change is a process

Change is a process matching the speed that employees navigate the change process to the speed of the business change... 

Effective change progresses along the two axes (phases of business change and phases of employee change) at the same time. We must manage the implementation of the technical solution and the people side of the change concurrently. If we fail to manage these two components together, then we can experience the failure points shown above.

Jeffrey M. Hiatt & Timothy J. Creasey

Change Management: The People Side of Change, by Jeffrey M. Hiatt & Timothy J. Creasey Prosci Inc. 2012. P.37-39

volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous

Since the end of the Cold War, the military has used the acronym VUCA to describe our global environment: one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. In response to this new normal, the military has developed several approaches we can apply to make it easier to do what matters on our own everyday battlegrounds.

One is captured in the military mantra "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast" - meaning, when you go slow, things are smoother, and when things are smooth, you can move faster. This is particularly true in conflicts where the ability to move in a coordinated fashion while staying alert to possible threats from every direction - and often while carrying weapons - is key. If you stop or move too slowly, you become an easy target. "but if you move too fast, you get surrounded and outflanked," as consultant Joe Indvik writes.

Indvik continues, "If you look closely at how elite infantry move, it looks like this: somewhere between a walk and a run, underscored by quick but careful footfalls, with weapons raised while rhythmically scanning the battlefield in all directions."

Less experienced infantry, he says, "will often zealously sprint into battle and give the impression of momentum." The problem with this approach is that as soon as they are in danger they will have to sprint to take cover at the first chance they get, and may end up in a place they haven't had time to survey or assess.... "Like the proverbial hare, this cycle of sprint-and-recover may seem fast in the moment, but long-term progress through the environment is slow and plagued by unidentified threats."

When you go slow, things are smoother. You have time to observe, to plan, to coordinate efforts. But go too slow and you may get stuck or lose your momentum. This is just as true in life and work as it is on the battlefield. To make progress despite the complexity and uncertainty we encounter on a daily basis, we need to choose the right range and keep within it.

Greg McKeown

Effortless: Make it Easier to do what Matters Most. By Greg McKeown. Random House. 2021. p. 139, 140. See also "Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast: What SEAL and Delta Force operators can teach us about management" by Joe Indvik.

fewer things done better

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner sees "fewer things done better" as the most powerful mechanism for leadership. When he took the reins of the company he could easily have adopted the standard operating procedure of most Silicon Valley start-ups and tried to pursue everything. Instead, he said no to really good opportunities in order to pursue only the very best ones. He uses the acronym FCS (a.k.a. FOCUS) to teach his philosophy to his employees. The letters stand for "Fewer things done better," "Communicating the right information to the right people at the right time," and "Speed and quality of decision making." Indeed, this is what it means to lead essentially.

Greg McKeown

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. Crown/Archetype. 2020. p.239.

changing fast enough

Financial Times: A frequent argument is that Germans are not capable of reforming themselves.

Angela Merkel: I would say this is utter nonsense. The people in East Germany have lived through so many changes in the last 15 years like never before in the country, and they did this often with great enthusiasm. But in the West we also have a high degree of transformations. Everyone who is able to work today does so under very different conditions. The willingness to learn new skills is very high. If you ask people what they are prepared to do in order to adapt to globalisation they say “I am willing to learn new skills”. Parents today do no longer expect there children to come and work in the family business but they urge them to go for new careers.

It is nonsense to say that Germans are unable to change. The reason why we do not have the Transrapid high speed train in Germany is not because Germans would not accept new railways to be build. It has to do with the political environment and the very slow decision making process. In this respect politicians can change a lot to deliver changes much faster to the people. The question is not whether we are able to change but whether we are changing fast enough. There is still some convincing to be done. That is what we want to do in the campaign.

Transcript of Angela Merkel interview. Bertrand Benoit and Andrew Gowers. Financial Times.  JULY 20 2005. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World.

ask fundamentally different questions

The most powerful use of digital tools is not to cut costs, create efficiencies, or even move faster and with greater agility, but to ask fundamentally different questions. It is through exploring these new possibilities that we can solve complex problems and make more meaningful impacts for customers, employees, and the communities we serve.

Effective Digital Transformation Depends on a Shared Language, by David C. Hay, Thomas C. Redman, C. Lwanga Yonke, and John A. Zachman. Harvard Business Review. December 14, 2021

slow is smooth and smooth is fast

SEALs train with the philosophy slow is smooth and smooth is fast. That’s how movements and behaviors become muscle memory – something imperative in high-speed combat situations. When we are on an enemy target, we move smoothly and dynamically assessing risk and using speed and violence of action only when necessary.

Organizational change fails when companies move too quickly...  skipping fundamental elements such as aligned vision and culture. They run to their death and the change process eventually stalls.

Brent Gleeson

"9 Navy SEAL Sayings That Will Improve Your Organization's Ability To Lead Change," Forbes. July 23, 2018

transformational change

The first thing to understand about transformational change is that the external environment -- technology, regulation, competition, the economy -- is forcing change upon your organization. Your organization is a sub-system of a larger system, and it must align its systems to the external world. Sometimes that external environment demands rapid change that may be uncomfortable for everyone.

Lawrence M. Miller

Transformational Change vs. Continuous Improvement, Industry Week. May 14, 2013

trust is the coin of the realm

Trust is the coin of the realm for creating the harmony, speed, and teamwork to achieve success at the lowest cost… Yet it’s not enough to trust your people; you must be able to convey that trust in a manner that subordinates can sense. Only then can you fully garner the benefits… I had to build awareness and trust above me. This takes significant personal effort, and the information age has not made this easier or removed the need for face-to-face interaction.

I found staff visits and daily or weekly visits – reducing reports and getting out more to see units on their turf – essential to building trust. And “hand-con,” maintaining relationships, takes time to build, and can be lost in a second – and you may not get a chance to get it back. High morale is reflected by the absence of self-pity. Resourceful leaders do not lose touch with their troops. A leader’s job is to inculcate high-spirited, amiable self-discipline. Leaders must always generate options by surrounding themselves with bright subordinates and being catalysts for new ideas. 

Jim Mattis

MATTIS, J. (2019). CALL SIGN CHAOS: Learning to lead. S.l.: RANDOM HOUSE. 240

when we’re personally involved

Daniel Kahneman performed an experiment involving a lottery run with a twist. Half the participants were randomly assigned a numbered lottery ticket. The remaining half were given a blank ticket and a pen and asked to choose their own lottery number. Just before drawing the winning number, the researchers offered to buy back all the tickets. They wanted to find out how much they would have to pay people who wrote their own number compared with people who were handed a random number. 

The rational expectation would be that there should be no difference. After all, a lottery is pure chance. Every number, whether chosen or assigned, should have the same value. An even more savvy answer would be that you should have to pay the people  who write their own number ever so slightly less, because of the possibility that there will now be duplicate numbers that, if chosen, would mean the size of the price would be cut in half. 

Neither of these turned out to be the right answer. Regardless of nationality or demographic group, people who wrote their own number always demanded at least five times more for their ticket. This reveals an important truth about human nature. When we’re personally involved in “authoring” an outcome, we are far more committed to it because we feel we own it. The underlying psychology relates to our need for control, which is a deep-rooted survival instinct.

…The lesson for change leaders? If you want to increase the motivation for (and therefore, speed of) the implementation of change, it pays to involve others in creating the aspiration, even when the answer may already be clear in the mind of the leader…. Change programs whose aspirations phase is characterized by an organization-wide, collaborative effort are 1.6 times more likely to succeed. 

Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger

Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2019

the balance between giving and taking

Gauge the balance between giving and taking. Givers offer assistance, share knowledge, and focus on introducing and helping others. Takers attempt to get other people to do something that will ultimately benefit them, while they act as gatekeepers of their own knowledge.

[Adam] Grant’s conclusion is clear: a willingness to help others is not just the essence of effective cooperation and innovation — it is also the key to accelerating your own performance.

Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg

"Help Your Team Do More Without Burning Out" Harvard Business Review. Oct. 15, 2018

be energizing, not energetic

Here is the paradox: You can actually speed things up by slowing down. There is no doubt that being energetic is contagious and therefore a short-term source of momentum. But if you lead by example all the time, your batteries will eventually run dry. You risk being drained at the vey point when your leadership is needed the most. Conveying a sense of urgency is useful, but an excess of urgency suffocates team development and reflection at the very point it is needed. “Code red” should be left for real emergencies... with [a] co-drive mindset, [we need] to widen [our] sights and recognize and reward people who are good at energizing others. Energizing behavior is unselfish, generous, and praises, not just progress, but personality too.

If you lead by beating the drum, setting tight deadlines, and burning the midnight oil, your team becomes overly dependent on your presence. Sustainable speed is achievable only if the team propels itself without your presence. Jim Collins wrote that great leaders don’t waste time telling time, they build clocks.

Self-propulsion comes from letting go of control, resisting the urge to make detailed corrections and allowing for informal leadership to flourish. As Ron Heifetz advocates, true leadership is realizing that you need to “give the work back” instead of being the hero who sweeps in and solves everybody’s problems.

Resist the urge to take the driver’s seat and allow [yourself] to take the passenger seat instead. Leading from the side-line, not the front line will change [perspectives]. Instead of looking at the road and navigating traffic... monitor how the driver is actually doing and what needs to improve. In [your] mind...fire [yourself] — momentarily — and see what happens to [the] team when [they are set] free, [taking] charge instead of looking to [leaders] for answers, deadlines and decisions.

Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg

"Help Your Team Do More Without Burning Out" Harvard Business Review. Oct. 15, 2018

eyes on, hands off

There is clearly risk associated with empowering your team to make more and faster decisions at a lower-level than was previously the norm. As you take your hands off the wheel, you need to be more vigilant and aware than ever about the decisions your team is making. Provide your team with guidance on the decisions that you want to maintain, and then expect them to handle the rest by leveraging their increased connectivity internal and external to their team. Encourage an environment of transparency where the expectation is for people to be self-aware of when they need help, and are comfortable asking for it. Use every challenge your team faces as an opportunity for organizational learning, and you will quickly build trust in this new way of working.

Chris Fussell

"Eyes On, Hands Off: How to empower your team and get out of their way" Medium. March 15, 2017.

de-centralized empowerment

Oftentimes leaders believe they want to create a flexible and high-performing team, however balk at the realities of doing so. You are, quite literally, trying to work your way out of your job by creating a team that doesn’t need you in the way that you are used to. This is an uncomfortable journey, and before you embark on it be sure you are ready for the outcome. It helps to be clear on your objectives for this shift. Most leaders will want their team to be moving faster, making better decisions, and doing so more independently. But why? Is it to give you bandwidth to focus on more strategic aims? To enable them to better serve clients and customers? To help them grow and be prepared for the next step in their careers (enabling you to take the next step on yours)? Your reasons may be a combination of the above, but keep in mind that you are starting a journey to unleash your team’s capability to accomplish this objective. It’ll be hard, but it’s time to get out of their way.

Chris Fussell

"Eyes On, Hands Off: How to empower your team and get out of their way" Medium. March 15, 2017.

don't throw me out of the boat!

When I think of crisis I think of the story of Louie Zamperini as told by Laura Hillenbrand in her book, Unbroken. While on a rescue mission, Louie’s B-24 crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The three survivors (Zamperini and his crewmates, pilot Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips and Francis "Mac" McNamara) end up in a life raft with minimal food, trying to make landfall. One night, in an act of panic, Mac ate all of the chocolate bars (approximately 6) as the other men slept. Mac’s actions put the other two at significant risk. Louie and Phil were discouraged by Mac’s actions, but they didn’t throw him overboard.

Later, the three men are spotted by an enemy fighter pilot, who strafes the small raft – puncturing the boat. Hillenbrand writes:

Phil’s raft had been slashed in two…. [T]he ruined raft… didn’t sink, but it was obviously far beyond repair…. Each time one of the men moved, air sighed out of the chambers and the… raft sat lower and lower in the water. The sharks whipped around it, surely excited by the bullets, and the sight and smell of men in the water, and the sinking raft,

As the men sat together, exhausted and in shock, a shark lunged up over a wall of the raft, mouth open, trying to drag a man into the ocean. Someone grabbed an oar and hit the shark, and it slid off. Then another shark jumped on, and, after it, another…. As they turned and swung and the sharks flopped up, air was forced out of the bullet holes, and the raft sank deeper. Soon, part of the raft was completely submerged.

If the men didn’t get air into the raft immediately, the sharks would take them…. The men hooked [a pump] up to one of the two valves and took turns pumping as hard as they could. Air flowed into the chamber and seeped out through the bullet holes, but the men found that if they pumped very quickly, just enough air passed through the raft to lift it up in the water and keep it mostly inflated. The sharks kept coming, and the men kept beating them away….

Louie began patching… As Louie worked, keeping his eyes on the patches, the sharks kept snapping at him…. Hour after hour, the men worked, rotating the duties, clumsy with fatigue. The pumping was an enormous exertion for the diminished men…. All three men were indispensable. Had there been only two, they couldn’t have pumped, patched, and repelled the sharks. For the first time on the raft, Mac was truly helpful. He was barely strong enough to pull the pump handle a few times in a row, but with the oar he kept every shark away.

I think of those three men, struggling to survive in the boat. Surely, if Louie and Phil had thrown Mac overboard for eating all of their food, they wouldn’t have survived the sinking raft and attacking sharks. Mac had the opportunity to act during this crisis, and his heroic efforts saved the lives of the men. Mac was necessary to avert disaster.

While we’re in crisis situations, stress levels rise and it’s easy to find fault with one another. Encouragement is more important than criticism when the team is truly up against it. Are you inspiring the troops, or busy trying to throw them overboard when the going gets tough?

Adam Dibble

"Don't throw me out of the boat!" leadershipYES 2/24/2016

and make sure to read:

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Random House. 2010.

your brand: the people who report to you

Reflecting on his time as CEO, Hurt emphasizes that there is no better way to enforce culture and values than by the way you hire. “You’ll be most defined as the CEO by the people [who] report to you. That’s going to be your brand.” Moving quickly at startup speed brings out the true integrity of your hires — both the good and the awful. 100 mph work speed is where your top players step up, the people Hurt describes as “born to change the world.”

The individuals you choose to bring onto the team speak volumes. With each new hire, the CEO reinforces the values of the company, highlighting the traits perceived as most valuable for the organization. The same concept is applicable to firing. Hurt clarifies, “If you fire brilliant jerks, it says to everybody, ‘that’s not going to be condoned.’ If you hire people that have real passion, love your calling, it’s going to feed on itself.” The CEO sets the tone.

Drake Baer (presentation by Bazaarvoice CEO Brett Hurt)

"You Aren’t Born Knowing How to Be a CEO" First Round Review. 7/2/2013

Why can't this be done sooner?

I’m always shocked by how many plans and action items come out of meetings without being assigned due dates. Even when dates are assigned, they’re often based on half-baked intuition about how long the task should take. Completion dates and times follow a tribal notion of the sun setting and rising, and too often “tomorrow” is the default answer.

It’s not that everything needs to be done NOW, but for items on your critical path, it’s always useful to challenge the due date. All it takes is asking the simplest question: “Why can't this be done sooner?” Asking it methodically, reliably and habitually can have a profound impact on the speed of your organization.

Dave Girouard

"Speed as a Habit." First Round Review. 7/21/2015

better than a perfect plan

General George S. Patton

When you think about it, all business activity really comes down to two simple things: Making decisions and executing on decisions. Your success depends on your ability to develop speed as a habit in both....

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.

General George Patton said that, and I definitely subscribe to it. Do you remember the last time you were in a meeting and someone said, “We’re going to make this decision before we leave the room”? How great did that feel? Didn’t you just want to hug that person?

The process of making and remaking decisions wastes an insane amount of time at companies. The key takeaway: WHEN a decision is made is much more important than WHAT decision is made.

If, by way of habit, you consistently begin every decision-making process by considering how much time and effort that decision is worth, who needs to have input, and when you’ll have an answer, you'll have developed the first important muscle for speed.

This isn’t to say all decisions should be made quickly. Some decisions are more complicated or critical than others. It might behoove you to wait for more information. Some decisions can’t be easily reversed or would be too damaging if you choose poorly. Most importantly, some decisions don’t need to be made immediately to maintain downstream velocity.

Deciding on when a decision will be made from the start is a profound, powerful change that will speed everything up. In my many years at Google, I saw Eric Schmidt use this approach to decision-making on a regular basis — probably without even thinking about it. Because founders Larry and Sergey were (and are) very strong-minded leaders involved in every major decision, Eric knew he couldn’t make huge unilateral choices. This could have stalled a lot of things, but Eric made sure that decisions were made on a specific timeframe — a realistic one — but a firm one. He made this a habit for himself and it made a world of difference for Google.


Dave Girouard
"Speed as a Habit." First Round Review. 7/21/2015

let the sparks fly

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for anyone trying to accomplish something is perfectionism—the need to get it exactly right before taking the next step. But the best leaders realize that perfection is impossible, and pursuing perfection often stands in the way of what's most important: progress. Leadership requires making consistent strides, no matter how big. And the quicker the stride, the greater the progress.

Don’t buy into the notion that you can take a giant leap if you spend enough time carefully mapping it out. By the time you get done planning, others will have lapped you twice and already taken that leap you spent months mulling over. Opt instead to "just go" and let the sparks fly. You will make mistakes. But in the process, you'll learn quickly and keep moving—refining your skills and igniting new levels of creativity you didn’t know you had.

Erik Wahl

"5 Traits of Creative Leaders (and how to become one)." Fast Company. 8/17/2015