Winning Time

What games can teach us about the business of innovation

I love finding patterns amongst different disciplines. There is something elegant about principles that we find again and again throughout life. Perhaps it’s the simplicity of applying these universal truths. There is an “aha” moment upon discovery as we arm ourselves with a new weapon.

One such principle is the concept of winning time.

In the game of Chess, there is strategy whereby you “win time” by forcing your opponent to move the same piece twice, particularly in the opening of the game. If you can win time, you will generally be in a better position than your opponent.

We see time as a factor in the game of Tennis as well. The less time you give your opponent to get to a ball, the more likely they are to make a mistake.

We also see this principle at play in business. The faster we move, the more time we steal from our competitors. The harder we make it for them to play their game. The more pressure we put on them, the more disorganized they become, the more opportunities they miss.

Consider the following excerpt from Netflix’s culture document:

“In general, we believe freedom and rapid recovery are better than trying to prevent error. We are in a creative business and our biggest threat over time is a lack of innovation. So we are relatively error tolerant except where safety is an issue—and we focus on ensuring that any error prevention efforts don’t limit inventive, creative work. Rapid recovery is possible if people have great judgment.”

For most organizations, their biggest risk is lack of innovation. If your business depends on innovation for growth, you must optimize for speed. You must inspect your system (see Systems Thinking), and remove constrains. Enable your teams by giving them goals, context and coaching, and build the system that enables them to move with purpose and speed. This will look different for many organizations but in general, faster decision making will enable increased speed.

I’ve rarely heard an organization complain of moving “too fast”. Most leaders will answer in the affirmative when asked if they believe that faster velocity will improve their business outcomes. Yet they fall short on execution. Why? Because it takes courage to move fast. It takes more trust in your teams. It takes changing how you work. More speed means more mistakes. And our education system has imbued us with a belief that mistakes are bad. But the truth is that mistakes are a necessary by-product of innovation. Penicillin was a mistake, post-it notes were a mistake, the microwave was a mistake.

So if you want to win time, move faster and increase innovation, inspect your work system to diagnose and remove your speed bumps!