Decide fast
Speed gets a bad name. People hear “fast” and picture chaos — rushed work, poor thinking, messy outcomes. But real speed isn’t about doing more. It’s about deciding sooner.
Most teams move slow not because they’re lazy, but because they’re stuck choosing. They hover. Wait for more data. More opinions. More certainty. Meanwhile, the window closes.
I don’t rush execution. I rush clarity. The longer a decision hangs, the more energy it drains. You lose focus, ownership, and momentum. A clear call — even if imperfect — gets everyone aligned again.
Fast decisions aren’t reckless. They’re disciplined. You gather enough signal, trust your judgment, and move. Waiting for perfect is just fear dressed as rigour.
This is how I work: decide fast, adjust later. The team stays sharp, the direction stays live. Slowness isn’t safety — it’s decay.
“Fast decisions. Calm execution.”
Speed is about structure
Speed isn’t a pep-talk problem. It’s a structure problem.
Teams slow down because of communication, not because they’re lazy. Double the headcount and watch velocity collapse. I’ve seen it too many times.
The fix is subtraction. Smaller teams. Fewer dependencies. Clear edges. Give them space and let them run.
My personal speed limit is when comms overhead outweighs progress. Past that point, shipping more is just shipping waste.
Leadership is knowing when to cut. Less people, less process. That’s how you protect speed without burning teams out.
“Speed comes from subtraction, not addition.”
Signal vs noise
Evidence is the filter. Judgment makes the call.
Design work is noisy. Opinions, endless Figma frames, contradictory data, best-practice decks… most of it is distraction. The job is to filter.
I start with evidence. It clears the obvious dead ends and shuts down the weak ideas. Once the field is clean, I switch to intuition. That’s when judgment is sharpest.
Data alone doesn’t decide. Evidence is just the filter. Judgment makes the call. Too many teams get that backwards — guessing first, justifying after.
This is how I work, whether I’m leading or designing myself: strip away the noise until there’s signal, then move fast. Anything else is theatre.
“Evidence is the filter. Judgment makes the call.”
Designing for redundancy
My five-year ambition isn’t a title. It’s making myself redundant.
If design only works when I’m in the room, it’s a weak system. The real job is to bake judgment into the team so it survives without me.
That’s why I pair when I design — it’s work and coaching at once. That’s why I ask in interviews: how will you measure effectiveness? I want people who can make calls without a safety net.
Redundancy isn’t failure. It’s the point. It means principles, cadence, and standards live beyond me.
I don’t want an empire. I want an engine.
“The highest compliment is being unnecessary.”