Why You Should Fix What Ain’t Broke (or, The Substantial Leap from Good to Great)

In my experience as an improvement expert, the simplest change is always going from bad to good.

It’s the journey from F to B, the shift from training wheels to bike alone, or the jump from dumpster fire to playoff team that’s surprisingly, dare I say it, easy.

It’s easy in a relative sense of course, because those changes do require incredible effort. But ask any A+, unicycling champion which improvement is hardest to achieve, and you’ll learn about the more substantial leap from good to great.

It’s counterintuitive, right?

Most of us are conditioned to believe that improvement is proportional to the effort we put in. We think going from B to A should be easier than F to B since the change in results in smaller, yet I see this debunked all the time.

The difference between 99% and 99.9% is the difference between competent and world class in my line of work. And the latter often costs a hundred thousand dollars more to reach.

But why is that?

Why are the smallest improvements often the hardest to achieve as you approach the pinnacle?

Here are 3 reasons why.

#1 There’s Less Opportunity for Improvement

Simple math shows that the closer you move towards a target, the less room you have to keep going.

If the goal is to get 10 out of 10 questions right on a quiz for example, the person who gets 9 correct has much less room for improvement than the person who only gets 2.

The person who got 9 answers correct obviously knows more about the material in question, but in terms of improvement, the high scorer is at a disadvantage. Not only do they need to retain the knowledge necessary to repeat the better result on a second try, they also have to prepare for the presumably difficult question they missed. And that’s all for the chance at a measly 11% improvement.

Now compare that to the person who scored a 2. They only have to retain the knowledge needed to get 2 answers correct while still having a higher chance at notable change. Even if this person only gets 6 right on their next attempt, that’s a 200% improvement, and we all know 200 is greater than 11.

Silly example, I know, but the point here—besides the fact that context matters—is that improvement is not proportional to the effort expended or the difficulty faced.

The easy stuff has already been addressed if you’re a strong performer. Your remaining issues are often difficult challenges that provide diminishing returns as each is completed.

#2 Luck Can’t Carry You

Since there’s less opportunity to improve, you have to be intentional to address remaining weaknesses.

Gone are the days when you could luck into growth by just showing up.

Experience alone won’t cut it anymore. You have to adopt the mindset of abnormal intentionality.

What do I mean by that?

For one, your improvement efforts have to be focused, detailed, and planned. An abnormally intentional person doesn’t say, “I’m going to eat less” when trying to lose weight. They say, “I’m going to eat at a 500-calorie deficit for the next 3 weeks”.

There’s a strong purpose formed by what this person wants to achieve, and that purpose drives specific behavior.

Now why do I call this mindset abnormal? Because most people obviously don’t think this way. They’re not intentional with their plans so they lose focus easily. If they’re already a good performer, they’re probably content with their results. And most times, chasing the remaining opportunities isn’t realistic to them.

All those reasons combine to say that most people don’t have the mindset to be great. And you know what? That’s okay.

The self-improvement sphere encourages us to be arrogant and clown people like this for “not dreaming enough”—whatever that means—but the truth is that greatness, or the act of performing at an insanely high percentile, is not always practical.

For example, the best free throw shooters in the NBA make about 90 percent of those shots in basketball games. But players are considered good free throw shooters if they make around 80 percent.

Yes, we all want our favorite sports teams to avoid mistakes, but you can’t be mad if your favorite player only makes 8 shots out of 10 instead of 9.

Good can sometimes be more desirable than great when you consider the time and effort required to improve. We all have limited resources, so becoming great at less impactful skills isn’t smart in the long-run. But in those few special cases where great truly is what you want, the change required will be much more than a tweak.

#3 You Have to Fix What Ain’t Broke

In the world of statistics, there’s a concept called capability. It’s a measure of how well a process can meet a defined target.

A process with high capability can consistently meet the target, while a process with low capability rarely, if ever, achieves it.

In general, there are only 2 ways to improve the capability of a process. You either optimize the process (an action I call maxing), or you change the process altogether (what I call shifting). And sometimes you do a bit of both.

So how does this apply to our larger discussion? Well, it gives us a way to understand our own improvement methods.

Even if you’ve never heard of statistical capability, you’ve seen plenty examples of maxing and shifting in life:

If you want more lemon juice for example, you can squeeze harder (maxing), or you can grab more lemons (shifting).
If you want to reduce your commute, you can leave earlier to avoid traffic (maxing), or you can move closer to work (shifting).
If you hate cleaning dishes and want to limit time scrubbing, you can clean the biggest dishes first while your energy is highest (maxing), or you can toss everything in the dishwasher (shifting).

Maxing a process is doing all you can to get the most of what you have, while shifting is changing the process itself.

Guess which one is more common when people try to improve?

That’s right, it’s maxing. But the problem you run into as a high performer is that you are most likely maxed out.

You’ve already improved your current process enough to be good at what you do, so there’s not much to gain by improving what you have. This is why you have to fix what ain’t broke by making a shift.

Complete revamps to systems, techniques, and philosophies are needed to improve at the margins—even if the last process produced good results.

It’s ironic right? We tend to think that the difference between good and great is a few tweaks, but in reality, it’s the areas where we barely miss getting over the hump that would benefit most from a shakeup.

Don’t believe me? Then ask the Super Bowl champs who traded their starting quarterback after being one win away from a title three years prior. Research the difference in salary increase when switching jobs versus getting a raise. Compare the normal quality of your favorite artist’s work to when they’re in love (or experiencing heartbreak).

Maxing is all about practice and execution, but shifting relies more on strategy and creativity. And it’s the latter two traits that make the biggest difference at the highest levels.

Now, are shifts risky? Of course. There’s no guarantee that the new will always improve upon the old. But once you experience a good shift, you’ll wonder why a seemingly obvious change wasn’t made sooner.

Ready for the Leap?

Conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t fix what ain’t broke…but greatness isn’t conventional.

Is that last smidge of opportunity worth turning your world upside down? That’s for you to decide. But I can assure you that the change required is much bigger than you think.

Yeah, it’s risky for sure. Almost all the most rewarding actions are. So it’s time to be honest with yourself.

Is “good” good enough? Or are you ready to take the leap?

-Drew

Photo Credits (By Order of Appearance):