How to drive your company faster

Now is the time of year for lists.  We're starting to see predictions for 2006, 'Best of' lists from 2005 and Top 10 this and that.  So, here's my first list of the month.

One issue that I think a lot of people in the Internet business struggle with is speed.  How do you build a system that supports increasing pressure to drive fast?  The answer is the subject of many books by many researchers and analysts, but these are a few obvious ones that are sometimes easy to forget.

Top 5 Things Needed by Fast Company Leaders:

1. BHAG - Define a single, clear, and really big goal for your staff that keeps them focused on something really hard but also something possible to achieve.  This is otherwise known as the Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
2. Fear - Make your staff fear the outside world, not the inside world.  It shouldn't be the threat of internal political punishment that inspires your staff to be competitive.  The market is your battlefield
3. Evolution - Analyze performance in parallel with releases and iterate quickly.  A product that hasn't changed in 6 months is in a dangerous position.  Iterate constantly.
   
4. Distance - Train people to make big decisions by giving them power over the little ones, even if you know they're wrong.
5. Momentum - Identify momentum and fuel it.  Steer it, but never stop it.  If you don't have it, do something small to kick-start it.

These lessons are weird to talk about when I think back just 3 years ago.  The struggle at that point for almost everyone but Google was about how to make cuts without ruining your future.  But the story is different today.  Managing the pace of change must be a key component of your strategy.

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