Speed Shaming

If a colleague or client said to you “Let’s get it done quickly”, what would you take from that??

Too often we associate getting something done “quickly” with rushing. Asking someone to do something “quickly” can be seen as a green light to cut corners, permission to deliver an end result that isn’t as quite good as it could, or should, have been, had it taken longer.?

But glamourising the slow, perfectionist approach means we’ve started to undervalue speed and just how important it is for businesses.?

I like to get things done quickly. Really quickly. Speed is something I’ve always valued and practised, but over time I’ve gradually accepted that not everyone feels the same way.?

But I’ve had enough of the speed shaming. Here’s why I’m on a mission to break the association between slowness and quality and help businesses pick up the pace.?

Small things, big opportunity cost?

There’s a big opportunity cost to perfectionism. When we don’t value speed, we don’t value our own time.?

The result is that small tasks grow, taking longer than they should. A blog post that could have only taken an hour soon expands to two; playing with the design of a powerpoint slide quickly eats half an hour.?

What seems like a dab of prideful perfectionism on the small things means days quickly fly by. We’ve spent hours on small things that don’t deliver a big return.?

It makes “finding time” even harder. Deciding a task needs four hours instead of two means suddenly it’s next week or the week after before there’s time in your diary. By the time you get round to it, weeks have flown by.?

Competitors that have worked quicker and prioritised the right things will have reached your customers first, filed that patent, closed that deal.?

Ignore the tortoise glorification: slow risks being left behind.?

“It will be faster to do it myself” syndrome

There’s a trojan horse when it comes to speed: what seems like a time saving can actually perpetuate long-term inefficiencies.?

Managers are the worst culprits for this, often suffering from what I call “It’ll be faster to do it myself” syndrome. If I do something really quickly but still have to do it myself the next week, it isn’t a time saving. That’s short-term thinking.?

If, instead of spending half an hour on that task, I invest an hour to write up a standard operating procedure that allows me to delegate that task and frees up 30 minutes a week every single week going forward, that is a true time and efficiency saving.?

Working quickly isn’t just about the short term: it’s about valuing and embedding efficiency.?

Quick is competent

My biggest bugbear with Team Tortoise is the idea that something that’s been done quickly isn’t as good.?

The reverse is true. It’s the things we’re best at that we can do quickly — the things that come easily to us. Being able to do something quickly is a sign of ability and expertise, often honed over many years.?

If you’re doing a task slowly because you’ve not got much experience in that area, this post isn’t permission to rush it and turn in something subpar all in the name of speed. Speed doesn’t mean rushing.?

If you don’t know how to do something well — that’s well, not perfectly — go away and learn before you start. Get quick at learning, then apply your newly honed skills to get things done — quickly and well.??

Imperfect is valuable?

Another negative result of glorifying perfectionism is that we overlook the value of “good enough”.?

Look at the agile or scrum methodologies behind any high-performing team, and you’ll find principles around failing fast and embracing the minimum viable product.

It’s an approach that’s widely used and valued in the tech industry, but it can also be applied to marketing and business growth.?

Imperfect marketing is still doing marketing. If the aim is to grow awareness, doing something soon will always be better than a period of doing nothing whilst you hone the perfect campaign.?

Doing something that’s “good” and “most of the way there” is still doing it. In fact, the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be gathering insight into what works and what doesn't, enabling you to get better quicker.?

We’ve been speed shaming for too long. It’s not about rushing, it’s about discipline. It’s not about cutting corners, it’s about efficiency.?

Aiming for perfection is a sure fire way to do less, to miss out, and to feel bad about what you’re delivering.?

When we’re clear on what matters and stop indulging the little things, we get more done, we learn quicker, and we free up time to focus on the things that add value and deliver growth.

So, enough speed shaming: let’s get it done quickly.

Discover why speed matters and how it can drive growth and success. Embrace the power of quick and efficient execution. Join us in revolutionising the way we approach speed in business. Let's get it done quickly and effectively!

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