If you are anything like me, then you love a good story. Be it books, movies, or a tale from a stranger in the pub, stories invigorate and enrich our lives. The trouble with stories, is that they compress time. This is helpful as a way of cutting to the interesting bits but can easily leave us thinking that life should mimic art — one moment I am looking at myself in the mirror wearing my first school uniform, next moment I am graduating from college.
This is particularly the case when it comes to improving a situation. Be it trimming my waistline after Christmas, completing a degree, progressing my career, or just getting this week's column written, it is tempting to pursue or expect dramatic changes — felling the problem with a single swing of our metaphorical sword. When we cannot do this, it can feel a lot like failure; it can be demotivating; it can see us avoiding the attempt because change is hard. Yet by taking an incremental mindset to the problem, we can deliver change far more rapidly than it at first seems. This is why it is sage advice to observe: day by day nothing seems to change, but when we look back, everything is different.
The 1% Improvements
People often overestimate what they can accomplish in one year. But they greatly underestimate what they could accomplish in five years.
— Peter Drucker
If you look around your immediate circle of friends and colleagues, you will find an achiever. Perhaps they won't have won a Nobel Prize, or climbed Everest, but they will have done that thing you consider meaningful and worth doing. Something perhaps you wish you could achieve but have not. A common phenomenon is to look for attributes we think will have contributed to their success. Perhaps, we straight out ask them: "what is the secret to your success?"
This approach is particularly prevalent in leadership circles with countless books dedicated to the habits of highly effective people. These habits can range from something as simple as drinking a large glass of cold water first thing in the morning to trying to achieve something as complex as eliminating weaknesses in the human condition. But at their core, all habits or 'hacks' share the same principle: to enable us to be more than we currently are. This concept of continual self-improvement is often best known in corporate circles as the habit of 'Sharpen the saw', which featured in Stephen R. Covey's 1989 book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. But, it is a concept which has its management roots in the post World War II reconstruction of Japan during which Kaizen (改善), or continuous improvement, became the key to industrial success.
The 'small step' or 'incremental' approach was spearheaded by the American Training Within Industry (TWI) program, which was brought to Japan through the work of Homer Sarasohn, Charles Protzman, Edgar McVoy, Lowell Mellen, and W. Edwards Deming. Dr Deming was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure by Emperor Shōwa (昭和天皇) — better known as Hirohito (裕仁) — for the pioneering, introduction, and implementation of Kaizen in Japan.
The timing of this process reform is essential to understanding why it was developed. During and following the war, people and materials were often in short supply, making large scale changes impractical or impossible. While the lives of us fortunate enough to live in places like present day Sydney, London, New York, or Tokyo are in no way comparable to the lives of post war Europe or Asia, we are experiencing shortages— often considerable ones (such as a 25% cut in project budgets). Be it on a personal level from the cost of living challenges brought about by inflation, or at a professional level with our organisation cutting budgets to conserve capital, most of us are not experiencing boom times. This necessitates that we find a path to success other than large scale investment. Something for which Kaizen or a 1% improvement approach is perfectly suited to deliver.
Yet there remains an essentially philosophical underpinning to the Kaizen approach which needs to be reiterated: we need to understand that key changes do not happen fast. An example of which is - the change to my waistline does not happen on day one of my New Year's resolution, it happens on day one hundred. It's cumulative.
This is where stepping outside of the digital and into the natural world is of tremendous benefit. At my keyboard, search results can pull exabytes of data into files in a matter of seconds. A process which teaches me nothing about incremental improvement, much less helps me to develop the patience necessary to persevere. Yet in looking at more analogue endeavours such as gardening, home DIY, or training in the gym, I am reminded there is no quick solution to the issue. A situation which means that unless I can make the journey as important as the destination, I am likely to flag and fail because I remain locked in a 'quick win' mindset.
This is where a 1% approach comes in. The mental model of looking for a small change in everything I do each time I do it. This process is not only cumulative, but also helps to ward off the depression that can come when we don't springboard from student dorm to a mansion house, are not promoted from intern to senior manager at our first review, or shed the weight we want at the first training session. But so long as we persist in making the 1% improvements, in time these things will come.
Here I will end it, even though there is much more to write on this topic. The reason for such an apparently abrupt end is the 1% principle. Delivering a small improvement each week in my column, rather than trying to answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything in one article. Though arguably that has already been done — 42.
Good night, and good luck.
Further Reading
Covey, S. R. (2020). The 7 habits of highly effective people: powerful lessons in personal change, Revised and updated edition ed., London: Simon & Schuster.
Liker, J. K. (2004). The Toyota way: 14 management principles from the world’s greatest manufacturer, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Marksberry, P. (2011). The Toyota Way – a quantitative approach. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, 2(2), 132–150.
