The Surprising Power of Stopping to Begin Again
The longer you work at improving something –
the fewer improvements you make.
Gold Medal swimmers work unending hours shaving hundredths of seconds off their time. Not so, when they began swimming.
Improvement – at the beginning – is quick and easy;
excellence – over the long haul – is slow and hard.
Large organizations may have time and resources to grind for that last hundredth of second but medium and small businesses don’t.
Begin frequently:
Spend time beginning – move on – then begin again.
For example, you’re working on streamlining customer service. Make a few obvious improvements, stabilize those improvements and move on. Go to another challenge with the idea you’ll go back to improve customer service in a few weeks or months.
Excellence is a process not a destination.
Pursuit of excellence calendar:
- Stop wasting time on low impact activities, time is too precious.
- Grab low hanging fruit. Identify high potential areas for improvement; perhaps current pain points, emerging opportunities, or process improvements.
- Create an excellence-rotation calendar. January is customer service month and February is internal operations month, for example.
- Identify goals that move you toward excellence. Answer every call within three rings, for example.
- Determine and implement behaviors, processes, procedures, and technologies that achieve your goals.
- Work on it for a designated time. Urgency suggests shorter timelines are better than long.
- Evaluate, stabilize, and systematize improvements.
- Move to your next opportunity. Accept progress – reject the need for perfection.
- Return in a few weeks or months to evaluate and improve again.
Large organizations move forward on many fronts, simultaneously. “Stopping to begin again” enables smaller organizations to pursue excellence on many fronts, just not at the same time.
What modifications or additions can you make to these suggestions?
I really like the concept of improve and then allow time to stabilize. So often we run from fix this to fix that and then fix the other thing. By the time we get to fix the other thing the ‘fix this’ is broken again. I am going to have to think about how to make a few of these suggestions actionable for me. Great post.
I like that, too. Half the time systemic effects aren’t even fully understood before another tweak hits. And some of the worst ongoing tweaks I’ve seen are team tweaks by managers who don’t get that every time they add or remove a team member, they reset the team dynamic so it has to reform and re-align before momentum is achieved again. Meanwhile, they are expecting the “smart” change they made to achieve immediate positive return. 🙂
Mark,
I hadn’t thought of this in terms of teams but it makes perfect sense. The standard… forming-storming-norming-performing pattern applies. As soon as team dynamics/members change the process starts again…
Thanks for sharing your insights.
Dan
Eileen,
Thanks for the good word.
One of the suggestions I make to folks who are fixing things is create a simple system or assign a champion who watches over the most recent “fix” to be sure it doesn’t get lost or people don’t slip back into old habits.
Best,
Dan
Hi Dan,
What you write about is so true!
There’s another component, to this, too, I think, and that is how much true desire is in the equation. If the desire is high, and connected, the hard work isn’t as hard, and might even have fun aspects.
If the desire is not so high and connected, but is compliance with an ideal or rule-set or equation that we aren’t emotionally invested in, the tweaking and honing and tuning is arduous and tedious and leaves us drained.
So, I as an elaboration to your number 1, I’d say the question is always looming: “What is the time/resource/dollar/emotional cost/benefit ratio of continuing this tuning past the current level of excellence/impact?” Notice I include an emotional cost/benefit often left out, but probably critical to engagement and excellence over time.
~M
Hi Mark,
Thanks for adding your inisights. ROI is an important to determining where to find the biggest bang for the buck… or ROE or ROR (resources)
Best,
Dan
Thank you for this great post and excellent ideas. Our office is going through changes right now and I am going to take this advice to heart. Too many things need to change but taking them all on at once will ensure failure and frustration. I like the idea of tackling things one month at a time. Enjoy your weekend Dan!
Hi Tina,
First, thanks for being a regular contributor…
One thought I didn’t include in the post is perhaps just chose something to work on but don’t make a calendar just set a meeting to evaluate progress and choose the next area at that time. With this approach you don’t feel locked in and can adjust to the current context.
Best,
Dan
Hello, Dan. Always like your thought provoking powerful post. I am learning much. M
Just one little puzzle – your point no 8. Isn’t perfect denotes excellent? May be you mean to take the long path in pursuit?
Thanking in advance for your guidance.
Hi Juddy,
I wrote “reject the need for perfection” in the context of being satisfied with progress as long as we come back to make progress again. If we hang on to the need for perfection we keep working away at the same thing…
I’m all for excellence as long as its a pursuit.
Hope that helps,
Dan
Thank you for this post! This is great and a great way to start the weekend! Improvements do come by making goals and changing habits.
Cheers!!! thanks for the good word
I’m so glad to see your recommendation that organizations pause to let things stabilize. constant change is easy too hard to sustain and can demoralize the staff. Thanks for the great insights.
Hi Carol,
The “change curve” indicates that change is followed by a dip. We learn to reorient and then things get better. A change in a procedure takes time to become productive… perhaps it’s training…perhaps its relearning old patterns…
Thanks for sharing your thoughts,
Dan
No doubt it’s correct what has been mentioned in an article, it’s interest, dedication / concentration leads to productivity. However, if redo must need to be done then formulation of methodological approaches plays a pivotal role to create an impactable productivity.
Muhammad Naeem Ul Fateh, PhD
Extraordinary…a remarkable & satisfying article.
I really liked #8 point- recognizing opportunities and learning to accept imperfection. Knowing when to move on is key.
True, when a person accept mistake and for that a high end morality is required which world is in great lack. However in this way perfection in anything is possible and always there is an opportunity to improve.
Muhammad Naeem Ul Fateh, PhD