Celebrate Small Successes - Today's Successes

You know the sayings - you eat an elephant a bite at a time; a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Well, they're true - and we need to keep reminding ourselves of how true they are. Translating those sayings into our every day habits of thought can be difficult, particularly when faced with a BHAG - a Big Hairy Audacious Goal - but it's critical we do that.

Those daily successes are the basis for those BHAG's. Without the day to day successes, the BHAG's don't happen.

A client company I was working with were looking to save $2 million through cost reductions in a year - a lot of money for a $90 million a year enterprise - a BHAG. At the very first meeting of the team assigned to define how to save that money, one of the first proposals offered by the team had a value of $50,000 in real savings in the first year. The CFO responded by saying he was looking for real savings, not such small amounts! The CEO didn't respond to that comment. No further proposed cost savings were made by the team. The meeting ended.

In talking to the team they explained that all of the other cost savings they were going to propose were smaller than the $50, 000 proposal that had received such a negative response. Based on the CFO's input, they weren't willing to bring them up. I asked how many proposals they had defined and developed. They had nine solid proposals amounting to cost savings in the first year of $375,000 - almost 20% of the $2 million goal! Not exactly chicken feed!

We met with the CEO and the CFO and talked about expectations, team motivation, and how to get to $2 million in savings. The CEO and CFO were eager to get to $2 million fast, or they and/or the business would not survive. They had been disappointed when the team came up with a proposal for just $50,000. They had hoped for 10 times that amount. When they found out that the team had identified $375,000 in savings in a short time, their expectations changed. They were able to see the value in supporting a series of small - compared to original expectations, successes as the way to the BHAG. The team succeeded in meeting and exceeding the $2 million goal.

We need to see the big picture, but the big picture is composed of a lot of small pictures. Take the time to identify those small pictures and celebrate their achievement - it creates the energy and commitment and passion to press on until the big picture is achieved.

Do it today.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group LLC, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032, Ph: 602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: andycox@coxconsultgroup.com; Website: www.coxconsultgroup.com

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