Some team members work fast. Sometimes too fast.
Despite being highly skilled, their work is full of errors, and the quality of their output is lower than it should be.
They might value speed over accuracy and quality for a variety of reasons.
It’s not uncommon for team members who are overwhelmed by too many tasks to rush through their assignments. Because they feel anxious about getting everything done, they go as fast as possible so they can get to the next task on their docket.
For other team members, the combination of impatience and competitiveness produces a toxic elixir, driving the rush to finish work. For the impatient types, rushing can feel both necessary and normal over time. Overconfidence, distraction, poor planning, and deadline pressure can also lead to a mad dash to completion.
Whatever the reason, the result is work that lacks thoroughness, accuracy, quality, and effectiveness. These people need to slow down.
Leaders up to the task of impeding their speed will break tasks and assignments into smaller chunks, and then require a quality check to move on to the next segment.
By establishing checkpoints, which might include interim feedback, leaders moderate team members who are too fast for their own good.
No one likes or enjoys quality checks, so team members subjected to them will often learn to slow down permanently to avoid them in the future.
If the issue is widespread on a team, the leader might institute “buffer periods” into project schedules. These are dedicated times where team members are encouraged to pause, review work, and seek feedback on the work produced so far.
On occasion, leaders might also consider including peers to assess the work for quality and accuracy. Peer evaluation tends to be even more candid, and impatient team members will often decelerate their pace, become more careful, and improve quality to ensure they are seen favorably by peers.
Leaders must also remember that they play a substantial role in the deadlines they set and the number of tasks they assign. If it seems team members have only recently learned to rush through their assignments, it could be that they have little choice.
Adopting a more measured approach to work requires that team members have the time, resources, and clarity of priorities to make better decisions.
Quality never profits from rushing. Too much speed in anything is a recipe for missing things. Mistakes are inevitable, but rushing is always a choice.
