Big ideas are great and get a lot of publicity but so often are a triumph of form over content. Constant small change on the other hand can be very effective and that’s why it’s important to sweat the small stuff.
Finance is often accused of holding things back because there is no budget or we tell ourselves we cannot do something because we do not have the resources in terms of skilled people of equipment etc. etc. etc.
Sweating the small stuff is a great solution to the problem. Look for those things that have a much greater positive effect than their cost.
This truth was emphasised by Rory Sutherland in his TED talk “Sweat The Small Stuff.” Here he points out that the influence on someone almost always works on the basis of the fact that influence is in inverse proportion to the amount of force applied. This, I feel applies to projects as well as people. The more you push the less likely the chance that the project or change will succeed.
Organisations and individuals feel that they cannot bring about big change without big projects and huge budgets. Take the NHS as an example. The answer to the problem is always we need to spend more, recruit more and do big root and branch studies and reorganisations. Big ideas with big budgets. Politicians are the worst here but poor managers are not far behind. None of them would ever have the guts to say “I don’t have any new big ideas that will cost a fortune and take years to implement but I do know of lots of little ways we can improve things quickly and cheaply.”
Effective leaders understand the above and don’t look for the big idea, they look to sweat the small stuff. This has three major advantages. Small stuff is quick to implement, doesn’t costs a lot and done well has an impact way beyond the cost and effort. It also means that if the idea is to fail then it fails quickly and cheaply.
It’s well worth watching this Ted talk for some really great examples of how sweating small things can make huge differences https://youtu.be/dkLcwHmnPV4
At the end of this talk Rory proposes we should spend our time looking for those things which have a huge effect but cost very little. They should be the responsibility of the Chief Detail Officer – someone with little or no budget but responsibility for the small stuff and every organisation should have one.
I would argue it is better if we all took on this as part of our job description. We can implement this immediately in that we can all become our own Chief Detail Officer right now. No money is involved just a little time and we have looked at how we can generate this in previous blogs.
Just think how much change could be put in place if everyone in the organisation had one small idea a month or even a quarter that could make a big difference. How many times have we had to put up with something because there is no time or money to get it changed? Sweating the small stuff solves this and gets things done.
Forget the big stuff, look at the detail. It won’t make headlines but you know it makes sense.
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