This is an idea that changed my life. Let me share it with you.
Have you ever heard the saying “big fish in a little pond?” It’s something people say when someone is the top competitor in a small field of competition. And it’s a very bad position to be in.
Let’s break down why. This is a synthesis of several ideas, so I’ll have to briefly summarize each one.
The first idea is a concept known to game designers of player plateaus. The idea is that players will eventually master the challenge you put before them – so you have to incrementally give them challenge after challenge that is just a step above the challenge you previously gave them. They know that if they don’t, players will get bored and stop playing their game. And they know that if they do, players will get a dopamine kick after they beat each challenge – and keep playing the game.
The second idea is borrowed from game theorists, who say that life is a never-ending series of games. There is no final “win state” for life – you just play game after game after game until you can’t play them anymore.
The third idea is from my previous post – “Victory is at the Margins” from a few weeks ago. If you haven’t read it feel free to check it out. The TL;DR; is that among high performers the margins of victory are usually very narrow.
Now let’s synthesize these ideas. We can draw some interesting conclusions.
First, if life is an endless series of games – winning or losing a single game doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. The only thing that would matter is the overall trend. You’re winning if you’re trending in the right direction.
For example, only 25% to 40% of the proposals I write end up resulting in a closed deal – that’s a 75% to 60% failure rate – but that’s been sufficient enough for Ignite Visibility to be an Inc 5000 company almost every year I’ve worked there.
Second, this means that our efforts are best when focused on “levers” that improve our chances to win across the entire set of games, and less effective when we focus our efforts on levers that improve our chances at a single game. That’s what this blog is about – I’m looking for those kinds of insights.
That’s also why all those old people told you you were wasting your life playing video games when you were a kid – because improving at those games typically doesn’t help you win games across the whole set. Nothing about the endless hours of Final Fantasy I played as a kid prepared me for any of the “games” I play in life.
Thirdly, victory at the margins comes in. Say for example we improve the quality of our decision making by 5%. That will increase our chances of winning nearly every game we play by 5% (which is why I read books on decision making). We know the margins of victory are often narrow! We still might lose a lot of games – but it would improve the overall trend. Especially if it compounds over years of our lives.
What does this have to do with your professional life and business?
Well, for starters, you shouldn’t evaluate your professional performance based on the outcome of a single game. You’ve got to place your performance into the greater context of the overall trend. Remember, you’re winning if you’re trending in the right direction. And when you’re leading a team, you’ve got to put your team members’ performance into the greater context as well. This means putting less emphasis on your team members’ mistakes, and more emphasis on the overall trend of their performance and growth.
When you do, it changes the way you manage your team. Say for example you have a team member whose close rate has dropped drastically over the last three months. We’ve seen the kinds of things that bad managers do in scenarios like this. But what if that team member has been a stellar performer for years prior to the recent drop? When you put the recent poor performance into the context of their overall performance trend, it’s going to change the way you approach that team member and the problem. This example is obvious to most people and quite commonplace – but you’re going to find yourself in less ubiquitous and obvious scenarios where that context matters.
In a case like that – you’d want to focus on restoring the trend, not firing the sales rep. They’re a good sales rep. You’d want to figure out what went wrong and fix it so you can get your good sales rep back – because finding good talent is painful and difficult. Make sense?
When you frame things this way, you begin to focus less on your team members’ specific mistakes, and more on improving and restoring their overall growth & performance trend. It’s a subtle shift in your approach but it makes a huge difference.
Key Takeaway
Don’t focus on individual outcomes – focus your efforts on applying leverage that improves the overall trend.
-Ordinary_Wylie
I know I’ve brought you on a wide tangent here, but it’s relevant. Now let’s circle back. What does this mean for someone who is a big fish in a little pond? What happens when you’re no longer challenged by the other fish in your small pond? When I coach team members I always try to leave them with something to chew on, so I’d like to invite you to tell me what you think in the comments. You should have plenty of gristle from my comments above.
Tell me your thoughts, I’m interested in what you think. Eventually, I’ll dive deeper into this topic.
The Digital Ordinary 