“When making plans, think big. When making progress, think small,“ said New York-Times Bestselling Author James Clear.
Leaders face difficult challenges all the time. It’s normal. But Exemplary leaders are able to move pass the fog and create warmth within their team. They overcome those challenges, get people to move into a new direction, break old mindsets, and change existing behaviour patterns to tackle big problems and meet extraordinary performance. But how?
"One hop at a Time."
Don Bennet, the first amputee to climb Mount Rainier, recollects his moment for preparation. Mount Rainier is 14,410 feet high, and for Don, that is climbing with only one leg and two crutches. In his first attempt, a windstorm nearly blew him off the mountain, so he turned back from the summit. However, he was not discouraged. For one year, he mentally and physically prepared himself to climb again. On his second attempt, he planted the flag at the top of the mountain after five days of rigorous climbing.
When asked how he did it with only one leg, he replied “One hop at a time. I imagined myself on top of that mountain one thousand times a day. But when I started to climb it, I just said to myself ‘Anybody can hop from here to there’ and I would.”
So how do leaders generate small wins? They do exactly what Don did: “One hop at a time.” You make progress incrementally; breaking the long journey into mile stones.
What are Small Wins?
A small win can be described as “a concrete, complete, implemented outcome of moderated importance.” Small wins create a consistent pattern of winning that attracts people who want to join the path of a successful venture.
Planting one tree won’t stop global warming, but one million trees will; and it’s the first tree that gets the ball rolling. Small wins are the commencement of the place to begin.
Alex, a project manager at a construction firm, focused on small wins when transforming the way the firm does business with its customers. Since they had been so focused on small gains, they didn’t really feel that they were challenging the process since it was uncomplicated. If they had demanded their team to make a huge leap, then the team may have felt overwhelmed and lost, unsure of what was important and what was expected from them. At the same time, the project would have carried extremely high financial risk in an uncertain economy. Taking the path of small wins would ensure that everybody was on the same page and caught-up on what was expected and important.
Final Thoughts
As these two stories recount those moments of small wins, it is important in goal-setting that we don’t take huge leaps; otherwise there will be a lack of motivation. The leadership trait that is demonstrated in building small gains is competency, as team members want to see their leader challenging and climbing the mountain. Challenging the process is like life. A baby is born, and they crawl; hoping to learn the art of walking. Once they reach childhood, they are jubilant, running and walking in all directions. At adolescence, they know how to walk but are finding their direction. At adulthood, they are walking towards the direction they want to go towards. To succeed, you must begin with baby steps then progress. Otherwise, your plan will become disordered and complicated.
Note: All knowledge and ideas are attained from the book"The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations 5th Edition". This blog summarizes the content from the book, but may unintentionally contain the same wording.
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