Getting One Percent Better

Having explored the growth mindset, how to make failure your friend, and celebrate the pivot, Jared now discusses how improving just by one percent over time can build tremendous improvements in yourself and a team. 

Improving ourselves just a little bit at a time can have a huge return. Getting better by merely one percent will build to tremendous improvements. That little improvement over time will make the difference in your level of success and achievement. 

Using aggregate marginal gains for success

The principle of “aggregate marginal gains” is the belief that if you improve by just one percent consistently, that those small gains will add up to remarkable improvement.

We see this at work everywhere in our lives. Saving small amounts over time can build tremendous sums with the power of compound interest. Beginning a regular and consistent physical exercise routine will yield big gains over time — again, if followed consistently.

As we apply the principle consistently — we at first will see gradual results and then can see dramatic growth and improvement. Unfortunately, the same is true in the negative — if we consistently make choices that make us one percent less, we will also see similar results over time. 

Big change and improvement is achieved by small steps — but always with a grander vision and goal in mind.

How to reach your big goals?

Aggregating marginal gains can help us achieve our lofty goals. A prime example is the coaching and leadership of Sir Dave Brailsford, the British Olympic and Team Sky cycling coach. Brailsford believed in the principle and explained it to his cycling team as “the one percent margin for improvement in everything you do.”

When Brailsford began with Team Sky in 2010, no British cyclist had ever won the Tour De France. However, Brailsford guaranteed that a British cyclist would win the Tour within five years. But it didn’t take anywhere near that long. In 2012 Sir Bradly Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the race. That same year, Brailsford applied his one percent approach to help the British Olympic cycling team win 70 percent of the gold medals available in the London Olympics. And since then, Team Sky has won the Tour de France several more times. 

Applying the principle in everyday work

The truth is that our own development as leaders, our success in business, or any other noteworthy accomplishment is not an event, but the result of a process — a series of little events and choices over time. Success for Brailsford and his riders was the aggregate of the choices they made and actions they took to get just one percent better.

So how do we do it? We can start by:

1.     Setting a goal and making a plan to for what we’ll do daily.

2.     Creating a system of accountability that will help to remind us of the goal and hold us to it.

3.     Finding and building needed support in friends, co-workers or relatives who will provide what we need, and

4.     Establishing a system of follow up and measurement so we can see progress, even when it is just one percent at a time.

And guess what? Small daily improvements add up really fast. One percent compounded over time doubles in 72 days. After a year, you have over 37 times more.

Of course, getting better a little bit at a time is also not easy and you will fall short some days and even fail. Be easy on yourself when you do. Even when you are improving just a little at a time, give yourself permission to fail more than you think you will. You will not be perfect, but you can embrace and celebrate your pivot and keep improving just one percent at a time.