Tag Archives: Higher performance

The advantages of small thinking.

Big thinking has its place. But so does small thinking. It has many advantages: – less intimidating - more people can contribute their ideas - faster - less risk - drives progress towards a bigger goal - can be taught - easier to copy, learn or adapt what others are doing - can lead to higher performance of any group or team Small thinking has helped me to see ideas everywhere. A book store for example places markers in all of the books they sell. A beautiful, small idea to constantly ... Read more

What small thing went well today?

Dr. Martin Seligman, father of the Positive Psychology movement, suggests that we can feel better by making small changes in our life. He suggests for example that we write down each day 3 things that went well. They don’t have to be big. Just 3 things that went well today (e.g. I finished a proposal today). This simple, small exercise (he has proven) can lead to a happier and more fulfilling life. As he explains: ‘We think too much about what goes wrong and not enough about ... Read more

It’s the small, everyday leadership actions that make the real difference

Leadership and the Butterfly Effect: The term ‘butterfly effect’ was first coined by Edward Norton Lorenz (23 May 1917 – 16 April 2008). Lorenz was an American mathematician and meteorologist and a pioneer of chaos theory. The butterfly effect, according to Wikepedia is: In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependency on initial conditions in which a small change at one place in a deterministic in a nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later ... Read more

What is your 1% goal in the next 30 days?

Here is a great way to start the small wins innovation process. Select one aspect of your life. e.g. making more new business calls If you are a leader select a team goal e.g. starting meetings on time Now try and improve upon it by 1% in the next 30 days. The small wins innovation process is an ideal way for you to achieve this (i.e. create, test, measure, learn & share). In the next 30 days select another 1% goal. Encourage others to do the same. Create a 1% movement in your ... Read more

It’s the 100 small things that make Amazon a success

Question for leaders — Is it harder to copy one big thing or 100 little things done extremely well? This is such a great question. I have just purchased a book through Amazon. The process was easy — I was a returning customer so I just needed a password. I then received some helpful suggestions based on my previous behaviour: – Recommendations Based on Your Order - Related to Items You’ve Viewed Then I received a confirmation order notice. All done in moments! None ... Read more

Achieving any big goal starts with a series of small wins.

One of my favourite exercises in my small wins innovation workshops is to encourage leadership groups or teams to outline the steps involved in obtaining a driving license. Think about it. It takes 120 hours of driving and a minimum of 12 months (in Australia), with an experienced driver. Notice how each skill or step then builds to another e.g. turning then reversing. It is the same with achieving any big goal. The more you can break it down to a series of small steps the more achievable ... Read more

Here’s how to make your values come alive

I met a cool web design company and in the foyer was their values. I loved the language and simplicity of their approach. No corporate BS statements here — just an authentic and creative expression of their values. Read more