Have you ever tried quitting cold
turkey? Did it work? Hardly, I think.
Some people believe that the only way
to achieve the results that they want is to do something big or drastic. Maybe to some that is true, but I think to
many people it may be overwhelming and so they may end up not doing anything at
all.
I think small changes are easier to
achieve. And when I achieve something,
no matter how small, it makes me feel good.
It increases my self-esteem and confidence to try to make more changes
to keep improving myself or get closer to my objective. I think this is also true with many other
people.
When managers apply this principle in
managing people they set small goals for beginners. Then as the initial goals are achieved, the
next goals are set up a little higher than would normally be expected. It is called stretched goals and the process
of adding up a little bit more to the goal every time continues from one goal
to another. This often results in an
individual undergoing change attaining higher performance and
productivity. This effect can become
cumulative. It encourages the individual
to assume more responsibility and so creates in him or her greater
opportunities for achievement, growth and development.
Every small change made becomes a
bigger one later because of compounding.
This could be illustrated by the compounding interest of a bank
deposit. Let us assume that the interest
rate for money deposited in a bank is ten percent annually. A P1,000 that has been kept in the bank for a
year would be P1,100 at the end of the year.
By the end of the second year, assuming that the money was not
withdrawn, the amount would be P1,210.
On the third year the amount would be P1,331. The amount earned as the years go by
accelerates and by the eight year the deposit would have doubled in size.
Let me tell you the story that will
illustrate further how some small changes make the biggest differences. Mauricio Estrella1 was one
depressed person due to his recent divorce. Then one day, not long after his
divorce, the message on his computer screen read: “Your password has expired. Click ‘Change password’ to change your
password.”
As the
story goes, what annoyed him was the fact that the change calls for the use of
at least “one UPPERCASE character, at least one lowercase alphabetic character,
at least one symbol, at least one number and it can’t
be less than 8 characters.” And he can’t use the same password he had used
in the past.
According
to his story, he was furious because he was late going to work that day and had
to finish a lot of other work before the 10:00 am meeting and he thought that the
message in front of him was requiring unnecessary work and a huge waste of his
time.
And it
will be a password that he has to re-enter many times a day every day.
He said
that as he let go of his frustration he remembered someone who used his
password to remind himself of things that has to be done. He thought he could use a variation of the
same idea and use his password to remind himself of what he needs to do to take
control of his life again. He wrote in his article, “My password became the
indicator. My password reminded me that I shouldn’t let myself be a victim of
my recent break up…”
His new password: “Forgive@h3r”
That small change has shifted the
attitude of Mauricio and led him to accept the way things happened to his
marriage and led him to a new way of dealing with his depression. That small change encouraged him to make
other changes in the way he lived so that every time he was asked to change his
password he typed in something that he wanted to have or achieve in his life.
Mauricio’s story is a good example of
how small changes make the biggest differences. As the saying goes, the journey
of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
There are also some small changes that
make significant negative results.
It was Thursday, 14 August 2003. It was a hot day in the Northeastern and
Midwestern part of the United States2. The hot temperature increased energy demand
as people turned on their air conditioning. This caused the power lines to sag as higher currents heated the lines. After a while, a generating plant in a distant
rural setting went offline amid high electrical demand. As the story went, their power lines heated,
it sagged and came in contact with "overgrown trees" putting a strain
on high-voltage power lines which later on tripped to prevent damage.
This trip caused load to transfer to other transmission lines but the
other transmission lines were not able to bear the load, tripping their relays.
The cascading effect resulted ultimately to a forced the shutdown of more than
100 power plants causing a blackout in the Northeastern and Midwestern part of
the United States.
In February 2004, when the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force released their final
report, one of their findings was the failure "to manage adequately tree growth in
its transmission rights-of-way."
A tree somewhere in the suburbs was growing underneath the power
line. It was a small oversight that a
small tree could be growing. That small oversight brought a big portion of the
United States into a standstill.
A seemingly inconsequential event or action can have drastic and
long-term effect. Consider the following
situation:
a. A short-term budget cut, especially in RND or advertising, could have
long-term consequences in terms of the organization’s competitiveness.
b.
A spark or a carelessly thrown cigarette butt can cause a forest fire that
could burn for days and affect neighboring countries.
c.
A rolling snowball on a slope filled with snow can cause an avalanche.
d.
A neutron can create a chain reaction that leads to an explosion.
e. A minor car accident during the
rush hours can cause traffic jams that angers drivers, creates frustrations,
triggers road rage, results into more accidents and other unintended results. (Some of the unintended result of traffic
jams could be the growth of telecommuting, flexible working hours and online
shopping.)
In a highly networked system, like we
have today, a small change can make significant negative results. The collapse
of the Thai Baht in 19973 is a good example. It led to a wave of currency depreciation and
stock market declines in Asia resulting into widespread bankruptcies in the
region.
The Thai economy was doing very well up
into the early 90s. By the middle of the
90s the Yuan and Yen devalued, China’s economy grew and started competing with
Thailand exports, the US raised interest rates strengthening the US dollar, and
the price of semiconductor dropped thereby slashing Thailand overseas earnings. As a result, more and more people wanted to
sell Baht to buy US dollars.
The report said that “The reason this was a collapse rather
than a slow decline was that the Thai government wouldn´t allow the exchange
rates to change - they had pegged the Baht to the US dollar, and it was only to
buy and sell at that rate.”
Because of that policy, the Thai
government used up its reserves of foreign currencies to try to manipulate the
market but it did not have enough reserves to meet the needs of the sellers. “They
were forced to remove the peg.... and the currency immediately crashed as the
fact that the exchange rate had been held artificially high for months became
apparent.”
The crash of the Thai Baht rippled
through the Asian region. It created a lot
of bankruptcies and affected the region in a big way.
This brings to mind the often quoted
butterfly effect4: “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in
Texas?” It means a small change in a complex system could have large but unpredictable
results elsewhere. However, the theory
also suggests that certain conditions must exist to amplify the change. I think
in the case of the Asian economic crisis in 1997, the economic imbalances in
each of the country were the condition that amplified the crash of the Thai
Baht.
So, there are no excuses.
Whatever it is that you want in life,
you can start right now by the taking the first few and little steps. Maybe you
would like to start with your career.
You can go to the office a little bit earlier. It is one way to beat the traffic and reach
your destination much faster than usual.
That will save you some time. It
will give you some extra time to read materials that had been waiting to be
read but never had the time to do so.
And as you continue to read, the knowledge gained in earlier reading
could give you better understanding on materials read later. Your knowledge about certain topics
accumulates. And because of your
accumulated knowledge you could become a more useful source of information for
your peers and your subordinates and a valuable contributor to the achievement
of the goals of your organization.
Consequently, having changed the time
in going to the office you would have also felt a sense of control in making
change. This could encourage you to make
other small changes in the way you work and live. And
before you know it, your life and career would have tremendously improved.
Do it.
References:
1. “How a Password Changed My Life”; The
Lighthouse, Mauricio Estrella,
May 15, 2014
2. “Northeast Blackout of 2003”,
Wikipedia
3. “Why Did the Baht Collapse in the Summer
of 1997?” Mark Harrison
4. “Butterfly Effect”, Wikipedia
