Timing Over Execution: Nick Curum on Why Good Ideas Fail Too Soon

In a recent LinkedIn post, Nick Curum delves into a common pitfall in business: the failure of good ideas not due to poor execution, but because they were introduced at the wrong time. Curum, a business strategist, argues that timing is frequently the overlooked variable when initiatives stall or are abandoned, even when the analysis is sound and the team is capable.

The Readiness Gap and Ignored Signals

Curum identifies a pattern that often precedes the demise of a promising concept. The first stage he describes is the ‘Readiness Gap,’ where ambition outstrips an organization’s actual capability to implement the strategy. As he puts it:

“The strategy makes sense, but the organisation has not built the muscle to carry it. Ambition gets mistaken for capability.”

Following this, Curum highlights the tendency to ignore early warning signs. He notes that initial resistance is often dismissed as mere ‘noise,’ and feedback, though valid, arrives too late to influence the decision-making process. In his words:

“Early resistance is labelled ‘noise.’ Feedback arrives, but too late to shape the decision. What looked like hesitation was often a valid data point: not yet.”

Forced Momentum and Hindsight Clarity

When timing is misjudged, Curum observes that momentum is often artificially generated through pressure, budgets, and deadlines, rather than organic adoption. This forced momentum, he explains, inevitably fades once the external pressure is removed, leading to a subsequent loss of energy.

The aftermath, Curum points out, is a familiar refrain of hindsight clarity. Leaders may later acknowledge that the market wasn’t ready or that the idea was simply ahead of its time. However, Curum stresses that this realization, while true, is ultimately unhelpful.

“The real failure happened earlier, when a good idea was approved without asking whether it was the right time.”

According to Curum, the critical failure occurs not in the execution, but in the initial decision to greenlight a concept without a thorough assessment of its temporal viability.

Key Questions for Better Decision-Making

To combat this issue, Nick Curum suggests incorporating specific questions into the decision-making process. These questions are designed to probe the readiness of the organization and the market, rather than solely focusing on the merit of the idea itself.

Probing Questions for Decision Decks:

• What capability are we assuming already exists at scale?
• What feedback would tell us we are right, but early?
• Where is pull meant to come from, and do we have evidence of it?
• What would waiting 90 days change, other than the date?

Curum argues that vague answers to these questions should serve as a red flag, indicating that speed might be introducing unnecessary risk rather than mitigating it. He concludes that superior leadership involves not just making sound decisions, but also discerning the optimal moment to make them.