Small Wins: More Important Than Ever

Source: https://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/faculty/karl-weick

In the 1980s, the great social psychologist Karl Weick wrote a paper about the importance of small wins. Weick argued that some problems can be cognitively and emotionally overwhelming. In these cases, people may find it very difficult to make progress toward addressing the issue and achieving their goals. Weick advocated breaking down large, complex problems and goals into smaller, intermediate objectives. Pursuing a small wins strategy could then help people achieve their goals, but lowering stress, creating a powerful sense of accomplishment, and motivating people to continue working on a tough project. Here's an excerpt from that paper:

A small win is a concrete, complete, implemented outcome of moderate importance. By itself, one small win may seem unimportant. A series of wins at small but significant tasks, however, reveals a pattern that may attract allies, deter opponents, and lower resistance to subsequent proposals. Small wins are controllable opportunities that produce visible results.

The idea of small wins seems more important than ever right now, amidst the COVID-19 crisis.  It's easy to feel overwhelmed at times.  Thinking in terms of concrete small wins may help us work toward longer term, stretch goals as well as to tackle very challenging projects.  

Nick Saban and the Power of Small Wins

One more blog post about goal setting as the new year begins!  At this time of year, I always find it useful to reconsider Karl Weick's famous article about the power of small wins.   He wrote the article back in the 1980s, and it still resonates so powerfully today.  Here's an excerpt:

A small win is a concrete, complete, implemented outcome of moderate importance. By itself, one small win may seem unimportant. A series of wins at small but significant tasks, however, reveals a pattern that may attract allies, deter opponents, and lower resistance to subsequent proposals. Small wins are controllable opportunities that produce visible results... Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win. When a solution is put in place, the next solvable problem often becomes more visible. This occurs because new allies bring new solutions with them and old opponents change their habits. Additional resources also flow toward winners, which means that slightly larger wins can be attempted.

As you think now about setting ambitious goals for yourself and your organization, develop a "small wins" strategy as well. What are those near-term victories that you will achieve that will create a sense of accomplishment, persuade naysayers to support your efforts, and attract other allies?  

Source: www.theadvocate.com

Last night, the University of Alabama defeated Clemson in the college football semi-finals.  Alabama Coach Nick Saban will now have an opportunity to win sixth college football national championship. Saban understands the value of a small wins approach. Naturally, each season begins with the long term goal of winning another national title. However, he focuses on many small wins along the way, rather than dwelling on the big picture each day. He calls it "the process." Author Ryan Holiday describes how Saban addresses his team throughout the season: 

Don't think about winning the SEC Championship. Don't think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. That's the process: Let's think about what we can do today, the task at hand.

How To Think About Goals Over Time

Researchers have conducted some interesting new work on goal-setting and achievement.   Insights by Stanford Business summarizes the findings of research conducted by Szu-chi Huang, Liyin Jin,, and Ying Zhang:

New research by Szu-chi Huang, assistant professor of marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business, finds that while people benefit from concentrating on small “sub-goals” in the early stages of a pursuit, they should focus instead on the larger objective in the late stages. That notion could be important to any business that entices consumers and employees to set goals, whether as part of an incentive program or service offered.

“When you are just starting a pursuit, feeling reassured that it’s actually doable is important, and achieving a sub-goal increases that sense of attainability,” Huang says. But later, people are no longer concerned about attainment and need to feel that their actions continue to be worthwhile in order to maintain motivation.  “At that point, to avoid coasting and becoming distracted, they need to focus on that final goal to see value in their actions,” Huang says. 

The research appears very consistent with the work on small wins.  You need to have those sub-goals, because small wins are important during any transformation process or challenging task.  However, you need to have the broader vision as well.   This work adds nicely to our understanding of how small wins work by describing the important shift that has to happen over time from small sub-goals to broader objective.

The Progress Principle

In their new book, The Progress Principle, Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer argue that small wins can be a powerful driver of creativity, commitment, and productivity in the workplace. This HBS Working Knowledge feature summarizes the key idea in the book:

Of all the factors that induce creativity, productivity, collegiality, and commitment among employees, the single most important one is a sense of making progress on meaningful work.   Seemingly small signs of progress will induce huge positive effects on employees' psyches. On the other hand, seemingly small setbacks will induce huge negative effects.
  
Amabile and Kramer build on the seminal work of Karl Weick, who wrote a terrific article about the power of small wins back in the mid-1980s.  Weick argued that we can make progress on tough problems by breaking them down into smaller segments and adopting a small wins approach.   He explained that a small wins approach works because tough, complex, large problems can be cognitively overwhelming as well as stressful.   Small wins enable us to build momentum, show proof of concept, and build bridges with others who may have opposed us at the outset.