One percent better can change your world

Now that we are at the tail end of the first month of the new year, many teams start to slip away from all the new things they’ve planned and float back to their old ways. Thoughts such as “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face” (Mike Tyson) or “no plan survives first contact with the enemy” (Helmuth von Moltke) become prophetic. But it does not have to be that way.

The other day I spoke with a CISO who was frustrated from a lack of program progress and she did not know what else to do. CIOs and CISOs often seek to improve team performance but feel overwhelmed by the reality of it. There are more attacks and vulnerabilities on a growing attack surface than ever before. There are also new demands for application access and data management. The size and complexity of the situation can paralyze any of us, leaving us wondering where to start.

So, where do you start? How about by making a small, 1% improvement? Does it sound too easy to be effective? Let me show you how this principle works by sharing an example from a different world.

By the year 2000, British Cycling had been mediocre for over a century. Only a few medals were won from a century of Olympics, and the results at important events were even more disappointing. No British rider had won the Tour de France in 110 years. Bike manufacturers refused to collaborate with British Cycling, fearing that British riders might damage their reputations. Even substantial investments in the latest biking technology and training programs failed to improve British Cycling. Nothing seemed to work until 2003, when a small, largely unnoticed change turned things around.

Sir Dave Brailsford became the director of British Cycling in 2003. Instead of aiming for dramatic overnight turnarounds, Brailsford committed to a strategy of 'marginal gains. Brailsford said, "The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together." Small, marginal gains on individual pieces, when aggregated, bring significant improvements.

For IT and security, zero trust is a program that feels overwhelming to many organizations. Knowing where to start is often the biggest hurdle. The starting point is different for each organization because each organization’s environment is unique. Starting small,‌ looking for a 1% bump in, say, posture improvement, is an easy ask for most individuals and teams. If you haven’t already, imagine adding more policy enforcement for uncategorized web traffic. You can do this by enabling suspicious new domain lookups to identify newly registered, observed, and reactivated domains.

Success begets success, so after finding 1% the first time, find another 1% and so on. This same approach would help with digital transformation and business continuity.

How did Brailsford do this with British Cycling? They started with easy wins, such as improvements in equipment, kit fabrics, and training routines. This could be the best way to find ways to improve your own company. Identify some of the obvious small things that need a little change that can make a big difference. It is low-pressure and easy to do. Allow your teams to be creative so that they can be agents unto themselves. There are no rules other than everyone aims for a 1% improvement. Get your team on board by showing them that they can quickly succeed with the task.

To use Brailsford's strategy of small gains for security or IT teams, ask everyone on your team to do better by 1%. If everyone on the team succeeds, then a team of 10 members could in aggregate make as much as a 10% improvement. 10% is meaningful, but‌ some people contribute more than others, and their efforts here may have more of an impact. 1% may not seem like much, but it is an attainable win for each and reinforces the benefit of working as a team.

This is not the end of the cycling story. Success for British Cycling required long-term commitment and cultural change. This marginal gain was not a one-time activity. The same will be true for your organization. Brailsford's organization did not stop with easy wins. They continued to find 1% improvements in overlooked and unexpected areas such as nutrition and maintenance nuances. As your team has the freedom to find their own ways to improve, concepts like zero trust, digital transformation, and business resilience will naturally become areas of strength in your organization.

The organizational magic starts when we repeat this incremental improvement multiple times during the year. Since the task is small — improving a process by 1% – it does not feel difficult or overwhelming. Even if we do it a couple of times. Let's consider the compounding impact. 

At a team level, if each team improved productivity by 1% each month, you get more than 12% by the end of the year. The effect is like compound interest, with almost 27% improvement in two years and more than 43% in three years. All from a small yet permanent 1% improvement. Now imagine the gains possible if each team found one small thing to improve on each week.

That covers the math and the psychology of the strategy. But it is still a theory until put into practice. Sir Dave Brailsford and British Cycling have been very successful in the past 20 years since they started using the strategy of small gains. The results came more quickly than anyone anticipated. British riders have now won the Tour de France more than six times. The past four Olympic Games have shown Great Britain to be the most successful country across cycling disciplines. The UK won more gold cycling medals than any other country at both the Tokyo and Paris Olympics.

Consider the potential impact of practicing continuous 1% improvement on your team's performance and your business. Success does not need to come with new and dramatic changes – small improvements can make a world of difference. 

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