The faster you go, the more drag you create. High-velocity teams often look efficient from the outside—rapid output, tight turnarounds, visible momentum. But speed can mask strain. Friction doesn’t announce itself; it accumulates quietly in the joints of the system, not in the muscles. The skill is learning where that drag forms before it slows everything down.
Growth Conceals Inefficiency
In small teams, inefficiency is obvious. You feel every delay. As teams grow, speed and specialization blur those signals. Work moves quickly within lanes, so friction between lanes goes unnoticed. Motion becomes a proxy for health.
Growth produces activity, and activity looks like progress. But the larger the system, the easier it is for drag to hide inside it.
Friction Lives at Intersections
In high-velocity environments, friction rarely lives inside tasks. It lives between them.
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Handoffs: Work moves from one person to another without shared context, forcing rework or clarification.
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Tools: Teams adopt software that doesn’t fully integrate, creating parallel systems and duplicated effort.
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Approvals: Reviews queue behind overloaded decision-makers, stalling progress without visible failure.
These intersections act like rough seams. The harder you push, the more heat they generate.
Review Transitions, Not Tasks
When diagnosing slowdown, shift the question.
Don’t ask, “Where are we slow?”
Ask, “Where does the work change hands?”
Map a single project end to end.
Mark every transition—person to person, tool to tool, team to team.
At each point, note what gets lost, repeated, or delayed.
Fix one seam per cycle: a shared checklist, a clearer brief, a combined kickoff, a simpler approval rule.
Small improvements at transitions compound downstream. You don’t need a full overhaul. You need fewer rough edges.
Smooth the Joins
People aren’t the bottleneck. The space between them is.
High-velocity systems don’t accelerate by applying more pressure. They accelerate by improving connection. When joins are smooth, energy flows without strain and speed becomes sustainable.
Momentum isn’t created by pushing harder.
It’s created by removing resistance where it hides.
