‘Move fast and break things’ is the approach that created the world’s most dominant tech companies. It led to the product that you may have used five minutes ago. Innovation means taking risks. But taking this line of thought, outside of the tech space can lead to problems more resembling: move fast and fake things.
Like an ageing auditor with their green pen, does one take a step by step, slow methodical approach to businesses, or like a 20 something Silicon Valley tech wizard, do you throw things at the wall and see what sticks? Move fast and break things – suggests the risk of a few occasional mistakes are a small price to pay for speedy innovation. It’s yin and yang, but not exactly black and white, with all sorts of grey areas.
Based on constant curiosity, approaching work and innovation with an emphasis on speed and experimentation gets results. For some it may be better to make mistakes and disrupt technologies along the way, than to play it safe -- at a tedious slow and steady pace.
Move fast and break things mantra became popular in fields like software development, where making and fixing errors has less of a real-world impact than ‘breaking things’ would in an area like healthcare, where people’s lives or livelihoods are directly on the line.
However, one gets into serious problems when it is applied outside of the tech environment.
Sadly, Mr Trump, the 78-year-old transactional ‘Disrupter in Chief’ has used a misguided variant of this approach, since his inauguration on January 20, risking destroying the value created, and putting lives at risk by, for instance, freezing [for 90 days] the much needed contribution USAid makes in Kenya, particularly in public health.
Move fast and break things became popular in the world of Silicon Valley startups roughly 20 years ago.
Facebook (now Meta) founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg made it their raison d’etre - their ‘Why’.
Journalist Jonathan Taplin named his 2017 book - using the phrase - chronicling the rise of big tech company entrepreneurs (including Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Peter Thiel) aiming to fuel the backlash, about what he saw as the monopolisation of the internet, by the few. Like just about everything, there is some good, some bad in this approach.
So, what are the advantages?
High risk and reward ratio – when you free yourself up to disrupt, you take on greater risk in the hopes of gaining a greater reward. For example, making a few fast tweaks in software could lead to an app crashing, or to creating a successful new feature.
In contrast, a more conservative and cautious approach, allows a steadier drip of rewards, but less chance of creating a game-changing break through.
Greater innovation – Move fast and break things was the way of being, the mindset for the digital transformation of the twenty-first century. In fast and ambitiously experimenting with algorithms, tech companies successfully connected the world, supplying a steady stream of information – knowledge, making it bordering on close to free. What can’t you discover on the internet and in using AI?
Fun quick moving workspace – A more freewheeling approach to product development leads to a more vibrant work environment. When staff throw caution to the wind—at least to a certain extent—there’s a greater sense of freedom to innovate and try new things.
And there are disadvantages too since move fast and break things is an inherently destabilising piece of advice.
Less stable– As technology gets into more areas of people’s lives, its become increasingly crucial for it to remain functional at all times. Case in point is a blockchain ledger that keeps track of people’s money and transactions. Maintaining a stable infrastructure is far more important than risking mistakes.
If your organisation broke too many things, over a few short weeks, customers would soon seek a more reliable alternative.
Risk of errors– One of the key benefits of the move fast and break things method is also one of its main disadvantages: the propensity to make errors and build on them. While this might work well in a field like software development, there are other areas in which any error can prove far too costly. For example, a physician, lawyer or accountant would have to avoid this advice completely. Even the most laissez-faire companies must temper their approach, with occasional caution.
Less clear direction – In, for example, software development, e-commerce, or something else entirely, a sense of having a north star, and good old fashioned, plan of action is a requirement for meeting goals. When one moves fast and break things you risk not having a compass, by leaning toward an attitude of near constant ‘creative destruction’.
Answer on the path to take, may lie in what F Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function”.
David J. Abbott is a director at aCatalyst Consulting. [email protected]
