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- Speed Without Alignment Is Just Noise
This 3-minute read brought to you by the team at Rogue Pine
Everyone wants speed.
Faster launches. Faster decisions. Faster growth.
But as John Kwarsick points out in an upcoming podcast episode, speed without alignment doesn’t create momentum.
It creates noise.
Teams stay busy, meetings multiply, and initiatives pile up… yet progress feels stalled.
In growing B2B organizations, this shows up as motion without movement.
Why urgency feels productive but isn’t
When pressure rises, leaders often default to urgency:
Do more. Move faster. Ship now.
The problem? Urgency amplifies whatever already exists.
If priorities are unclear, urgency multiplies confusion. If ownership is fuzzy, speed accelerates handoffs and dropped balls.
John frames this clearly: real speed is not about activity. It’s about clarity.
Clarity of:
What actually matters right now
Who owns the outcome
What decisions don’t need revisiting every week
Without that foundation, teams burn energy switching between tasks instead of compounding effort.
John’s discussion around AI and adaptability surfaced an important leadership insight: tools don’t create advantage. Alignment does.
Teams adopt new platforms, automate workflows, and add dashboards, expecting velocity to follow. But when priorities aren’t aligned, technology just helps teams move faster in different directions.
This is why leaders feel stuck even when their teams are “executing.”
Speed becomes performative instead of productive.
Reframing speed as a byproduct
Thought leaders on the topic include Andy Grove, Ben Horowitz, and Chris Walker, and they all share a common belief with each other and John:
Speed emerges after alignment, not before it.
Aligned teams:
Say no more often than yes
Spend less time explaining decisions
Don’t confuse responsiveness with progress
When direction is clear, execution accelerates naturally.
A simple leadership check
If your organization feels busy but slow, ask:
What are we optimizing for this quarter?
What decisions are we still debating that should already be settled?
Where is urgency masking a lack of clarity?
Because speed without alignment isn’t momentum. It’s just noise.
Check out the conversation with John Kwarsick coming out next week on the Grow Rogue Podcast and connect with him on LinkedIn.