The Power of Small Wins

Disclaimer: This note is focused on getting work done during challenging times. Mental and physical health should always come first. That is a non-negotiable and people should be selfish about that. Being there for others, giving them space or helping them find resources they need are all more important than "the work".

There is a lot of research on the subject of motivation at work. An underlying theme, and one summarized in this HBR article titled The Power of Small Wins, is that "of all the things that can boost emotions and motivation during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work."

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on what meaningful work looks like given the gloom of "macro-economic trends", a term used too often lately. Candidly, it's been a struggle not only for me but for my team.

In Teresa Amibile and Steven Kramer's book The Progress Principle, they discuss how real progress triggers positive emotions like satisfaction, gladness, even joy. It leads to a sense of accomplishment and self-worth as well as positive views of the world and, sometimes, the organization.?Now don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be blindly optimistic or sugar coat things. But given these challenges, what can we do to make meaningful progress in our work in order to foster a sense of accomplishment...perhaps even joy!?

I worked at a learning consultancy for over 3 years. Everyone dreaded Q4 because inevitably it meant revenue pushes where salespeople rushed to meet their goal and the quality of our work sometimes suffered. Not unlike most businesses. However, as the leader of a Creative team, building quality experiences was paramount. So one Q4 we used this progress principle to create short term goals toward a larger one and it made all the difference.

We used cutout Grogus (aka Baby Yoda) that progressed down huge timelines on the wall. It was fun for the team (or at least me) and we crushed our goal with quality. On my current team we are doing the same but this time I'm calling it a “Strug Strategy”.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Kerri Strug, she was a US gymnast in 1996 who, in a very close race for the gold, injured her ankle on her first vault. Then in her heroic 2nd vault, she stuck the landing on one leg and the US won gold for the 1st time ever.

I feel like many people in our industry are a bit like Kerri Strug right now, pushing forward despite the odds. The STRUGgle is real ??. It is always easier to quit as Kerri could have done, but she finished strong.

Regardless of what the future holds for us, I want to "stick the landing". I want this for personal satisfaction and joy. A Strug Strategy is an evergreen concept that is particularly useful now. If you'd like to join us in this effort ask yourself the following questions:

1. What meaningful and realistic milestones can I/we achieve over the next ___ days?
2. Is this busy work or does it contribute to a larger, future goal?
3. What specific dates can I/we put against these milestones?
4. How will we share progress and celebrate wins along the way?

I expect everyone’s strategy will be different based on project goals, stakeholder capacity and intrinsic motivation. If done right it will help people come together, reduce rumination, and stay relatively positive despite all the distractions.

The goal here is progress not perfection. Throughout my career I've found the best work is done with this principle. Launching something at 80%, learning, then refining it is ok and especially helpful if you need to accelerate timelines in project work. We don't know what the outcome of all this will be but at least we (and Kerri) will be proud of what we've done.