Small is underrated.
We rarely celebrate finishing 1 page in a book. We aren’t excited losing just 1kg. We don’t get the productivity crown by responding to 1 email.
And yet, small decisions can have big consequences.
Reflect on a decision that had big consequences and you’ll likely find that it was the product of a series of small (and at times seemingly inconsequential) decisions.
There are a lot of minors that can quickly become majors.
- A difficult conversation avoided.
- A misplaced decimal in an excel spreadsheet.
- A single step in a process ignored.
It’s not the majors that set remarkable leaders apart, it’s the minors over time. The way they handle the little things.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits has some great perspective on the minors:
“There is basically no difference between making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse. (In other words, it won’t impact you very much today.) But as time goes on, these small improvements or declines compound and you suddenly find a very big gap between people who make slightly better decisions on a daily basis and those who don’t.”
In the next few articles I’ll be taking a look at some leadership minors that are majors.
A question to reflect on in the meantime:
“What small decisions do you make on a daily basis by default?”
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