Ways to distinguish yourself – #69 Balance home runs with small wins

By Rajesh Setty on Tue 29 Nov 2005, 10:46 AM – Leave Comment

Always focusing on small wins has one danger – that you might be in a

Continuous Spiral Syndrome trap. It feels like you are winning in the

short term but in the long run you may be losing out. On the other

hand, just focusing on home runs (big wins) also has a danger that if

there is no sign of measurable progress in reasonable time you might

get disillusioned and give up.

So one approach is to take the middle ground and have a balance in the

projects that you are working on – may be one project that is in the

“home run” category and a few projects that are in the “small wins”

category.

We can do a quick exercise and try to see if there is any balance. List

out all the projects that you are working on today on a sheet of paper.

Take another sheet and create two columns

Home Runs | Small Wins

Now put each of the projects that you are working on in one of the

categories. No need to analyze this to the nth degree. When I did this

exercise with a friend, the first question he asked me was “I have some

projects that are in the small wins category but if I complete them

all, I will have a home run.” The answer was to not think too much and

put this in the “Small wins” category. If you are confused on any

project, go with your gut and put it in the category that you feel most

appropriate. You won’t be scored on this test.

Once you complete the listing, take a look and see if there is a

balance. You can come up with your own ratio (let’s say for every “home

run” project, there should be at least 5 “small win” projects)

If there is no balance, time to act –

look at all your projects, re-prioritize and shuffle around until you

are happy with the distribution.

Good luck!

Related Articles:

Posted in the Distinguish yourself, Main Page category.