In the world in which we live this mantra has the joint distinction of being both true and fantastically annoying. It’s on the lips of all Management Consultants and MBAs. Because in 2017 tortoises don’t win; they get run over.
But speed contains its own perils like prosecution, fatal collisions and blinding headaches. In Britain, as we are demonstrating in our preparation for Brexit, speed is not our priority because when we attempt to rev up we become like Lord Ronald in Stephen Leacock’s “Gertrude the Governess” - one of his Nonsense Novels:
“Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.”
Our great trophy - HS2 - will cost £56 billion give or take and save 30 minutes on the journey time to Birmingham. If the money were spend instead on increasing broadband speeds and improving mobile reception this would improve our lives and the speed at which we operated in a much more relevant way. What sort of country Lord Ronald, we ask, do you want Britain to be? Currently we are 31st for broadband speed in the Global League Table. 17 of the EU countries come ahead of us. But (zut alors) we come ahead of France on whose slow broadband we contemptuously spit.
Presuming that we wish in our post Brexit lives to remain a green and pleasant land but also be supremely fit for international business for the next generation, speed in the right area rather than on a slightly quicker trip up north would seem the smart thing to do. But presumably we’ll push on with HS2 because we said we would.
Our second mission in speeding up our lives is to stop wasting our time. I have had a run-in with BT (yes them again) for several months over our defective landline. It hasn’t worked except for odd moments. Dealing with them is made harder by most of the conversations irritatingly being online or with a computer. Worst of all I’m wasting your time by telling you all this. (Breaking news…..Trevor from BT just fixed it and was mystified it had taken so long…)
By trying to make things simpler we’ve complicated processes so trying to fix anything takes a very long time. Today it took a very accomplished workman 3 ½ hours to fix one kitchen tap and conclude that another one was defective. The way they were assembled made this process incredibly longwinded.
We have too much bad design, too much choice, too many applications. We are wasting our energy being busy. In the recent Great British Menu one of the contestants produced a brilliantly complicated confection. The judges started at it and concluded “There’s a lot going on here…far too much”
So the greatest word is not faster.
It’s simpler.
Being less elaborate and more effective should be our mantra.
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