“The future is always changing … in the largest of ways by the smallest of things”—PUSH, the movie.
What a great concept. It jives with Jim Collin’s notion in “Good to Great” of the flywheel – making modest changes in cycles over time to drive breakthrough performance.
I appreciate this as a way of thinking about a big opportunity or problem.
It gives us hope for making change happen and a way of breaking solutions into manageable pieces.
This is also a great way to break down resistance in projects. For example, one can suggest to resistors, “Can we try one cycle together?” and “Would you give it a try for a week and I will come back and we can talk about the results?” Sometimes the biggest hurdle is just getting started. This approach allows for small compromise to generate an authentic conversation around results.
The notion that a small change can have big results also speaks to direction – a modest directional change creates an increasingly different destination as the miles pass. Navigators have known the importance of this for hundreds of years – something we often forget in business.
The beauty of making small changes is the ability to increase accuracy – to create trial and learn scenarios, to experiment with innovation in pilots, and if the directional feedback is positive to adjust the main course.
Some change is dramatic and disruptive but not all change needs to to be. Small things can create large impacts.
Do a small thing today.
Related Posts:
- Breakthroughs in strategy
- Breakthrough innovation is “simplicity on the far side of complexity”. Post 1
- Breakthrough innovation is uncomfortable—Get through it. Post 2
- Honk if you love change. Quotes and resources on innovation
Change Whisperer by www.gailseverini.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Amen, Gail… Nice post!
Jim
Good job on elaborating that quote.