100 Things...1% Better

Why do some startups win? They do one hundred things, one percent better.

Breakthrough Ideas are Rare

If you're in a competitive sport, or a competitive business, the chances of coming up with one breakthrough idea which is going to be the real deal breaker is slim. It can happen - but it's quite slim.

If you can't find that magical thing, but you actually look at everything you do, and say to yourself 'we're just going to do everything a little bit better than anybody else', and then you keep doing that, it adds up to many 'marginal gains' – it’s no different that discovering that magical thing, because you are gaining miles with just marginal gains',

Marginal Successes

Doing 'a hundred things one per cent better', means that you're looking at everything - everything. It's amazing the results you can achieve, if you just start. The key to marginal successes is that it's not just one individual who is involved, but every employee right up to the leadership. The whole team must be thinking about marginal gains on 100's of things every day.

Those marginal 1% things can be simple improvements. For example; when a customer walks into your reception, what happens, and what can you do that's going to make that experience just a little bit better? When they walk into your reception, how can you make that better than when they walk into someone else's reception?

You don't have to spend lots of money on these 1% gains, because they are just little bits and pieces which you do one per cent better, and then one per cent better again and again. All of those incremental actions add up to breakthrough actions.

Start Doing 100 Things 1% Better

By Doing 100 Things 1% Better, you will stop looking back and saying 'we didn't win this' or 'we didn't became this, just because of one not discovering one breakthrough action.

Resources

• Watch Clive Woodward, Rugby World Cup Winning Head Coach explain;Doing 100 Things, 1% Better

Author

The author of this page is Gerard Danford