# Jimism #004: The Acceleration Gap
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## Article Content
Change is no longer the problem. The problem is the growing gap between how fast the world changes and how fast an organization can respond to it. I call it The Acceleration Gap. Technology accelerates. Customer expectations accelerate. Competitors accelerate. Risk accelerates. But inside many organizations, decisions still move through meetings, committees, reviews, approvals and planning cycles designed for a much slower world. That's where the danger lives. Not in the change itself. In the delay. A cyber threat develops in minutes, but the response requires three levels of approval. A new competitor appears almost overnight, but the strategic planning process runs annually. An AI capability changes what is possible this month, but the organization won't revisit its assumptions until next year's budget. Three things leaders should think about: Measure decision latency. How long does it take you to recognize something important, decide what it means, and act?Shorten the sensing cycle. You can't respond quickly to something you discover late.Push decisions closer to the information. Speed disappears when every decision has to travel up and down the organization. The biggest organizations don't necessarily lose because they lack ideas, capital or talent. Sometimes they lose because the world moved while they were still deciding what to do. The gap between change and response is becoming one of the most important measures of organizational risk. Close the gap. jimisms.jimcarroll.com

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Source: https://jimcarroll.com/2026/09/jimism-004-the-acceleration-gap/