May 8, 2023 5:06 am Published by

As a result of the EOS Conference ™, Justin Maust recommended the article “Speed as a Habit” by Dave Girouard in his dynamic breakout talk, so I read it. I highly encourage you to do so as well, it’s a worthy read.  

His underlying belief is that speed is the ultimate weapon in business. He begins with “All else being equal, the fastest company in any market will win.” He also states that speed can become a habit. Then he proceeds to share the formula for building speed as a habit with your team in your business. 

My key takeaways: 

  1. Decide. Perfect is the enemy of done. Focus less on making the “right” decision, remaking decisions, and kicking the can to another meeting. Decide on when a decision will be made at the start, who needs to be involved, how much time and energy the decision is worth, and then proceed. **By the way, we have a great e-book on this, download here. “Fast decisions are far better than slow ones and radically better than no decisions.” 

  1.  Is the decision irreversible? Very few can’t be undone. Ask those involved to weigh in, then see #1. If the team can’t decide, the leader does. Use the question “Why not? Why can’t we do it faster than this?” (Larry Page) to see if there’s team discomfort with the pace. 

  1. Challenge the when. “Why can’t this be done sooner?”, asked consistently can profoundly change the pace in your organization. Always anchor action items in time, and begin. 

  1. Urgency is key. Focus on the urgent and important things; other non-imperative things must wait. Ensure people aren’t waiting on one another – work in parallel as often as possible or shorten the timeline if daisy chained. Ask “can we do this now? Or what can we do right now,” then get into action. 

  1. You’ll set the pace or react to it. Make decision making simple. How can we help others get what they want while we get what we want? 

  1. Make others look good. “Questions are your best weapon against inertia.” Ask time related questions like, “are we working as smartly as we can?” 

It brings me back to our two blogs on effective vs. Efficient (read Part 1 and Part 2). This is the formula for effectiveness. Efficiency follows. 

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