This is a topic that is very dear to my heart, and one that I mention all the time with clients.
Let me take you back a few years to the 2012 Olympics (it goes back a little bit before that, but that is when the topic started to be talked about widely). If you remember, the GB cycling team won EVERYTHING! (They didn’t, of course, but it felt that way). They were unstoppable – with tons of Gold Medals.
The story started to emerge of the theory of “The Aggregation of Marginal Gains”!
Put simply, lots of little changes add up to a big improvement. So in cycling terms, small changes to the bike frame, tyres, the athletes’ clothing, helmet, socks, diet, sleep patterns, training regimes, rest days – you get the picture.
And the thing was – if you got an extra few milliseconds per lap by changing tyre composition, then that would add up over a number of laps. If the rider could go a couple of milliseconds per lap faster by wearing a different helmet, by training in a certain way, by eating a certain diet – then all those milliseconds added up to a measurable improvement – and winning the race.
So we have – the aggregation – adding together – of marginal gains – small gains.
And so it is in business. We don’t have to make massive changes to see benefits. If we improve one process a small amount, if we save small amounts many times over, if we speed up our response time a little bit – whatever it is – those small changes all aggregate to give us an overall improvement.
So, yes, it’s daunting to think of all the things that need improving – (and everything should be regularly reviewed – I talked about that too!) – but if we do it in small manageable chunks we will still see measurable results! And seeing results spurs us on to do more.
Find your Olive
Here’s an example of small changes bringing big results – there is a story of American Airlines removing one single olive from each First Class salad – and saved $100K per annum (other reports say $40K – it’s still a lot of money!)
The caveat is – make sure that customer service doesn’t deteriorate – they won’t notice one olive – but they might notice more! But it might have kept the price down – so they benefited in the end.
Remember as well that everything you do should be run through the “how will this affect my customer” check – there is no point in improving internal processes if it makes life worse for customers. (and yes some companies do that – often at the behest of the CFO!) But even back office improvements can ultimately lead to better customer service – make sure you think about it though!
I’d love to hear what you think – and what small changes you can make which will bring BIG improvements.
Get in touch if you’d like to chat about how I can help.