All leaders prefer to work fast and prefer their teams to work fast, too.
However, the idea that working fast and shipping something sloppy, unproofed, unedited is a bit hypocritical.
I’d like to amend the work ethic statement to “work fast, then focus.”
Speaking from a real recent experience, I lost a recent opportunity because I worked fast and didn’t focus at the end. Two spelling errors cost me the opportunity.
A few tips to overcome the temptation to simply ship after working fast:
- Set an earlier deadline for yourself so you have breathing room to review the work before it’s actual deadline
- Ask a friend to review your work at a specific date and time prior to needing to ship it
- Fake present it / read it aloud / email it to yourself as if you were the boss of the project
Lastly, because you’ve likely subscribed to the notion of “move fast and break things” … the nuance to that is actually the missing part. “fix them and then ship it.”
Faster is better than slower. But complete is better than missing a piece.
Stay Positive & Speed -> Focus
p.s. this riff reminded me of a story about a marathon runner that was about to break the record for the fastest run marathon. At the final nine feet, he slipped and fell on the ground. He still beat the record, thankfully, but I bet he’ll focus at the end from here on out. Of course, we don’t need that experience to be a trigger for us. We can just learn from it and not make the risk. (Also a good read here from Daniel Pink.)
- What’s The Human Element? - January 4, 2025
- The Truth About Working Fast - January 3, 2025
- At The Ready - January 2, 2025
