We face a major modern crisis! Change and technology are speeding up, but organizational results are slowing down. It seems we assume that technology should speed up while at the same time also assuming that organizational change is inherently slow.
⛰️ From 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark explored the Pacific Northwest from St. Louis to the Pacific and back in only 2 years, 4 months, and 9 days.
On August 12, 2005, I attended a 200th anniversary celebration of Lewis and Clark’s crossing of the Continental Divide. The Bureau of Land Management master of ceremonies said the environmental impact statement work to hold the ceremony for a few hours on a remote mountain pass in western Montana took longer than the whole journey of Lewis and Clark!
⚓ Admiral Rickover and his team instigated, designed, tested, built, trained, and deployed USS Nautilus underway on nuclear power in 4-7 years depending on when you mark the “start” of the program. Regardless, they got it done in less than a decade!
I first walked into a Navy shipyard in August 2001. Many of the infrastructure improvements that leaders were discussing then are still being studied, considered and planned today, nearly 24 years later.
🏠 In North Carolina, following the devastating hurricane and storm damage, Amish men are rebuilding homes in a day or building as many as 12 tiny homes in 24 hours. Meanwhile, too many Americans remain homeless due to “housing shortages,” and multi-year efforts to “figure out a solution,” that result in no additional homes.
💻 When I worked at Intel, I often said that our challenge was that we were confident we could bend physics to our will to push the limits of compute, but it would take us years to decide to hold a meeting to discuss a topic that may transform the company. That juxtaposition always frustrated me and I worked hard every day to overcome it.
We have all that we need to go faster, if we will choose to go faster. The future belongs to the people, teams, companies, communities, and countries that choose to change faster and help others join them.
❗ Divergent Technologies is transforming production with their Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS). The results are staggering.
For a General Atomics product, Divergent Technologies reduces product development time from 18 months to 4 months and production time from 12 days to 1!
❗ SpaceX continues to push back the limits of space travel. Every time I see the chopsticks catch a booster, I gasp and cheer. Give an engineer a challenge and watch them rise to it!
❗ AI is showing us how much faster some things can be done. And for those who want to go fast, it will help them accelerate and achieve outstanding things.
This crisis is self-made. We can overcome it. I’m going to do all I can, with all I have, everywhere I am, to help as many people as possible get out of this crisis.
