Marginal Gains Theory

Morning Leaders,

Getting good at something takes time.

Imagine when you started your first job, you probably failed and made a bunch of errors, lacked confidence, but over time you learned from your mistakes, adopted feedback and got better and better.

If you want to get good at anything, you need to turn up and try every single day. Repetition is the mother of skill.

It’s safe to say, improvement never happens overnight, and there won’t be any particular day which makes you good. It’s the consistency of turning up and the accumulation of the small efforts over a period of time which will help you establish the skills, competency and belief in yourself.

Dave Brailsford was hired in 2003 as Performance Director of the British Cycling team.

Just five years after taking over, the British Cycling team dominated the road and track cycling events at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where they won an astounding 60 percent of the gold medals available.

Four years later, when the Olympic Games came to London, the Brits raised the bar as they set nine Olympic records and seven world records.

Photo by Victor Xok on Unsplash

Dave’s philosophy? Marginal Gains.

“The Marginal Gains Theory is concerned with small incremental improvements in any process, which, when added together, make a significant improvement.”

He had a relentless pursuit of finding the tiny margins of improvement in everything he and his team did, and looking to improve them every single day.

“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.”

Try this: Look to develop and improve yourself by 1% every day. That might involve upgrading your soft skills or learning something new within your field, or even, working through an uncomfortable situation to build mental resiliency and confidence.

You may think that 1% is a tiny improvement and that’s not going to make a lot of difference. But, these small daily occurrences add up to significant upgrades and progress when you consistently apply them day over day over day. You’ll gradually become a very skilled and knowledgeable asset who can provide tremendous value to the people within the journey you are on.

What could you improve on by 1% today?

All the best

David

Resources Of The Week

  • App - Blinkist. Do you ever read books and think there was a lot of fluff in there? Blinkist saves you hours with it’s premium book summary app which condenses hours of reading down into a 10-15 minute summary for you to read or listen to. Try this app to save you time and learn quicker.

  • YouTube Video - Jack Welch - What is the role of the leader? Jack was a hugely successful leader at GE. He talks through the importance of finding meaning in your team’s work, and why as leaders we need to remove blockers from our team’s environment to ensure they can be successful.

  • YouTube Video - Mateusz - Dream. Watch this for self motivation. This chap puts together motivational speeches, music and video clips. I love watching these as it inspires me and motivates me to take action. Enjoy.

Quote of the Week

“Excellence is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends.” - Brian Tracy

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Hello, My name is David, I am a Tech Leader, Blogger and Runner from Hove, UK. Every week I write a Newsletter covering Leadership and Personal Development and anything else I came across which will add value to your journey and inspire you to take action.

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