10 Reasons Why Your Team Cannot Move Fast

I just read Move Fast and Fix Things by Frances Frei and Anne Morris, which is full of good ideas on how to create change, and I was particularly drawn by a list of 10 beliefs that get in the way of moving fast, some of which may sound very familiar. I took the liberty of reordering and grouping them for this post.

Group 1: Speed is inherently bad

• Meaningful change happens slowly (actually, if we look at history, big changes lurch us forward)
• Going fast is reckless (in fact, safety often requires speed)
• Going slowly is righteous (actually, there is such as thing as being too late)
• Structure is the enemy of speed (nope, structure helps attain speed)

Group 2: We could make changes, but not now, or not until some (vague) milestone is reached

• We need more information (maybe, but we will never have 100% complete information)
• We need more time to prepare (more time does not include more preparedness)
• Our people are stretched too thin (likely, so we need to simplify the priorities)
• We can do it later (yes, but the status quo may be costly)
• People’s time is an abundant, low-cost resource (absolutely not, everyone’s time is valuable and should be optimized)
• We have to be great at everything we do (it’s a trade off: if you want to be fast on some things, others will need to wait)

Have you thought about what is preventing your team from moving forward? Are the objections valid? Share your experience in a comment.