Nov 30, 2023 - Business
Axios Finish Line: The need for speed
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, nailed an Axios obsession in a blog post on being successful: "Focus is a force multiplier on work."
- "Once you have figured out what to do, be unstoppable about getting your small handful of priorities accomplished quickly," Altman wrote. "I have yet to meet a slow-moving person who is very successful."
Why it matters: This is the era of speed, indeed. Technology is changing every job, company and industry. The winners will narrow their focus to the tasks that truly matter — and activate.
You need to marry the two: Focus + speed = quick wins or quick corrections.
- Axios executives like to tease that I ask, "Where are we on that?" seconds after floating a new idea. Many Axios leaders get ribbed for our hyperactive "activator" genes. To me, these are badges of honor.
- You don't want to activate just for the sake of action — too many people confuse motion with movement. But once you settle on the two or three most important things to do, hit overdrive and execute.
Speed matters in huge ways:
- It sets the tempo. In this era, most people in most jobs in most industries are facing change at a velocity never before witnessed. You need a new gear to keep pace with it.
- It creates an action bias. It's so easy to deliberate things to death. You're better off attacking big things fast with a mix of data and intuition, then adjusting.
- It's contagious. You want others to notice this action bias so it spreads organization-wide. Lots of people aren't born activators — but everyone can learn to move and course-correct more quickly. You can move the needle on organizational speed if it's practiced and preached from the top.
- You'll fail faster. You want to know what works or doesn't work as fast as possible so you can calibrate. Rarely does something work flawlessly, regardless of how long you deliberate. You'll get to a good place faster by starting imperfectly and correcting quickly.
- You'll meet the AI moment. Everything is about to change faster than many want or feel capable of matching. All of us will need to grow more comfortable with an up-tempo, improvisational dimension to work and life.
- It saves time. Your task absolutely will fill however much time you mentally allot. Knock it out and move on — or dilly-dally and fret for hours or days.
The bottom line: Act like today is your last day on the job, and then you're off to the Bahamas. It clarifies priorities — and you'll get everything done.
- Go deeper with an earlier column, "Do more by doing less."
