-through. Too much exploitation and things become stagnant. The challenge is knowing what the right phase is for the right time, and also which phase you personally are in.

In those build phases, I was very much more of an explorer type. I built programmes when I was at London Business School that I was then so relieved to hand over to somebody else - I thrived on the creation aspect. But sitting there ticking things over and applying standard operating procedures would not have been right for me at that time. I was really happy to find the right people to pass that over to.

Enjoying the optimisation phase

More recently, when I ran a masterclass that I often run at the start of the year, I noticed it felt different. I was very much done with building it. Creating or birthing a masterclass is quite intensive - figuring out the structure can take a lot. But this time I could essentially rip it apart, knowing I had something that already worked. I could deconstruct and reconstruct it in a way that I felt could really benefit the participants.

If you had asked me to rework the slides in round one or two, I think I would have found that quite stressful - I was so busy birthing the thing. But now, being in the optimisation phase, I find it much more enjoyable. I really enjoy tweaking the slides and reshuffling things. The foundations are there, the content is there. I've done it enough times to know that one way or another it's going to be fine. I can be more playful with it.

Creating a talk from scratch is hard - taking all your raw ideas and figuring out how to communicate them. I find that really hard. Whereas preparing for this masterclass, I loved it. I was drawn to do it. I found myself getting into a flow and losing track of time. That made me realise how much I am now enjoying being in more of an optimisation phase.

I'm in my forties. I'm less interested in endless and constant build. I'm interested in where things are now working and established, and making them run well.

When boring is a good thing

Jenna Kutcher, who had the Gold Digger podcast, and Rose Radford, who was my business coach, both said something that stayed with me. They talked about how, when things are working well, they often need to become a little bit boring - not dull, not that you've lost interest, but boring in the sense that they're repeatable.

It's not always about chasing a new shiny object. When something works, the skill is staying with it, keeping doing it properly, and letting it grow and scale. In the current environment there's a lot around disruption and innovation - and it's easy to forget that there's often a lot of good stuff that is already working, already selling, already adding value, and making a difference. There's often a lot of gold to extract in the stuff that's already working. I've taken quite a deep lesson from that.

Applying this to the business

I've been having conversations with my online business manager and we are doing quite a lot of planning around the business now that I have my trademark name, Refreshing Leadership. And we are doing that in spring - not in January. January and February, with the clearing and the sorting and the preparation, that felt like the right time for that kind of work. Spring feels like the right time for these planning conversations.

When we look at all the different things we could be doing, we are both strict about not wanting to add new things. Instead we are looking at what already exists and asking: how do we get more out of this? How do we make this work harder? There are certain ways of working with clients that really work, and for me it's about enhancing those rather than adding loads of different things into the mix.

I'm enjoying optimising my strength training schedule. I'm enjoying optimising my food prep - there are things I now have on repeat that I can just put in the oven and know will give me a really good breakfast for four days. I'm quite enjoying this across lots of different areas of my life.

There's something about appreciating what's already under our nose - in relationships, in work, in life. Saying: this is the stuff that is already built, this is the stuff that's already here, how can I work with this rather than adding more?

Which phase are you in?

I would love to know - as you're hearing this, do you feel like you are more in a build phase, or more in an optimisation phase?

If you are going through a career transition, or if you have a health challenge or other family-related things going on, you may well be in some version of a build phase. And what I would say is that a build phase needs a lot more support around it. It needs time, space, and energy - both from yourself and from others. Don't expect that one hour spent in a build phase is the same as one hour in an optimisation phase. Build is hard. It needs protection, space, and rest and rejuvenation alongside it.

I'm really looking forward to sharing the rest of the April episodes with you. There is going to be some really useful content around how we can pair things back and get truly essentialised on the stuff that is going to move the needle. I look forward to connecting with you next time.

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About Maya

Maya Gudka is an executive coach specialising in C-suite career progression and leadership development. She works with senior leaders in major organisations on strategic career planning, executive presence, and building sustainable influence. Maya hosts The Refreshing Leadership Podcast, which ranks in the top 2% of podcasts globally and has nearly 300 episodes exploring the challenges faced by ambitious professionals.