LSW#29 🎁 The Problem with Thinking Big & Outside the Box
…and the virtues of thinking small, & inside the box
Good advice, bad effects
When working with clients, a common pain point is overwhelm. What causes it? One culprit is the logical sounding advice of thinking big, or to think outside the box. While valid, they often cause inaction and overwhelm — the exact opposite of what they are intended to do.
What’s the antidote? A small wins strategy. I see them on a spectrum, or rather polarities. If thinking big, or outside the box paralyzes us, the solution is the opposite tact of thinking small and within the box itself.
But even here, misunderstanding abounds. For example, taking small steps and celebrating the small wins is commonly understood. That’s helpful, but a small wins strategy is nuanced, and goes much deeper.
For example, consider the following (dated but illustrative):
The Pittsburgh Steelers in the National Football League have won 88 games and lost 27 under their coach Chuck Noll (as of February 4, 1980). Those statistics become more interesting if they are partitioned on the basis of whether the Steelers were playing against teams with winning records or teams with losing records. Against opponents who won more than half of their games, the Steelers won 29 and lost 26, or slightly more than half of these games (53%). However, against opponents with winning percentages below .500, the Steelers' record was 59-1, meaning they won 98% of these games.
Thus a professional team renowned for its power got that way by consistently and frequently doing the easy stuff. The Steelers did not become great by winning the big one. Against tough opponents, they did no better than anyone else. These data suggest that winning teams distinguish themselves by more consistent behavior in games in which their skill advantage should make a difference, a condition that is part of the prototype for a small win. Thus, the best indication of good coaching may be the ability to induce consistent high performance against weak opponents rather than against strong opponents.
— Karl Weick in Small Wins
Thus, it’s not always about getting the hard things right, but rather getting the easy things consistently right. The determining variables, are often things that are well within our strengths and abilities, but that we don’t execute at the highest levels, or consistently enough.
Even the best become that way by getting the “easy” and “small” stuff consistently right for long stretches. Not necessarily the hard or big stuff.
Implications
Weick’s example has deeper implications that run counter to how we usually think. Let’s look at some of these.
🔸Where do you have a natural advantage? Regardless of what you think, you already have an advantage over others. What are the things you find easy that other’s find hard? What seems like play to you, what others find as “work”? What are things that people come to you for help? These can all point to your potential advantages. They often come from “who we are (traits, abilities, attributes), what we know(expertise, experience), and who we know(social networks)” .
🔸Advantages don’t have to be positives. Sometimes advantages come from constraints that can’t be overcome and have forced you to adapt, where others haven’t had to adjust. The key is to understand whether that constraint causes you to exert more, or if you’ve figured out a way to be more efficient.
Every limitation has its value, but a limitation that requires persistent effort entails a cost of too much energy. When, however, the limitation is a natural one (as, for example, the limitation by which water flows only downhill), it necessarily leads to success, for then it means a saving of energy. The energy that otherwise would be consumed in a vain struggle with the object is applied wholly to the benefit of the matter in hand, and success is assured.
— The I Ching
🔸Do you consistently leverage and execute on those advantages? Advantages on their own won’t help unless you execute consistently on them. Do you have systems in place that leverage your natural strengths? Do those systems enable you to play the game on your own terms?
🔸What are the small things, that if consistently done right, can make a difference? Most big achievements are an accumulation of a long series of small things done exceedingly well. In sports, these tend to be easier to identify and isolate. This is much harder to do in knowledge work, but is doable. Work on identifying those small things that can compound exponentially over time. The mistake here is to dismiss “ordinary things”. At work, it could be more effective emails, conversations, and relationships. At home, it could be getting the basics of sleep, nutrition, and exercise, consistently right.
None of these are “outside the box” or “thinking big”. But consistently executing them at the highest levels is not easy either. This is what leads us to go looking for a hack, or the latest fad. But the more removed they are from our normal routines, the harder it is to sustain them in the long-run.
🔸What are small things you are ALREADY doing right, but discounting? We are naturally wired to notice things that are NOT working. There was no evolutionary incentive for this. So, we have to train ourselves to notice aspects that are, in fact, working, often in spite of suboptimal conditions. This goes beyond the notions of gratitude, or being positive.
🔸Are you playing a game suited for your strengths? Otherwise it’s an uphill battle. Not all games are created equal. Certain jobs are better suited for some than others. Some companies, and teams, are a better fit for you compared to others. Environment plays an important, often invisible, role in your success. The mistake is ignoring it, or not accounting for it, in your approach.
🔸What quadrant are you operating in? In organizational setups, the spectrum of initiatives might look like below:
This notion is equally applicable at the individual levels as well. In my experience, our efforts tend to fall into the bottom quadrants — either we go for the big one, or don’t do enough. When we go for the big push, after initial gains, the effort becomes hard to sustain. In the other lower quadrant, because it doesn’t move the needle, we end up discouraged, and the process doesn’t build on itself.
In light of our discussion, what aspects do you need to change? What aspects need more attention?
Leader’s Library
✍️ Article
Weick’s 1984 paper on small wins is ridiculously loaded with insights, to the point where I had to do a deep dive into it. I cover many aspects, including:
How popular understanding of small wins is partial, and misunderstood
What makes them robust and adaptive compared to a big bets approach
Click below to go to the main article covering all aspects of a small wins strategy:
That does it for this week’s edition. Have a fantastic rest of the week.