Companies in the Fast Lane: Creating a Speed Culture
Why do some teams and companies move faster than others…on seemingly everything?
For startups, speed might be one of your only advantage against larger incumbents. Companies with speed as a competitive advantage have unique opportunities to get into market with new products, campaigns and strategies. They have a higher probability for wins because speed also enables them to iterate their way to success.
Moving fast often starts with the decision, commitment and mindset to move fast. In this way, it’s cultural. If instilled, then everyone on the team will want to drive in the fast lane. Plus, everyone will develop the high metabolism to make this the norm.
At the Speed of Cotton Candy
This silly tweet of an epic cotton candy eating contest popped up in my Twitter feed yesterday morning that reminded me of this concept in general and a blog post that spoke to me.
This woman crushes the man. Not only that, I believe she knew she was going to win before the contest started. She decided how she was going to attack the problem with speed in mind, and executed on it ruthlessly.
Why Expectations Matter
Parkinson’s Law says that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. If this is true, the corollary is that compressing the time allowed (within reason) will force you to be extremely skimpy about what you spend your time on. Just setting the expectations allows the execution around them.
When the situation warrants a quick solution, think like MacGyver.
Speed as a Habit
The concept of speed as a habit comes from First Round Review with a profile of Dave Girouard, CEO of personal finance startup Upstart, and former President of Google Enterprise Apps.
Below are word-for-word excerpts that I highlighted from this article that I wanted to share.
Intro
- All else being equal, the fastest company in any market will win.
- Speed matters to the rest of the business too — not just product.
- Making decisions and executing on decisions. Your success depends on your ability to develop speed as a habit in both.
Making Decisions
- WHEN a decision is made is much more important than WHAT decision is made.
- We’re deeply driven by the belief that fast decisions are far better than slow ones and radically better than no decisions.
- [Exceptions:] Some decisions can’t be easily reversed or would be too damaging if you choose poorly.
- You don’t want consensus to hold you hostage — but input from others will help you get to the right decision faster, and with buy-in from the team.
Executing Decisions
- I’m always shocked by how many plans and action items come out of meetings without being assigned due dates.
- It’s always useful to challenge the due date. All it takes is asking the simplest question: “Why can’t this be done sooner?”
- Mission critical items should be absolutely gang tackled by your team in order to accelerate all downstream activities.
- A big part of this is making sure people aren’t waiting on one another to take next steps.
- Too many people believe that speed is the enemy of quality. There’s not always a stark tradeoff between something done fast and done well.
