Move Fast and Fix Things

1. Trust is the Foundation for Speed

Speed unleashes your organization’s energy and reveals where you’re going. Trust convinces your stakeholders to come along for the ride.

Speed and trust interplay. This book challenges the conventional wisdom that speed and care for people are mutually exclusive. Instead, it posits that the most effective leaders accelerate change while simultaneously building and maintaining trust with their stakeholders. Speed without trust can lead to reckless disruption, while trust without speed can result in stagnation.

Building trust is key. Trust acts as the cultural architecture upon which accelerated pace is built. When stakeholders trust the leadership and the organization's intentions, they are more willing to embrace change and support rapid execution. This requires investing as much time and energy into building trust as into building speed.

Organizational trust components. Organizational trust, like personal trust, relies on authenticity, empathy, and logic. Organizations that wobble on these dimensions risk losing the confidence of their stakeholders. By addressing these wobbles head-on, leaders can unlock their organization's full potential and achieve sustainable, accelerated growth.

2. Identify the Real Problem, Not Just the Symptoms

Monday’s ambition is to find the problem, a gritty little word we often dilute and defang in the American workplace, replacing it with more palatable substitutes like issue or opportunity.

Surface-level vs. root cause. Many organizations address symptoms rather than the underlying problems, leading to ineffective solutions and wasted effort. Identifying the real problem requires challenging assumptions, gathering diverse perspectives, and digging beneath the surface to uncover the root causes. This is the core mission of "Monday."

Building a problem-solving team. Assemble a team of individuals with diverse roles, perspectives, and strong empathy skills to explore what's holding the organization back. This team should be comfortable with discomfort and skilled at observing and honoring the experiences of others.

Data-driven diagnosis. Collect and analyze organizational data, including financial statements, customer feedback, employee surveys, and hot-spot information, to build a case for the problem. Supplement this data with conversations with stakeholders to gain a deeper understanding of the issue.

3. Solve for Trust by Addressing Authenticity, Empathy, and Logic

Just like personal trust, we’ve found that organizational trust relies on the presence of authenticity, empathy, and logic.

Trust as a three-legged stool. Organizational trust is built on three key pillars: authenticity (being true to your values and commitments), empathy (understanding and caring about your stakeholders' needs), and logic (having a sound strategy and the capabilities to execute it). A weakness in any of these areas can erode trust and hinder progress.

Identifying trust wobbles. Determine which of the three trust pillars is the weakest in your organization. Are stakeholders questioning your company's empathy, logic, or authenticity? Addressing this "trust wobble" is crucial for rebuilding confidence and accelerating change.

Experimentation and learning. Develop a "Good Enough Plan" to address the trust wobble, and then test and improve that plan through smart experiments. Embrace intelligent failure as a learning opportunity and be willing to adapt your approach based on the results.

4. Embrace Intelligent Failure as a Learning Tool

The point, again, is to learn.

Failure as a source of learning. A key element of moving fast and fixing things is to embrace intelligent failure as a valuable source of learning. Treat every action as an experiment and view setbacks as opportunities to gain insights and refine your approach.

Creating a "Fail Wall." Encourage employees to openly share their mistakes and lessons learned. This can help to normalize failure and create a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement. NerdWallet's "Fail Wall" is a great example.

Pilot projects and experimentation. Frame your change initiatives as pilot projects designed to test and learn. This reduces the pressure to be right and encourages a more iterative and adaptive approach. The goal is to find new "beeps" (feedback signals) that guide you toward a solution.

5. Inclusion Amplifies Innovation and Performance

Inclusion is the act of creating conditions for other people to thrive, not in spite of their differences as complex, multidimensional humans, but precisely because of those differences.

Diversity without inclusion is insufficient. Simply recruiting a diverse workforce is not enough. To unlock the full potential of diversity, organizations must create a culture of inclusion where everyone feels safe, welcome, celebrated, and championed for their unique contributions.

The Inclusion Dial. Use the Inclusion Dial to assess the level of inclusion in your organization. Are people feeling safe, welcome, celebrated, or championed? Identify areas where inclusion is lacking and develop strategies to move people up the dial.

Overcoming the common information effect. Inclusion helps to overcome the "common information effect," which limits the amount of information available for collective decision-making in diverse teams. By valuing everyone's unique perspectives, organizations can access a wider range of knowledge and make better decisions.

6. Tell a Compelling Change Story with Honesty and Optimism

Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.

Storytelling as a leadership tool. Effective change leaders are skilled storytellers who can communicate a clear and compelling vision for the future. A well-crafted change story can inspire action, build trust, and align stakeholders around a common goal.

Three key elements of a change story:

• Honor the past: Acknowledge the organization's history, both the good and the bad.
• Articulate the change mandate: Explain why change is necessary and what problem you're trying to solve.
• Provide a rigorous and optimistic way forward: Describe your plan for change and inspire confidence in its success.

Authenticity and transparency. Be honest about the challenges and opportunities ahead. Acknowledge past mistakes and demonstrate a commitment to learning from them. This builds trust and credibility with stakeholders.

7. Empower Others by Distributing Decision-Making

The fastest way to speed up your company is to empower more people to make more decisions.

Decentralized decision-making. A key barrier to speed is often a centralized decision-making structure where all decisions must flow through a single point. Empowering more people to make decisions can significantly accelerate the pace of change.

Mission Command. Adopt a "Mission Command" approach, where leaders focus on teaching subordinates how to make decisions on their own, rather than dictating every action. This requires clear communication of goals, values, and constraints.

Ritz-Carlton's empowerment policy. Emulate Ritz-Carlton's policy of giving every employee the power to spend up to $2,000 to solve a guest problem on their own. This demonstrates trust in employees and empowers them to take ownership of customer satisfaction.

8. Prioritize Ruthlessly to Maximize Speed

If you’re going to prioritize speed, then you’re going to have to deprioritize something else.

The impossible triangle. Recognize that you can't be great at everything. To prioritize speed, you must be willing to deprioritize other aspects of the business, such as cost or quality. This requires making strategic trade-offs and communicating them clearly to stakeholders.

Little's Law. Apply Little's Law to identify bottlenecks and reduce work in process (WIP). By focusing on fewer projects and tasks, you can significantly improve the speed and efficiency of your organization.

Southwest Airlines' strategy. Emulate Southwest Airlines' strategy of prioritizing low prices by sacrificing certain in-flight amenities. This allowed them to turn their planes around faster and offer more competitive fares.

9. Cultivate a Culture of Urgency and Action

There is such a thing as being too late.

Time as a precious resource. Instill a sense of urgency throughout the organization by emphasizing the importance of time as a precious and perishable resource. This requires creating a culture where people are empowered to take action and make decisions quickly.

Culture eats strategy. Recognize that culture is a powerful force that can either accelerate or hinder change. Build a culture that values speed, experimentation, and continuous improvement.

FedEx's "bleeding purple" culture. Emulate FedEx's "bleeding purple" culture, where employees are empowered to go above and beyond to meet customer needs. This requires a strong commitment to customer service and a willingness to break the rules when necessary.

10. Manage Conflict Skillfully to Maintain Momentum

Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.

Conflict avoidance as a speed bump. Unresolved conflict can drain energy, erode trust, and slow down progress. Develop a culture where conflict is addressed openly and constructively.

Conflict debt. Recognize the concept of "conflict debt" and take steps to reduce it by addressing undiscussed and unresolved issues. This requires creating a safe space for people to voice their concerns and disagree respectfully.

Creative abrasion. Embrace "creative abrasion," where different ideas and approaches are debated and challenged to generate innovative solutions. This requires a willingness to engage in healthy conflict and to value diverse perspectives.

Last updated: April 14, 2025