photo credit: AndyCunningham
Continuing on from my last post (Great customer service and experience is a lot about listening and then doing the things that you are not asked to do), I read two books whilst away. One of which was Mark Cavendish’s autobiography: Boy Racer. In it there is a quote from Dave Brailsford which talked about:
“The Aggregation of Marginal Gains”
and how that was central to Team GB’s success on the track and the road.
Brailsford goes onto to explain more on the Team Sky Pro Cycling website:
“We’ve got this saying, ‘performance by the aggregation of marginal gains,'” Brailsford continued. “It means taking the 1% from everything you do; finding a 1% margin for improvement in everything you do. That’s what we try to do from the mechanics upwards.
“If a mechanic sticks a tyre on, and someone comes along and says it could be done better, it’s not an insult – it’s because we are always striving for improvement, for those 1% gains, in absolutely every single thing we do.”
Improvements in many areas can add up to a whole heap of difference rather than focusing on one killer thing.
The thing that struck me was how the same thing could be applied to business performance, change, service or other areas of business.
Like success in cycling, Wow! or delightful service is generally not one thing but a combination and aggregation of a whole series of marginal gains.
Where are you going to take 1% from first?
