It's common sense to know that when we drive a car significantly faster than the posted speed limit, we risk getting into an accident. When we do this, there is the potential to cause harm to people or property, and either outcome could result in death.
When explained in this context, we can say that speed can potentially kill.
While purposely not trying to equate dangerous driving habits with faster business practices, placing them on the same level, does the logic still apply?
Does executing (driving too fast) our business plans and related actions at a faster pace hurt or help our chances of being successful?
Can speed be an advantage, or is it detrimental to what we’re trying to accomplish?
Researchers and authors Joe Folkman and John Zenger attempted to find the answer to this question. They explain the relationship between speed and organizational effectiveness in their 2016 book, “Speed: How Leaders Accelerate Successful Execution.”
By polling hundreds of leaders across the globe, identifying leaders who viewed their companies as being faster at execution and others who viewed theirs as being slower at execution, they concluded that the “faster companies had an average of 40% higher sales growth and 52% higher operating profit.”
From their study results, speed of execution does matter and can make a tremendous difference in our operating results and potentially help the overall success of our companies.
Other insightful wisdom from the book and research includes:
leadership speed is defined as “reducing the time it takes to get to value.”
Faster leaders were rated substantially higher in overall leadership qualities.
Almost all the top 10% of leaders held both skillsets of “Doing Things Fast” (speed) and “Doing Things Right” (accuracy).
Higher-performing companies with strategic speed make alignment a priority while pausing at times to ensure they’re headed in the right direction.
Speed increases engagement, retention, and discretionary effort.
Leaders with a “high-speed rating” make greater contributions to their organization.
The top leaders of innovation need to do both of these things:
Push Harder: Set deadlines, get their people accountable, regularly follow up, and push people hard to deliver.
Pull Harder: Generate excitement, inspire and motivate, energize colleagues, and celebrate successes.
We all have speeds that we are comfortable working at; still, we must make certain that we maintain a pace that doesn’t hold back other team members and the key initiatives we’re pursuing as an organization.
We do this because “leadership speed is reducing the time to value by doing things fast and doing them right.”
It's common sense to know that when we drive a car significantly faster than the posted speed limit, we risk getting into an accident. When we do this, there is the potential to cause harm to people or property, and either outcome could result in death.
When explained in this context, we can say that speed can potentially kill.
While purposely not trying to equate dangerous driving habits with faster business practices, placing them on the same level, does the logic still apply?
Does executing (driving too fast) our business plans and related actions at a faster pace hurt or help our chances of being successful?
Can speed be an advantage, or is it detrimental to what we’re trying to accomplish?
Researchers and authors Joe Folkman and John Zenger attempted to find the answer to this question. They explain the relationship between speed and organizational effectiveness in their 2016 book, “Speed: How Leaders Accelerate Successful Execution.”
By polling hundreds of leaders across the globe, identifying leaders who viewed their companies as being faster at execution and others who viewed theirs as being slower at execution, they concluded that the “faster companies had an average of 40% higher sales growth and 52% higher operating profit.”
From their study results, speed of execution does matter and can make a tremendous difference in our operating results and potentially help the overall success of our companies.
Other insightful wisdom from the book and research includes:
Push Harder: Set deadlines, get their people accountable, regularly follow up, and push people hard to deliver.
Pull Harder: Generate excitement, inspire and motivate, energize colleagues, and celebrate successes.
We all have speeds that we are comfortable working at; still, we must make certain that we maintain a pace that doesn’t hold back other team members and the key initiatives we’re pursuing as an organization.
We do this because “leadership speed is reducing the time to value by doing things fast and doing them right.”