When speed matters more than efficiency
Should I move fast and be messy, or do this properly?
Speed wins when the cost of being wrong is small and the cost of being late is large — a contested market, a closing window, an unproven assumption. Efficiency wins when the decision is expensive to reverse, or when you are compounding something that already works. The failure is not choosing one; it is applying the same setting to every decision.
Ask two questions before any significant decision. If it goes wrong, what does it cost to undo? And if we are three months late, what does that cost? Write both as a number or an hour count. The larger one sets the mode.
| Situation | Mode | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Untested assumption | Speed | The information is worth more than the polish |
| A window that closes | Speed | Late is the same as never |
| Anything touching money movement | Care | Errors compound and cost trust |
| Legal, ownership, equity | Care | Almost impossible to reverse cheaply |
| Scaling something that already works | Care | You are multiplying whatever is there, including the flaws |
Speed is not the absence of standards
Fast decisions still get written down: what was decided, on what basis, and what would make us reverse it. That single note is what lets a company move quickly twice, instead of quickly once and then confused forever.
Match the setting to the reversibility of the decision, not to your temperament.
Do this next
- List the three decisions in front of you and score each: cost to undo, cost of delay.30 minutes
- Assign each one speed or care, in writing.10 minutes
- For every speed decision, write the reversal trigger in one line.15 minutes
Avoid
- —Using speed as a reason to skip decisions about money, ownership or contracts.
- —Treating perfectionism as diligence when the cost of being wrong is an afternoon.
“Of the decisions currently open in my company, which deserve speed and which deserve care?”
Ask Aury thisLast edited 2026-08-18