Why Speed and Trust Are Critical to Solving Hard Problems

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We carefully curate this feed from across the HBR portfolio, aiming to help you unlock your next level of leadership. I hope you enjoy the episode. Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickisch. Problems can be intimidating. Sure, some problems are fun to dig into. You roll up your sleeves, you just take care of them. But others, well, they're complicated. Sometimes it's hard to wrap your brain around a problem, much less fix it. And that's especially true for leaders in organizations where problems are often layered and complex. They sometimes demand technical, financial, or interpersonal knowledge to fix. And whether it's avoidance on the leader's part or just the perception that a problem is systemic or even intractable, problems find a way to endure, to keep going, to keep being a problem that everyone tries to work around or just puts up with. But today's guest says that just compounds it and makes the problem harder to fix. Instead, she says speed and momentum are key to overcoming a problem. Anne Morris is an entrepreneur, leadership coach, and founder of the Leadership Consortium. And with Harvard Business School professor Frances Fry, she wrote the new book, Move Fast and Fix Things, the trusted leader's guide to solving hard problems. Anne, welcome back to the show. Kurt, thank you so much for having me. So to generate momentum in an organization, you say that you really need speed and trust. We'll get into those essential ingredients some more, but why are those two essential? Yeah, well, the essential pattern that we observed was that the most effective change leaders out there were building trust and speed. And it didn't seem to be a well-known observation. We all know the phrase, move fast and break things. But the people who were really getting it right were moving fast and fixing things. And that was really our jumping off point. So when we dug into the pattern, what we observed was they were building trust first and then speed. This foundation of trust was what allowed them to fix more things and break fewer. Trust sounds like a slow thing, right? If you talk about building trust, that is something that takes interactions. It takes communication. It takes experiences. Does that run counter to the speed idea? Yeah, well, this issue of trust is something we've been looking at for over a decade. And one of the headlines in our research is it's actually something we're building and rebuilding and breaking all the time. And so instead of being this precious, almost Fabergé egg, it's this thing that is constantly in motion. And this thing that we can really impact when we're deliberate about our choices and have some self-awareness around where it's breaking down and how it's breaking down. You said break trust in there, which is intriguing, right? That you may have to break trust to build trust. Can you explain that a little? Yeah, well, I'll clarify. It's not that you have to break it in order to build it. It's just that we all do it some of the time. Most of us are trusted most of the time. Most of your listeners, I imagine, are trusted most of the time. But all of us have a pattern where we break trust or where we don't build as much as could be possible. I want to talk about speed, this other essential ingredient that's really so intriguing, right? Because you think about solving hard problems as something that just takes a lot of time and thinking and coordination and planning and designing. Explain what you mean by it and also just how we maybe approach problems wrong by taking them on too slowly. Well, Kurt, no one has ever said to us, I wish I had taken longer and done less. We hear the opposite all the time, by the way. So what we really set out to do was to create a playbook that anyone can use to take less time to do more of the things that are going to make your teams and organizations stronger. And the way we set up the book is, okay, this is really a five-step process. Speed is the last step. It's the payoff for the hard work you're going to do to figure out your problem, build or rebuild trust, expand the team in thoughtful and strategic ways, and then tell a real and compelling story about the change you're leading. Only then do you get to go fast. But that's an essential part of the process. And we find that either people underemphasize it or speed has gotten a bad name in this world of moving fast and breaking things. And part of our mission, for sure, was to rehabilitate speed's reputation because it is an essential part of the change leader's equation. It can be the difference between good intentions and getting anything done at all. You know, the fact that nobody ever tells you, I wish we had like done less and taken more time. I mean, I think we all feel that, right? Sometimes we do something and then realize, oh, that wasn't that hard. And why did it take me so long to do it? And I wish I'd done this a long time ago. Is it ever possible to solve a problem too quickly? Absolutely. And we see that all the time too. What we push people to do in those scenarios is really take a look at the underlying issue because in most cases, the solution is not to take your foot off the accelerator per se and slow down. The solution is to get into the underlying problem. So if it's burnout or a strategic disconnect between what you're building and the marketplace you're serving, what we find is it's the anxiety that people attach to speed or the frustration people attach to speed is often misplaced. What is a good timeline to think about solving a problem then? Because if we, by default, take too long or else jump ahead and we don't fix it right, you know, what's a good target time to have in your mind for how long solving a problem should take? Yeah, well, we're playful in the book in talking about the idea that many problems can be solved in a week. I mean, we set the book up five chapters. They're titled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And we're definitely having fun with that. And yet if you count the hours in a week, there are a lot of them. Many of our problems, if you were to spend a focused 40 hours of effort on a problem, you're going to get pretty far. But our main message is, listen, of course, it's going to depend on the nature of the problem. And you're going to take weeks and maybe even some cases, months to get to the other side. But we don't want you to do is take years, which tends to be our default timeline for solving hard problems. So you say to start with identifying the problem that's holding you back. Seems kind of obvious. But where do companies go right and wrong with this first step of just identifying the problem that's holding you back? Yeah. And our goal is that all of these are going to feel obvious in retrospect. The problem is we skip over a lot of these steps and this is why we wanted to underline them. So this one is really rooted in our observation. And I think the pattern of our species that we tend to be overconfident in the quality of our thoughts, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. And so we want to invite you to start in a very humble and curious place, which tends not to be our default mode when we're showing up for work. You know, we convince ourselves that we're being paid for our judgment. That's exactly what gets reinforced everywhere. And so we tend to, you know, counterintuitively, given what we just talked about, we tend to move too quickly through the diagnostic phase. I know what to do. That's why you hired me. Exactly. I know what to do. That's why you hired me. I've seen this before. I have a plan. Follow me. You know, we get rewarded for the expression of confidence and clarity. And so what we're inviting people to do here is actually pause and really lean into, you know, what are the root causes of the problem you're seeing? What are some alternative explanations? Let's get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it. So what do you recommend for this step for, you know, getting to the root of the problem? What are questions you should ask? What's the right thought process? What do you do on Monday of the week? In our experience of doing this work, people tend to undervalue the power of conversation, particularly with other people in the organization. So we will often advocate putting together a team of problem solvers, you know, make it a temporary team, really pull in people who have a particular perspective on the problem and, you know, create the space, make it as psychologically safe as you can for people to really, you know, as Chris Argyris has so beautifully articulated, discuss the undiscussable. And so the conditions for that are going to look different in every organization depending on the problem. But if you can get a space where smart That's why LinkedIn built Hiring Pro, your new hiring partner that screens candidates for you. So instead of sorting through applications, you spend your time talking to candidates who are actually a good fit. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash on leadership. Terms and conditions apply. There's a step in this process that you lay out, and that's communicating powerfully as a leader, right? So we've heard about listening and trust building, but now you're talking about powerful communication. How do you do this? And why is it maybe this step in the process rather than the first thing you do or the last thing you do? Yeah, so in our process, again, it's the days of the week. On Monday, you figured out the problem. Tuesday, you really got into the sandbox in figuring out what a good enough plan is for building trust. Wednesday, step three, you made it better. You created an even better plan, bringing in new perspectives. Thursday, this fourth step is the day we're saying, you got to go get buy-in. You got to bring other people along. And again, this is a step where we see people often underinvest in the power and payoff of really executing it well. How does that go wrong? Yeah, people don't know the why. You know, human behavior and the change in human behavior really depends on a strong why. It's not just a selfish what's in it for me, although that's helpful, but, you know, where are we going? You know, I may be invested in the status quo and I need to understand, okay, if you're going to ask me to change, if you're going to invite me into this uncomfortable place of doing things differently, you know, why am I here? Help me understand it and articulate the way forward in language that not only I can understand, but also that's going to be motivating to me. So, and who on my team was part of this process and all that kind of stuff? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I may have some really important questions that may be in the way of my buy-in and commitment to this plan. So certainly creating a space where those questions can be addressed is essential. But what we found is that there is an architecture of a great change story, and it starts with honoring the past, honoring the starting place. You know, sometimes we're so excited about the change and animated about the change that what has happened before or what is even happening in the present tense is, you know, low on our list of priorities or we want to label it bad because that's the way we've thought about the change. But really pausing and honoring what came before you and all the reasonable decisions that led up to it, I think, can be really helpful to getting people emotionally where you want them to be willing to be guided by you. I mean, going back to Uber, when Dara Khosrowshahi came in, this is the new CEO who replaced Travis Kalanick, the founder and first CEO, yeah. Yeah, and had, you know, his first all-hands meeting. One of his key messages, and this is a quote, was that he was going to retain the edge that had made Uber a force of nature. And in that meeting, the crowd went wild because this was also a company that had been beaten up publicly for months and months and months. And it was a really powerful choice. And his predecessor, Travis, was in the room. And he also honored Travis's incredible work and investment in bringing the company to the place where it was. And I would use words like grace to also describe those choices. But there's also an incredible strategic value to naming the starting place for everybody in the room because in most cases, most people in that room played a role in getting to that starting place. And you're acknowledging that. Yeah, you can call it grace. Somebody else might call it diplomatic or strategic, right? But yeah, I guess, like it or not, it's helpful to call out and honor the complexity of the way things have been done and also the change that's happening. Yeah, and the value. You know, sometimes honoring the past is also owning what didn't work or what wasn't working for stakeholders or, you know, segments of the employee team. And we see that around culture change. Sometimes you've got to acknowledge that there, you know, it was not an equitable environment. But whatever the work, you know, everyone in that room is bringing that past with them. So again, making it discussable and using it as the jumping off place is where we advise people to start. Then you've earned the right to talk about the change mandate, which we suggest, you know, using clear and compelling language about the why. This is what happened. This is where we are. This is the good and the bad of it. And here's the case for change. And then the last part, which is to describe a rigorous and optimistic way forward. I mean, it's a, you know, it's a simple past, present, future arc, which will be familiar to human beings. You know, we love stories as human beings. It's among the most powerful currency we have to make sense of the world. Yeah. Chronological is a pretty powerful order. Yeah, right. But again, the change leaders we see really get it right, are investing an incredible amount of time into the storytelling part of their job. Ursula Burns at the head of Xerox is famous for the months and years she spent on the road just telling the story of Xerox's change, its pivot into services to everyone who would listen. And that was a huge part of her success. So Friday or your fifth step, you end with empowering teams and removing roadblocks. Can you dig into that a little bit? Yeah. Friday is the fun day. Friday is the release of energy into the system. Again, you've now earned the right to go fast. You have a plan. You're pretty confident it's going to work. You've told the story of change to the organization. And now you get to sprint. So this is about really executing with urgency. And it's about, you know, a lot of the tactics of speed is where we focus in the book. So the tactics of empowerment, making, you know, tough strategic trade-offs so that your priorities are clear and clearly communicated, creating mechanisms to fast track progress at Etsy, CEO Josh Silverman. He labeled these projects ambulances. It's an unfortunate metaphor, but it's super memorable. You know, these are the products that get to speed out in front of the other ones because the stakes are high and the clock is ticking. You pull over and let it go by. Yeah, exactly. And so we have to agree as an organization on how to do something like that. And so we see lots of great examples, both in young organizations and big, complex, you know, biotech companies with lots of, you know, regulatory guardrails have still found ways to do this gracefully. And I think we end with this idea of conflict debt, which is a term we really love. Leigh Ann Davey, who's a team scholar and researcher. And anyone in a tech company will recognize the idea of tech debt, which is this weight the organization drags around until they resolve it. Conflict debt is a beautiful metaphor because it is this weight that we drag around and slows us down until we decide to clean it up and fix it. The organizations that are really getting speed right have figured out, either formally or informally, how to create an environment where conflict and disagreements can be gracefully resolved. Well, let's talk about this speed more, right? Because I think this is one of those places that maybe people go wrong or take too long. And then you kind of lose the awareness of the problem. You lose that urgency and then that also just makes it less effective, right? It's not just about getting the problem solved as quickly as possible. It's also just speed in some ways helps solve the problem. Oh, yeah. I mean, it really is the difference between, you know, imagining the change you want to lead and really being able to bring it to life. Speed is the thing that unlocks your ability to lead change. It needs a foundation. And that's what, you know, Monday through Thursday is all about. Steps one through four. But the finish line is executing with urgency. And it's that urgency that releases the system's energy, that communicates your priorities, that creates the conditions for your team to make progress. Moving fast is something that, you know, entrepreneurs and tech companies certainly understand. But there's also this awareness that with big companies, the bigger the organization, the harder it is to turn the aircraft carrier around, right? Is speed relative when you get at those levels? Or do you think this is something that any company should be able to apply equally? We think this applies to any company. I mean, the culture really lives at the level of team. So we believe you can make a tremendous amount of progress even within your circle of control as a team leader. You know, I'm going to bring some humility to this and careful words like universal. But we do think there's some universal truths here around the value of speed. And then some of the byproducts like keeping fantastic people. Your best people want to solve problems. They want to execute. They want to make progress. And, you know, speed and the ability to do that is going to be a variable in their own equation of whether they stay or they go somewhere else where they can have an impact. Right. They want to accomplish something before they go or before they retire, finish something out. And if you're able to just bring more things on the rise and have it not feel like it's going to be another two years to do something meaningful. People, I mean, they want to make stuff happen and they want to be around the energy and the vitality of making things happen,