Latest / Daily Influence / 675. The Hidden Tax of Speed — Why Fast Decisions Aren’t Free

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675. The Hidden Tax of Speed — Why Fast Decisions Aren’t Free · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IE Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
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• 0:39
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• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, Brian Smith here with the I'm team series and your daily influence and today I'm going to be talking about the hidden tax of speed.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Many of you have heard me talk about slowing down.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: in our three books in the iM team series.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to visit however what the tax is when we go too fast and how we pay for going too fast later because quite frankly we live in a culture that celebrates speed.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: fast growth, fast decisions, fast pivots, fast scaling scaling is literally going fast and in business speed often looks like strength, but here is what responsible and positive leadership eventually learns.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Speed and readiness are not the same thing, and fast decisions are rarely free.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: they come with often times a very high price.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that bill comes later.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So in today's episode, I want to talk about that hidden tax and what organizations are sometimes quietly, but often times loudly pay him for months or even years later after the celebration of what moving quickly had done for them.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So look, let's discuss and talk about the difference between speed and readiness, because speed is movement,
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But readiness is our capacity and we oftentimes don't think about do we have enough of whatever it is we need is this the right time and an organization can move quickly without being structurally prepared without being ready for that movement.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: When readiness is missing, it might look like roles being unclear systems that are immature or not tested in complete data, or the data that might even be faulty because we got it too quickly.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And communication is usually more reactive than proactive.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so leaders will compensate in these environments with urgency and that urgency spreads through the entire organization
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: reactivity is not a strategy.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: In smart terms, this is really the difference between a decision that is reactive to pressure versus a decision that fits within our strategic planning, fits within our policies and procedures and supports us.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: in a way that feels responsible, feels comfortable, literally feels right, mature leadership and responsible leadership will often ask, do we have the structure to sustain the decisions we're about to make or are we borrowing stability from the future and are we taking away from our foundation, are we putting cracks into our foundation, and eventually we'll catch up with
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Speed also creates this need oftentimes to have shortcuts, but they always come back and address it later.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: They always come back and rear their ugly head later.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, they don't disappear.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: They just relocate.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: They show up at the most inopportune times.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what they do is feed more reactive leadership decisions.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: High turnover and our talent, high turnover and our customers or our partners and vendors.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of mistrust, not only within our teams, but from our customers and our vendors, and we're so involved financial inefficiency.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: A rushed hire becomes a performance problem.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: A rushed rollout becomes operational noise.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: A rushed agreement becomes a legal problem or even legal complexity or operational complexity.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what's interesting is this months later, people forget the urgency, but they live.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: with the consequences.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: In the hidden tax of speed is never paid immediately.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It always compounds and is always paid later and it's not always paid at once.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it is lingering and that feeds bigger cracks, more cracks, more chaos, more turnover, more of the negative consequences
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that compound often feels like financial debt.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Every time we choose speed over clarity, we are writing a check, the organization will eventually have to cash later.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: The last thing I want to talk about is,
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: urgency driven cultures exhaust trust they exhaust our teams urgency can feel exciting at times because it feels like there's a lot happening it can feel like what is happening is going in the right direction and it feels like wow we're making such good decisions we're moving so fast
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It creates adrenaline.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It creates movement.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It creates intensity.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: But when urgency becomes the culture trust begins to erode.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And why this happens is because people stop believing that decisions are thoughtful as they see the consequences.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: that leaders are stable as they see the reactivity, that direction will hold as they see the drift, the lack of stain in our lanes, the off-ramps that we have to take, the digression that happens, and that their effort won't be undone the next time around that it's going to compound.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: An urgency driven culture says a quiet message, we don't plan, we react.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: that exhaust teams and exhaust individuals and exhaust teams do not innovate.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: They protect themselves.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: The real cost of speed is not operational, it's relational, and once trust is depleted, speed becomes even harder to sustain.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look, speed is not necessarily the enemy.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, in the right moment, speed is leadership.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: But speed without readiness is expensive.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Speed without structure creates drift.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Speed without clarity, he runs trust.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And speed without maturity creates instability disguised as momentum.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mature influence asks better questions.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not how fast can we move, but what will this cost us six months from now?
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: because leadership is not about impressing the present.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about protecting the future and remember, fast decisions are rarely free, the bill just comes later.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining me today on Daily Influence.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope that this message today reinforces why slowing down is so important and being smart during those slow-down periods is so important.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you'll join us next time on Daily Influence.