The Religion of Speed

29 May, 2026

At immoderate point, “moving fast” stopped being a applicable interest and became a civilized position. You spot it damn adjacent everywhere now.

How fast tin we vessel this? How fast tin we respond? How fast tin we hire? How fast tin we scale? How fast tin we pivot? How fast tin we get something, anything, successful beforehand of group truthful we tin opportunity we’re making progress?

It’s treated for illustration impervious of seriousness. If you’re moving fast, you’re ambitious. If you’re cautious, you’re scared. If you inquire to slow down and think, you’re blocking momentum. If you constituent retired that the existent scheme has each the structural integrity of bedewed cardboard, you’re being negative.

This is really a batch of bad activity gets protected.

Not because it’s good, useful, aliases moreover halfway thought through, but because it’s fast. Speed has go a benignant of organization narcotic.

It gives group the emotion of mobility without requiring the subject of judgment.

“Do not confuse mobility and progress. A rocking equine keeps moving but does not make immoderate progress.”

Everyone gets to consciousness busy. Everyone gets to consciousness urgent. Everyone gets to constituent astatine the fume coming disconnected the instrumentality and say, “See? We’re doing something.” The problem is that a batch of what gets called velocity is conscionable impatience pinch a different name.

Real velocity exists. Real velocity is what happens erstwhile the activity is understood, the constraints are clear, the group progressive cognize what they’re doing, and the decisions person been made cleanly capable that execution tin hap without changeless re-litigation.

That benignant of velocity is rare. Most velocity is vague requirements, half-decisions, unexamined dependencies, missing context, and a room afloat of group softly hoping the adjacent personification successful the concatenation figures retired what was ne'er really decided. Then, erstwhile the point breaks, everyone acts surprised.

Of people it broke. It was built nether the assumption that reasoning was the costly part.

This shows up perpetually successful the package industry, but package is often conscionable the spot wherever the wreckage becomes visible to astir people.

The aforesaid point happens successful operations, management, hiring, logistics, customer service, merchandise development, and damn adjacent everything other wherever group correction activity for progress.

People unreserved done the portion wherever knowing is expected to happen, past walk 10 times longer cleaning up the consequences. The original rushed activity gets recorded arsenic “fast.” The cleanup gets recorded arsenic “unexpected.” The rework gets recorded arsenic “iteration.” The disorder gets recorded arsenic “alignment.” The preventable nonaccomplishment gets recorded arsenic “learning.”

This is really organizations extremity up pinch systems cipher trusts, processes cipher understands, meetings cipher wants, dashboards cipher believes, and workarounds that go load-bearing pieces of the business.

Nobody group retired to build that. They conscionable kept choosing velocity complete comprehension, 1 mini determination astatine a time, until the full spot became a bid of monuments to things resembling productivity but having nary existent productive worth. Then immoderate mediocre bastard gets hired to “modernize” it, which usually intends replacing the visible messiness while leaving the original belief intact.

The funny portion is that slowing down usually does not mean moving slowly. That’s the portion group miss.

Slowing down intends refusing to skip the portion wherever the activity becomes legible. What are we really trying to produce? Who depends connected it? What breaks if this presumption is wrong? What do we already know? What are we pretending not to know? Where has this grounded before? What has to beryllium existent for this to work?

Boring, load-bearing questions that support our activity from turning into Waco. But those questions consciousness slow because they region the small dopamine deed group get from motion.

You can’t posture your measurement done them. You can’t hide wrong urgency. You can’t move the speech into a PowerPoint platform and telephone it progress.

You person to really understand the work, which is the portion a batch of group are trying to avoid.

Speed is charismatic because it lets group enactment somewhat abstract. It lets them support decisions fuzzy. It lets them debar work for specifications until those specifications go personification else’s emergency.

And erstwhile the emergency arrives, velocity becomes the reply again. Move faster. Fix faster. Hire faster. Replace faster. Ship faster. The aforesaid illness silently becomes the cure.

There is simply a quality betwixt urgency and haste. Urgency is due erstwhile thing matters and clip is real. Haste is what happens erstwhile group want the affectional alleviation of action without the load of clarity.

"Make haste slowly."

The older I get, the little impressed I americium by velocity arsenic a standalone virtue. I care whether the activity holds up. I care whether the personification doing it understands the style of the problem. I care whether the determination survives interaction pinch reality. I care whether we are creating less problems than we solve.

That doesn’t require theatrical slowness.

Nobody needs to beryllium astir penning their ain deployment infra for six months to beryllium they’re thoughtful. This isn’t an statement for dragging your feet aliases turning each determination into an excuse for yet-another-meeting. It’s an statement for respecting the activity capable to do it decently the first time.

Understand first, determine second, and only erstwhile you've done the due owed diligence, then you can/should move.

When those steps get reversed, the measure ever comes due. Sometimes the measure is simply a surgery system. Sometimes it’s a burned-out team. Sometimes it’s a customer who softly leaves. Sometimes it’s years of operational scar insubstantial that everyone useful astir because cipher has the patience to spell backmost and understand what really happened.

The Religion of Speed survives because it gives group a cleanable excuse. It lets them opportunity the world is changing excessively fast, the marketplace is excessively competitive, the customer is excessively demanding, the squad is excessively small, the fund is excessively tight, and the model is closing...blah blah blah.

Sometimes those things are true. Often, they are conscionable screen for the truth that cipher wants to do the slower, harder activity of making consciousness earlier moving.

The amended activity is usually calmer than group expect. It still moves. It still ships. It still makes decisions. But it does not confuse panic pinch seriousness. It does not dainty each region arsenic weakness. It does not believe mobility for its ain sake. It accepts the profoundly unfashionable thought that some things get faster only aft you extremity rushing them.

That is the portion the velocity cult ne'er seems to understand.

You tin move accelerated for a while by skipping thought, skipping clarity, skipping context, and skipping responsibility. But the activity remembers. The strategy remembers. The group stuck maintaining it remember.

Eventually, reality collects what it's due. And reality is very patient.