I used to work in an Engineering setup and one of the common sayings whenever we faced some big audacious target was the ‘quick win.’ Let’s assume we wanted to slash down our energy usage numbers, a cross-functional team would be called forward and different sections would come up with possible solutions to reducing this usage. The next step would be for the teams to be told to pick the ‘quick wins.’ Basically, the thing that you could do right now and see an immediate improvement.
Indeed, the quick wins would always deliver those quick improvements. Immediately sections would report reduced energy usage. And that would happen for like two weeks only for the energy usage to out of the roof in no time. But there were always the elephants in the room, the actual things that would really trim that energy usage. These things required more thought, more energy, more time, and probably more resources. As a result, they were kept on the backburner, and no one ever dived in to see how to bring them from ideation to reality. Also, because they were quite out into the future, they were the kind I would call ‘slow and steady’ things. The things that move the needle.
Now many years later, as I reflect, I realize that those that were bold to tackle the slow and steady things ended up creating sustainable results. I have taken this rule in life and taken it seriously. You can abstract this to other areas of life. Watch the snail making the movement. It always gets to its goal. You underestimate Slow and Steady at your own risk. Quick is never fast. Why? Because quick is also erratic. Quick doesn’t enable you to understand how your system works, how the inputs combine to create the outputs. Quick is akin to guesswork. You touch a few things here and there and somehow get the results you wanted. Only to be shocked by contrary results a few weeks down the road.
Jeff Bezoz talks of betting on the things that don’t change. I should say when it comes to building sustainable systems, beat on those systems that are slow and steady. They get to the finishing line. System interventions should be thought of as marathons, not sprints. Sadly, many managers and business leaders have become obsessed with the target that they never bring about sustainable change. Of course, it’s also because they are given targets, and their time is short bound. Every manager keeps postponing the big problem to the next manager that comes into the office. As a result, organizations are missing out on the transformational opportunities. There is change, but not transformational change.
How do we transform organizations? It’s through these slow and steady, focused improvements. It’s by addressing the root cause of the problem. We can treat symptoms, and another business leader comes in to do the same. Or we can be bold and tackle the root causes. The two roads are open. But experience has proved that it’s the Slow and Steady that is fast in the long-term.