"Scale immediately or fail slowly. There is no middle ground."- Futurist Jim Carroll
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Futurist Jim Carroll is writing his end-of-2025 / introduction-to-2026 series, 26 Principles for 2026. You can follow along at 2026.jimcarroll.com. He welcomes your comments.
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We are on Day 15!
You’ve listened to the edge (Day 13) and filtered out the hype to find a real structural signal (Day 14).
You have identified a real trend!
Now, you face the moment where most legacy organizations fail.
People often talk about something called "pilot purgatory," and the fact that people and organizations get stuck there. It's the tendency to test or trial a new idea - and then get stuck there, never moving beyond the testing or 'pilot' phase. Yup, it's a form of purgatory!
Let's put the challenge in context. For years, I have advised leaders to follow a simple, powerful mantra for innovation in a fast world: Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast.
Most organizations are pretty good at the first two. They "think big" in strategy sessions. They "start small" with innovation labs and proofs-of-concept.
But they completely fail at the third and most critical step: scale fast. They end in a state of perpetual experimentation where they run dozens of small, safe tests that generate interesting things - but never make it out of the starting gate. And in doing so, they mistake motion for progress - they believe that the mere fact that they are testing a bunch of things means they are making progress.
They aren't.
Here's the problem - in a linear world, you could slowly roll out a new initiative over two or three years. You had the luxury of all the time in the world.
But in an exponential world, that doesn't work. You are surrounded by the problem of legacy - existing processes, IT systems, organizational sclerosis, and bureaucratic inertia designed to keep doing things the same way. That means to move fast, you need more effort than ever before - because in this new fast world, you need to move instantly from a "safe experiment" to "massive deployment."
The discipline to do that? Let's call it! Escape Velocity.
I have been covering the issue of velocity and scale for years. When I look back through my own archive of blog posts, keynotes, and Daily Inspirations, I see a clear pattern of organizations that understood how to achieve this momentum. But some did.
Learn what they did differently!
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**#EscapeVelocity** **#Scale** **#Innovation** **#Momentum** **#Exponential** **#Leadership** **#Legacy** **#Disruption** **#Speed** **#Deployment**
Futurist Jim Carroll has seen way too many organizations stuck in a state of perpetual pilot purgatory.
Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/12/decoding-tomorrow-mastering-2026-15-scale-immediately-or-fail-slowly-there-is-no-middle-ground/