I know a man who runs a race car team. Former Operations executive who became a general contractor, which became so successful he was able to start a racing team. We were talking about strategy and increasing the performance of the car. He said, “I have one hard and fast rule that we always follow, never change more than one thing at a time on the car.”
Basically it’s tweak one variable, run the car, measure whether performance is better or not, rinse and repeat. If you change one thing at a time then you can attribute performance changes to that thing. If the car goes faster keep the change, if the car gets slower change it back, and then try something else. If you change more than one variable then you cannot know for sure what changes in performance are attributable to which variable! When this happens then improvement becomes guesswork and it’s easy to misunderstand what is causing what.
The thing is, this rule has to be “hard and fast” because it’s very tempting to change more than one variable at a time. But, even if it seems obvious to tweak to variables, he won;t do it. One change at a time, period.
I got to thinking that this may be applicable to our daily lives as we seek self improvement. Maybe we can benefit from being aware of our daily performance measures, then change one habit or behavior at a time. Instead of being tempted to change diet, sleep, exercise, etc. all at once, maybe it’s better to adopt the methodical practice of a disciplined race car car team. But now you are the race car!
Oh my, I just got images of the cartoon movie “Cars” with Lightening McQueen and Mater the truck. Those goofy faces on the front of cartoon vehicles, worse than having a song stuck in your head! Although, I thought it was cool to have Paul Newman voicing that cool old car. Well, at any rate. consider and enact one change, run it, measure and evaluate, rinse and repeat. Try this approach in your daily efforts. It will ensure a steady and data driven improvement in your performance.
Ben Wagner (230)
Member The365Commitment
