Olivia: Alright Jackson, I have a book title for you. Tell me what comes to mind when you hear: Move Fast & Fix Things. Jackson: Oh, I like that. It sounds like the motto for a clumsy but very well-intentioned superhero. You know, the one who crashes through a wall to save a cat from a tree, then immediately offers to spackle the hole and repaint. Olivia: That is a perfect, and hilarious, way to put it. And you've actually hit on the core tension in the book we're talking about today: Move Fast & Fix Things: The Trusted Leader's Guide to Solving Hard Problems by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss. Jackson: I'm intrigued. Because usually, it's "move fast and break things," right? That's the mantra that built Silicon Valley. Olivia: Exactly. And the authors are here to argue that's a fundamentally outdated and dangerous idea. What makes their argument so powerful is that it's not just academic theory. Frances Frei was the person Uber brought in as their Senior Vice President of Leadership and Strategy right in the middle of their massive 2017 culture crisis. When they talk about fixing things in a high-speed environment, they have been in the absolute thick of it. Jackson: Okay, now you have my full attention. So they're saying you don't have to choose between speed and not being a corporate villain? That feels... optimistic. Is it actually possible?

Olivia: That's the central question they tackle. They argue the trade-off between speed and taking care of people is a false one. For decades, especially in tech, the prevailing wisdom was that to innovate quickly, some collateral damage was acceptable. You mentioned Meta's old motto, "Move fast and break things." It was literally on posters at their headquarters. Jackson: And you can't argue with the results, right? It built an empire. It feels like a necessary evil for that kind of hyper-growth. Olivia: For a time, maybe. But the authors argue that the "things" that get broken are often trust, relationships, and employee well-being. And in the long run, that's not a bug; it's a catastrophic failure of the system. They introduce a simple but brilliant framework called the FIX map. It's a 2x2 grid with Speed on one axis and Trust on the other. Jackson: Let me guess the quadrants. High speed, low trust is "Reckless Disruption," like our "break things" friends. Olivia: Precisely. Low speed, low trust is "Inevitable Decline." You're slow and nobody trusts you—that's a death spiral. Low speed, high trust is "Responsible Stewardship." Think of a beloved but slow-moving bureaucracy. Everyone trusts each other, but nothing gets done. Jackson: And the top right, the holy grail, is high speed and high trust. Olivia: They call it "Accelerating Excellence." And this is their core argument: you can't have sustainable speed without trust. They have this fantastic line: "Speed unleashes your organization’s energy and reveals where you’re going. Trust convinces your stakeholders to come along for the ride." Speed without trust is just a car with a powerful engine and no one willing to get in. Jackson: That’s a great analogy. It reframes trust not as a "nice-to-have" but as a critical component of the engine itself. Without it, you're just spinning your wheels, no matter how fast the engine revs. Olivia: Exactly. The "break things" model creates a trust deficit that you eventually have to pay back with interest, through scandals, regulations, and employee burnout. The "fix things" model invests in trust upfront, which acts as a lubricant, allowing the organization to move even faster over time because everyone is aligned and feels safe. Jackson: Okay, I'm sold on the 'why.' It makes perfect sense. But it still feels like a massive challenge. How do you actually do it? It sounds like trying to change a tire on a car that's already going 80 miles per hour.

Olivia: This is where the book gets incredibly practical. They lay out a five-day playbook, like a design sprint for organizational change. Monday is about identifying the real problem. Wednesday is about inclusion, or as they call it, "making new friends." But the part that really stood out to me is what they schedule for Tuesday. Jackson: What happens on Tuesday? Olivia: Tuesday is "Solve for Trust." And they introduce this concept of the "Trust Wobble." They say that just like a wobbly table, organizational trust usually fails along one of three legs: Authenticity, Logic, or Empathy. Jackson: Hold on, can you break those down? What does a wobble in each of those look like? Olivia: Absolutely. A Logic wobble is when people don't believe in your judgment or your plan. They think your strategy is flawed. An Empathy wobble is when people don't feel you care about them or understand their perspective. And an Authenticity wobble is when people don't believe you're being your real self—they sense a gap between what you say and what you truly believe. Jackson: Huh. I can immediately think of leaders who wobble on each of those. The brilliant jerk has a logic leg of steel but zero empathy. The people-pleaser has tons of empathy but maybe a wobbly logic or authenticity leg. Olivia: Exactly! And the book says you have to diagnose which leg is the wobbliest and design an intervention to fix it. And they have one of the most incredible stories of fixing an authenticity and logic wobble I've ever heard: the great Domino's Pizza turnaround. Jackson: Oh, I remember this! But I don't think I know the inside story. Weren't they getting destroyed in customer feedback? Olivia: Destroyed is an understatement. In the late 2000s, their own research showed people thought their pizza tasted like "cardboard" and that the sauce tasted like ketchup. It was a massive logic problem—their core product was failing. And they had an authenticity problem because their marketing was pretending it was great. Jackson: So what did they do? A new ad campaign with a catchy jingle? Olivia: They did the exact opposite. They launched a campaign called the "Pizza Turnaround." They built a giant, uncensored digital billboard in Times Square that displayed live customer reviews—the good, the bad, and the brutal. They ran national TV ads where their own chefs and even the CEO, Patrick Doyle, read the most scathing customer comments on camera. Jackson: Wait, they paid to advertise how much people hated their product? That is an insane level of courage. That's not just fixing an authenticity wobble; that's taking a sledgehammer to it. Olivia: It was radical transparency. Russell Weiner, the CMO at the time, said, "By saying what we said about the pizza, we blew up the bridge. There was no going back." They admitted their logic was flawed—their pizza wasn't good enough. And they demonstrated radical authenticity by admitting it publicly. Then, they showed their work, documenting how they were creating a new recipe from scratch. Jackson: And the outcome? Olivia: The market responded almost instantly. Same-store sales grew by over 10 percent in less than a year. Their stock price took off. By fixing their trust wobble with brutal honesty, they earned the right to ask customers to try them again. They moved fast because they stopped to fix the trust. Jackson: Wow. That story alone is worth the price of admission. It completely flips the script on corporate communication. Instead of spin, they used truth as their accelerator. That courage to be authentic is what allows you to move to the next step, I imagine.

Olivia: It's the perfect bridge to the final piece of the puzzle, which they cover on Friday: "Go as Fast as You Can." After you've identified the problem, built a trust-first plan, and told an honest story, you have to execute. And their big idea here is that the fastest way to speed up is for leaders to get out of the way. Jackson: That sounds great in a book, but what does that actually look like? Most managers think their job is to be in the way, directing traffic. Olivia: It's about empowerment. True, deep empowerment. And the story they use to illustrate this is from the Ritz-Carlton, which is legendary for its customer service. Years ago, the founder, Horst Shulze, implemented a policy that every single employee—from the general manager to the housekeeper—is empowered to spend up to $2,000 per incident to solve a guest's problem. No manager approval needed. Jackson: Two thousand dollars? For any employee? My mind is blown. The finance department must have had a collective heart attack. Olivia: They did! The franchise owners threatened to sue him. But Shulze’s logic was simple. He said, "Even if we had spent the full $2,000, these are guests who are likely to spend $200,000 over their lives with us. The only thing we should be concerned with is keeping them as guests." He trusted his team. Jackson: That is a profound level of trust in your people. But does it work? Do you have a story? Olivia: Do I ever. A family was staying at a Ritz-Carlton, and their young son lost his beloved Thomas the Tank Engine toy. The dad explained to the staff that the boy was distraught and they had to leave the next day. The staff searched everywhere but couldn't find it. Jackson: A classic vacation disaster. So what happened? Olivia: That night, a hotel employee went out and bought a brand-new Thomas the Tank Engine. But he didn't just give it to the family. He took the toy on an adventure. He took photos of Thomas getting a massage at the spa, lounging by the pool with a tiny drink, helping out in the kitchen, and even working at the security desk. Jackson: No way. That's incredible. Olivia: The next morning, the employee presented the new toy to the boy along with a photo album of "Thomas's overnight adventure," explaining that Thomas had just been having so much fun at the hotel he didn't want to leave. The family was, of course, overjoyed. The story went viral. The earned media and brand loyalty from that one $17 toy, empowered by the $2,000 policy, was incalculable. Jackson: That's not just fixing a problem; it's creating a legend. And it happened because one employee was empowered to act quickly and creatively, without having to go through layers of bureaucracy. They didn't just fix it, they made it better. Olivia: That's the whole philosophy. Empowerment isn't a cost; it's an investment in speed, creativity, and trust. When you trust people, they don't just solve the problem in front of them; they often find a solution that's better than anything a manager could have prescribed.

Jackson: Okay, let's tie this all together. It feels like there's a clear chain reaction here. Olivia: There is. It starts with challenging the false idea that you have to break things to move fast. Instead, you diagnose your organization's "trust wobble"—is it a logic, empathy, or authenticity problem? Jackson: Like Domino's realizing their pizza—their logic—was broken. Olivia: Exactly. Then you build a plan to fix that wobble with radical honesty and action. That rebuilt trust then gives you the foundation to empower your people. Jackson: And as the Ritz-Carlton story shows, empowered people who feel trusted don't just move fast; they move with a level of creativity and care that builds an even stronger, faster organization. Olivia: It's a virtuous cycle. Trust fuels speed, and speed, when executed with care, builds more trust. Jackson: If there's one core idea that listeners should take away from this, what would it be? The one sentence that captures the essence of Move Fast & Fix Things? Olivia: I think it's a beautiful, simple insight they offer near the end of the book. They say that if you look closely enough, "there’s a relationship that’s wobbly at the center of any problem you’re having." Jackson: Wow. So fixing a business problem, a process problem, a product problem... it's always, at its heart, about fixing a relationship problem. A relationship with a customer, a colleague, or even with an idea. Olivia: That's the secret. It’s all about the people. So for our listeners, maybe the question to reflect on is this: what's one wobbly relationship—with a customer, a colleague, or even a process—that you could start fixing tomorrow? Jackson: A powerful question to end on. This has been incredibly insightful. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.