Slow and steady wins the race. Get all your ducks in a row. Measure twice, cut once. Why? Because good things come to those who wait. 

You’ve probably heard arguments like this before. You’ve probably made arguments like this before. They exemplify the kind of thinking that’s everywhere at the enterprise level, where risk aversion governs decisions and going slow and steady always wins the race. 

Enterprises tend to think their stability, or even their success, depends on waiting now and acting later. Moving too fast could be a liability. Being careful and cautious is more prudent. This attitude makes sense in some contexts, but it also keeps companies from becoming a frictionless enterprise where innovation thrives. 

Waiting isn’t just an obstacle to innovation; it’s a trap that makes innovation always feel too slow, too small, too expensive, or too distant. 

It’s a trap almost everyone falls into — and one you may be stuck in, too. 

There’s “right” and “wrong” waiting

Sometimes waiting feels essential — we can’t do D until we do A, B, and C. The waterfall process that dominated software development for decades reinforced this notion, impressing upon so many of us that development must follow a linear, prescribed progression. Until one step in the waterfall is complete and the next is ready, everything must wait. 

This type of waiting is “right.” Taking time for each of the pieces of innovation — like testing, feedback, and internal communications — is crucial. Rushing the really important stuff or ignoring red flags is never a good idea, no matter how ambitious your organization wants to be. 

It’s those other times — when you think more time and thinking will allow things to fully bloom and lead to amazing breakthroughs — that are the “wrong” type of waiting. Letting ideas sit and endlessly cross-pollinate doesn't make your team more collaborative, experimental, or open to innovation. These are simply excuses to avoid moving with a sense of urgency. 

The “wrong” waiting imposes unnecessary delays. People erroneously assume they must wait to innovate because moving too fast will derail the whole effort. In fact, waiting keeps innovation from ever gaining momentum. As a result, it fails to launch.

Innovation’s green light comes sooner than you think

Getting all of your ducks in a row isn’t a prerequisite to innovation. In fact, it’s the opposite. Instead of having everything perfectly lined up, all you need to begin is a vision and a consistent process to get through the important stages of innovation. Once those two things are in place, you’ve got the green light — so get going! 

Waiting on innovation makes it nearly impossible to break through markets that are getting more crowded and competitive by the day. Innovative companies that move with a sense of urgency rise to the top, while everyone else stays stagnant.

That’s why it’s not good enough to plan on innovating sometime in the future. You need to be innovating now. Waiting isn’t holding place; it’s actually losing ground.

While the mandate to innovate has never loomed larger, occasional innovations aren’t enough. That’s what makes the process just as important as the vision. You need a systematic way to  turn viable ideas into real-world products on a continuous basis, the more rapid and reliable the better, otherwise the competition will not only catch up but pass you by. 

The companies that innovate at will don’t wait for anything or anyone. On the contrary, they’re aggressively impatient. They insist that innovation must always be advancing. More than just adopting a mindset, however, they systematically remove roadblocks that cause delays and inaction. 

How do you do the same?

Don’t slow down and never stop 

You can’t pump the brakes on innovation, but you also can’t rush ideas or ignore risks. So how do you walk this fine line, being thorough but not waiting too long? By recognizing and eliminating the kind of waiting that hurts productivity. Start with these strategies:

• Build a timebox: Waiting flourishes in the absence of deadlines. Instead of leaving expectations open ended, set clear (but fair) schedules, and be ready to act if things aren’t moving fast enough.
• Seam things up: Silos cause waiting as one side waits for the other. Create a seam in-between to expedite information flows and get both sides working in parallel — but first test the seam to verify proper alignment. Even a light seam, like a shared Slack channel between teams, can work wonders.
• Insist on progress: Innovation inevitably creates friction. Waiting often happens because of resistance to change. Manage that change proactively with the relentless attitude that innovation must continue by any means. 

Working is productive; waiting isn’t. With that simple distinction in mind, you can easily start to see how wide the waiting problem spreads, how much time and energy it wastes, and why it imposes a low ceiling on enterprise innovation. 

Continuous innovation becomes surprisingly easy to accomplish at that point. Because once you can see waiting for what it really is, you and everyone else won’t be able to tolerate it any longer. You’ll become allergic to waiting in the best way, thereby revealing the most efficient and effective way to keep moving forward. 

Take away waiting and that leaves just one option: progress. 

For more insights on becoming the kind of enterprise where innovation doesn’t wait, download our Frictionless Enterprise book.