In the corporate world, we’ve been brainwashed to believe that big means slow. We accept that launching a new product should take three years, involve 500 meetings, and require a signature from every executive who has an office with a window.
But Kraft Heinz just proved that the standard way of working is actually a slow-motion car crash. By redesigning their entire approach to work, they didn’t just tweak their speed; they shattered it, cutting product cycles from 36 months to just six. The controversial truth? Most companies aren’t slow because they lack talent; they’re slow because they’re addicted to the illusion of being busy. Here is how Carolina Wosiack, Kraft Heinz’s head of agile transformation, stopped the madness and fixed a broken system.
1. The Death of the To-Do List
Most managers think that the more projects a team has, the more productive they are. This is a lie. Kraft Heinz found teams juggling 20 different projects at once, which resulted in a massive task-switching tax where nothing actually got finished.
They implemented a Golden Number: Seven. If you have 20 priorities, you have zero priorities. Strategy isn’t about what you’re doing; it’s about having the guts to say no to the other 13 things. They are locked in one single backlog tied to actual money, ending the era of disconnected plans and “phantom” projects that go nowhere.
2. Kill the Approval Chain
We’ve all been there: a project is ready to go, but it spends three months sitting in an inbox waiting for a VP’s signature. Kraft Heinz realized that hierarchy is the ultimate bottleneck.
In their Canadian pilot, they did something radical: they removed hierarchical approvals. Instead of endless sign-offs, teams shifted to quarterly check-ins with just two or three people. They gave the decision rights back to the people actually doing the work. If you want to move 5x faster, you have to stop treating your experts like interns who need permission to breathe.
3. Stop Being the Answer Person
One of the hardest shifts for leaders is the move from commander to coach. Wosiack’s new standard response to questions from her team is a simple, uncomfortable phrase: I know you know the answer.
By refusing to provide the solutions, she forced the system to fix itself. When leaders stop fixing everything, teams start owning everything. The result in Brazil? A new pasta sauce launched in six months instead of three years. Meetings dropped by 31%, while employee happiness soared by 55%.
4. Fix the System Before It Breaks the People
The most dangerous moment in a company is when the people are ready to move faster than the bureaucracy allows. Wosiack argues that the system itself is usually the problem. If your team is frustrated, it’s likely because they are trying to run a marathon while the company’s processes are tying their shoelaces together.You don’t force change; you create a result so undeniable that other departments beg for it. That’s Pull, don’t Push management.Speed isn’t about working more hours; it’s about doing fewer things, trusting your people, and murdering the approval loop. If Kraft Heinz,a massive global food giant,can launch a product in six months, what’s your excuse for that 18-month pilot project?
