The hidden cost of moving faster
Hi there
I have been thinking about the decisions companies make when they want to move faster. The public version is simple: simplify, focus, accelerate. The harder truth is that speed nearly always has a cost. This week, the best stories were not about ambition itself, but about what leaders were willing to stop, change or risk to make it real.
Enjoy!
Big deals need more than scale
AstraZeneca shares fell after reports that it had held merger talks with Bristol Myers Squibb, a combination that would create a pharmaceutical giant but one analysts questioned on strategic logic. That is the useful lesson. Size can make a deal look impressive, but buyers and boards still have to answer the duller question: what gets better afterwards? More revenue, people and assets do not automatically create a stronger company. For founders, the same rule applies at a smaller scale. Growth that cannot explain its own logic usually becomes complexity with a press release attached. Read the article here.
Diageo is choosing the winners inside itself
Diageo’s new boss, Dave Lewis, has set out a turnaround plan that will nearly double Guinness production while reducing roles elsewhere. It is a stark example of focus in practice. The company is not treating every brand, market or team as equally deserving of capital. It is putting more behind the part with momentum and taking cost out of the rest. That is easy to admire from a distance and painful inside the building. Still, most businesses eventually face the same choice. You cannot fund everything with equal enthusiasm and then wonder why nothing pulls away. Read the article here.
Etsy shows that speed is not a slogan
Etsy is cutting about 12 per cent of its staff even after a stronger-than-expected quarter, saying the move is about simplifying the organisation and moving faster rather than just reducing cost. I always wince at that phrasing, because the human cost is real. But the business point is still worth sitting with. Complexity can survive good results for a surprisingly long time. Then one day the company decides it can no longer afford the meetings, layers and handoffs that have grown around the work. Speed is not something you announce. It is what remains after you remove the drag. Read the article here.
A pricing gift is still a strategy test
E.l.f. Beauty received roughly $50m in tariff refunds, helping profits surge, and plans to reinvest the windfall into value, pricing and marketing. The tempting move would be to let the one-off gain flatter the numbers and move on. The smarter question is what you do with an unexpected advantage while you have it. If you lower the customer’s friction, widen the value gap or strengthen the brand, the money can keep working after the accounting benefit disappears. Founders get smaller versions of this all the time, a good quarter, a tax credit, a supplier saving. The test is whether it becomes momentum or merely comfort. Get the story here.
Specsavers knows its customer has grown up
Specsavers has a clever campaign aimed at the rave generation, using gigs and hearing protection to make hearing checks feel less like an ageing signal and more like part of staying in the game. What I like is the empathy in it. The brand is not shouting about a product feature, it is meeting a customer at the point where identity changes. Great marketing often works because it notices the awkward transition before the customer has fully admitted it. For any business, that is a useful prompt: what does your customer need, but not yet want to say they need? Read it here.
Google is learning that talent follows agency
TechCrunch reports that Jeff Dean and other senior AI researchers are leaving Google to build their own startup. It is easy to frame this as another AI talent story, but I think the wider point is about agency. The people most capable of creating the next thing often become least patient with the machinery around the current one. Big companies offer capital, distribution and status. Founders offer speed, ownership and a clearer line between decision and consequence. If you run a growing business, this is worth watching. Your best people may not leave because the company is failing. They may leave because it has become too hard to move. Read the article here.
Company admin is becoming a product
Naive has raised $28.5m to automate much of the work involved in setting up and running a company. The claim may turn out to be bigger than the product, as early claims often are, but the direction is interesting. A lot of business ownership is still wrapped in admin that feels necessary only because nobody has made it disappear yet: entities, banking, filings, tools, permissions, recurring compliance. The opportunity is not just saving time. It is reducing the penalty for starting, testing and managing smaller ventures. The less energy founders spend feeding the machine, the more they can spend proving whether the business should exist. Find out more here.
Gen Z wants the ladder back
Fortune reports on a KPMG intern survey suggesting Gen Z puts career growth ahead of work-life balance, culture and even salary, with 93 per cent saying they want to become executives. That cuts against the lazy caricature of a generation that does not want responsibility. The real frustration may be that the ladder has become harder to see. Entry-level work is being reshaped by AI, middle management is thinner, and progression feels less automatic. For employers, the message is clear. Ambitious young people are still there, but they need visible development, not vague promises about opportunity. Read the article here (paywalled, Archive).
Retail media wants brand money now
Adweek has a useful piece on retail media moving beyond shopper data and performance ads into branded content, streaming and formats aimed at bigger brand budgets. It is another reminder that performance marketing eventually runs into a ceiling. Data can tell you who is likely to buy, but it cannot by itself make them care. Retailers have the audience and the transaction signal. Now they are trying to sell attention, memory and meaning as well. For founders, the lesson is familiar: conversion matters, but brand is what makes conversion cheaper over time. Read more here.
Agreement is not the same as alignment
Harvard Business Review has a sharp piece on false alignment: the meeting where everyone nods, the plan looks agreed, and the real disagreement simply moves underground. I have seen this hurt companies more than open conflict. At least conflict tells you where the resistance is. False agreement gives leaders the comforting illusion of progress while teams interpret the decision differently, delay the hard part or wait for someone else to move first. The cure is not more meetings. It is forcing clarity on trade-offs, owners and next actions before the room empties. Read the article here (HBR, paywalled).
AI prompt of the week: the speed audit
Most leaders say they want the business to move faster. Fewer can name exactly what is slowing it down, and fewer still are willing to remove the cause. This prompt is designed to turn a vague desire for pace into a practical diagnosis.
Act as a direct but fair operating partner. I run a [business type] with [team size], and I want the company to move faster without creating chaos. My current bottlenecks seem to be [where work slows down], and the decisions that drag most are [examples].
Create:
A ranked list of the five biggest sources of drag in the business, separating process drag, people drag, decision drag and founder drag.
For each one, explain what it is costing us in time, morale, customer experience or margin, and what evidence would prove the problem is real.
Recommend one action I could take in the next thirty days to reduce each source of drag, including what I would need to stop doing or simplify.
Identify the change that would create the most speed with the least risk, and the change that would be most uncomfortable but most valuable.
Base this on how disciplined operators improve pace: they do not confuse urgency with speed, they remove ambiguity before adding pressure, and they make ownership visible. Be blunt about where I may be the bottleneck.
Drop me a line
Feel free to drop me a line if you have any comments or questions. I always enjoy hearing what is on your mind. Until next Sunday, I wish you well in everything you are building, and in the small, deliberate choices that keep a growth mindset alive.
Cheers!
Adam