If everything is under control, you’re not as fast as you are supposed to be
The Title Belongs To Mario Andretti – He is a Formula 1 pilot
I always believed in the difference of being fast in the business life. Like making quick decisions and quickly executing them. If your are in control of the dynamics of being fast, you have an unbelievably strong weapon in your hands.
Those working in corporate businesses already know. A mutual vision is established. Then teams work on it. Initially everybody is highly motivated. Everybody is excited. After all, we are talking about a new vision. Then, after months pass, everybody is lost in meetings. Executives who want to make decisions request new analyses in every meeting. The process takes forever and forever...Everybody loses motivation and the vision fails. Or it is accomplished, but too late to have an effect.
What if the same process would be administered this way...What If decisions were made the day the vision was created and then after one or two weeks the remaining decisions were settled and executed. It is clear what kind of excitement and momentum is being created here, isn’t it? Succesful start-ups generally administer processes in this way. Please do not say this: Only the two founders make decisions in your example, but in large companies there are structures, shareholders, boards of directors etc. You are right, but if the leading person or team decides quickly, it does make an extraordinary difference. Steve Jobs is an example for this. Or Google.
I strongly believe in quickness. Those who send me mails will know. I generally reply very fast. Or those who know me from meetings will also know. I do have a great sympathy for quick decisions and executions. I honestly belive that being quick is a big advantage.
Of course, not every decision can be made quickly. Deciding upon building a thermal plant will of course require a longer time. You have to know more details. Yet, when the analysis is finished, even such a decision can be made in a quick fashion. In this case, a much more important factor than the difficulty of the work itself is at play. I always have this question in my mind while making decisions; “what will be the costs of coming back if this decision is wrong?”. At the basic level, your response to this question defines your speed. If you make a decision and the result arising from this decision is bad and you have nothing to loose, you can decide quickly. Yet, if the decision to be made is such one that would eradicate all of your capital or if serious results like a lawsuit by the state would await you, then it is not right to make this decision quickly. The interesting part is that at least 80% of your decisions won’t carry a bad risk for you. Thus, if your decision is wrong, you won’t have any other problems besides just stopping the process and going in another direction with a different decision. Nothing dries faster than tears.
But if you cannot decide...if you request more and more detailed analysis from your employees in every meeting (in other words, if you request additional work for not making a decision)...if weeks pass for a decision and countless meetings are held...Well, I can only say get well soon. The best competitors are of this kind. If you are working in such an environment, you have no other choice but to adopt the same state of mind. Thus, if you are in such an environment, I’d suggest you to reconsider.
Environments where quick decisions are made are very right places to improve yourself. Something called Momentum (or mobility, defined by engineers) is in existence. Momentum could be defined as the excitement of the current moment (my apologies to my engineer friends, I am not mentioning Newton’s second law). Let’s call it a circle in your environment that forms when you believe in some occurence or idea (we can call it the charisma of processes and occurences). In my opinion, creating momentum is a huge act of leadership. Your team follows the idea if momentum is created, like people follow charismatic politicians. The key for this is making quick decisions.
You might hesitate to make quick decisions. If you are indeed hesitant, try it for one week. You will see, even if most of your decisions are wrong, these will be reversible decisions. You also have to accelerate in a world that is accelerating day by day.
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“No matter how fast a lie is, the truth will catch up and overtake it” (let’s not forget this African proverb)
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Not: Bu yazı Ocak 2016'da ilk olarak Türkçe yayınlanmıştı