Marginal gains is a voguish mantra for improving performance. Made famous by GB Cycling & Team Sky under David Brailsford it is a philosophy that has its roots in the Japanese manufacturing concept of Kaizen. A hundred things all done 1% better adds up to a lot of change and a lot of additional performance.
So far so simple but for many businesses and organisations what they need to notice and pay attention to in the first instance may not the marginal gains but the marginal subtractions. The grit in the machine the thousand tiny things that make your life and your job more difficult, more troublesome & less satisfying than it should be. Mohammed Ali once observed, ‘It’s not the mountains ahead to climb that will wear you out it: it’s the pebble in your shoe’. The reason so many businesses are average or awful is not because of some single critical issue, it’s because of a thousand tiny things that are meaningless in themselves but which in combination create a dramatic friction that constantly gets in the way and undermines the potential of the organization. A clogging bureaucracy seeking always to control rather than trust. Netflix is a good example of a company that is exceptionally careful of getting out of its own way as it grows. Its travel policy is a great example of simplicity and trust, ‘Act in Netflix best interest.’
As well as paying attention to what can be done better, leaders need also to be mindful and start noticing the grit. Once you see it you can start to do something about it, knowing that each grain removed counts.
Metris Leadership helps businesses build high performance teams, optimized for the challenges of the 21st Century because great teams provide standout competitive advantage.
The Legendary Basketball coach John Wooden[1], would begin each new season by sitting down his new players and demonstrating to them how they were to tie the laces on their shoes. Surely unnecessary? – These athletes had been playing the game for years. Wooden’s point, was that for many things…
Read more‘Clarity begins with realizing what we do not notice—and don’t notice that we don’t notice’. Sir Alex Ferguson the legendary former coach of football club Manchester United was quite clear in his leadership philosophy and approach to coaching that the ability to notice what was going on, to…
Read more‘Attitude is a small thing that makes a big difference.’ Winston Churchill There is an old story about a little girl walking past a building site. As she walks by, she asks in turn 3-workmen what they are doing? The first replies that he is laying bricks. The second…
Read more‘…a war begun for no purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was…
Read more