Too fast, not safe: How to slow down to speed up

TL;DR: We are constantly battered by wave after wave of people telling us we need to move faster, ship faster and reach milestones faster. Yes, being “first to market” can be a great advantage. Sure, too many of us fall into the trap of overthinking and under-doing. But from what I’m seeing in the business world right now, the frenetic pace at which many business owners and organization leaders are trying to do ALL OF THE THINGS is hurting more than it’s helping. In this post, I share a few tips on how you can slow down without feeling like the work is all grinding to a halt. 

Since my son Simon was born, one of our family rituals has been a weekend walk around our neighborhood. Even if life tries to get in the way (as it tends to do), we rarely miss our weekly constitutional.

In a separate but related ritual, my wife Kristin and I complain about what we consider to be the reckless driving in Englewood and the Cherry Hills neighborhoods where we walk. Folks, I can promise you we’re not being busybodies. It’s like the Indy 500 out there. When Simon was younger, we talked about it frequently enough (including warning him out of the street repeatedly) that he started to yell “Too fast, not safe!” at the cars and urban tanks flying by.

As I was thinking about it this weekend, I realized I’ve been saying the same thing in my head as I watch so many leaders and businesses get swept up in the ubiquitous “speed is everything” falsehood. The reason this problem has become so pervasive is that there are easy counterarguments to slowing down:

“Speed wins. Look at the iPhone vs. Samsung.”

“You can’t experiment if you’re not shipping/doing stuff.”

“The world is moving faster than ever, so you have to move faster to keep up.”

I won’t go into specifics as to why each of these is a lot more assailable than people think. The reality is that they’re surface-level platitudes that don’t take into account any of the nuances that exist in EVERY organization. Yes, every. single. one. And these throwaway phrases are provocative enough and sound bold enough that far too many leaders are greedily eating them up without thinking more deeply about the implications.

And look, I do understand that, from the perspective of a founder or CEO, nothing will ever feel fast enough. These people have a ton of weight on their shoulders and a potentially large number of people relying on them, so of course they want the solution right now, the thing done and up on the site, the next feature shipped. Their fears of falling behind play perfectly into another of the platitudes du jour from the grifters: "Playing it safe is risky." 

Obviously, you're going to try as hard as you can not to get too comfortable and to let your competitors pass you by, but that's not the definition of safety. There's a big difference between being bold and jumping off a cliff without a parachute. I’ve seen time and again how, while throwing caution to the wind and just doing everything without thinking will feel like progress, it almost always forces organizations into backward steps.

The organizations that are separating themselves from the pack have figured out how to slow down in the areas that require the most thought, the most concrete decisions and the most conviction, without every area of their operations grinding to a halt.

Here are a few ways you can train yourself and the people in your organization to find and maintain this balance.

1.        Give Yourself Two Weeks to Create a Real Strategy

There are a million and one different frameworks out there to help you learn HOW to create a good strategy, so I’m not going to add another one to that ever-growing list. To keep this newsletter edition relatively brief, the point I’ll make here is that you need a strategy, and it needs to be simple enough that you’ll actually use it.

To avoid getting hung up on which definition to use or what to include, think about your strategy like the Scientific Method for your business. 

It’s a way for you to write down what you need/want to do (purpose/vision), your best guess(es) on what you’ll do to get there (key initiatives/plans), how you’ll measure your progress (goals/objectives), and some way to prioritize your work so you’re not trying to do everything all at once.

Observation > Research > Hypothesis > Testing/Experimentation > Analysis > Conclusions. It doesn’t need to be 50 pages long, but it does need to exist (don’t even get me started on this truly terrible advice) and it needs to be thought through enough to allow you to make decisions and stick to them.

 2.        Apply the “Root Cause” Lens to Every Problem

Getting to a place where you’re going a million miles an hour toward an unclear destination can be the result of good intentions. The ability to solve problems quickly is an important skill, but it’s also one of the excuses we use to avoid taking the time to do a real diagnosis.

Solving the newest surface-level problem to get to the next surface-level problem is a recipe for being busy and feeling productive, and then wondering why things aren’t getting better. Part of getting better at this is changing our mindset. The next time a problem comes across your plate, force yourself to take 5 minutes before your reply to your email and do your best to cut 2-3 levels back to the root cause of the problem. A hastily scrawled doodle can even help here, as sometimes a visual can show us what narrative cannot.

 Another tip on getting to root cause is to escalate an issue to a brief in-person meeting with the people involved. Yes, the last thing we need are more meetings, but these are actually worth the time, as something about being together and talking through the issue unearths the true problem in a way that email will always struggle to do.

3.        Make Sure the Engine is Running Before You Focus on Anything Else

 Lack of focus is the biggest driver of the “ship fast with no plan” mentality, and a lack of focus most often stems from a missing foundation. If you don’t have a strong understanding of the core of what makes your organization run, it’s impossible to know which projects are a distraction or outside of your primary areas of focus.

 In marketing, I think of these core activities as the engine. Every month, these are the tasks that need to happen before considering adding anything else. Otherwise, the organization’s plan will be increasingly at risk.

 When I find myself feeling distracted, the first thing I do is check on the engine. There is almost something to optimize there, and when I spend time in that area, I know the result will be something that will be meaningful to my business.

It’s my favorite re-prioritization tool, and also a way to avoid stepping back so far that the work stops completely. Slowing down is important, even critical, but if we’re being realistic, most organizations can’t simply shut everything down while they reset. Working on the engine helps you prioritize working on the right things.

As different as every organization is, this is an incredibly common issue. It’s easy to fall into the trap of just doing more stuff, and especially because the temptation always comes a place of trying to do the right thing.

Wanting to move as quickly as you can is a worthy goal. For it to make any impact, you need to know exactly what you’re accelerating toward. Too fast is usually not safe. Slowing down to speed up is just smart business.

Thank you for reading!

If you’re interested in talking through any specifics or have questions for me on applying any of this information to your work or organization, email me at dan@heliosmarketingllc.com or send me a message through my contact form.

And if you think this information can help someone you know, please subscribe and share!

Other ways to connect with me:

• Send me a connection request on LinkedIn

• Subscribe to my YouTube channel