December 13; Big Wins Start With Small Victories Using Every Little Thought
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

December 13

We demolish arguments and every pretension
that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:4b-5

Big Wins Start With Small Victories Using Every Little Thought

Winning

“We accumulate victories,” says Troy Newman who runs a non-profit. He gets considerable results through little gains and channeling emotion. Big wins are always desirable; the grand slam home run is spectacular.

But the big homer doesn’t come often. The safer sign might be for bunt. The small win. Get on base.

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American author Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919) wrote, “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.” We want to win; shouts of victory; showered by the Gatorade bucket.

Defeated? And you want to publically cry about it? That’s why God gave us showers to go to sob in.

Biographer Eric Metaxas says,

In his book Ethics…Bonhoeffer wrote about the way people worship success. The topic fascinated him. He…observed the fickleness of the crowds at bullfights, how they roared for the toreador one moment and for the bull the next.

It was success they wanted, success more than anything. In Ethics, he wrote, “The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds.” (Metaxas 2010) p. 363

Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI),
writes on the measurement of success,

Joseph Schumpeter, often called the godfather of modern entrepreneurship, said of entrepreneurs, “The financial result is a secondary consideration.”

It is, however, “an index of success and a…symptom of victory.” Money is the index of success—an imperfect one at that—not success itself. Nonetheless, people still need that index. (Brooks 2012)

So how does the manager get business success and advance organizational goals?

With a consuming desire in the right direction by small wins.

The first measure is the fire-in-the-belly. Does the unit and the management want the goal? Does the staff want to learn how? A Learning Organization is, “skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.” (Bateman 2013)

The staff and leadership must want to learn more and to improve skills; demanding continuous learning and all that.

The manager can ignite the desire and set the priorities and direction for the unit’s efforts. And movement begins and need not be flawless as long as the first steps are taken. John Bunyan (1628–1688) wrote Pilgrim’s Progress; not Pilgrim’s Perfection. The manager’s journey resembles Christian’s passage.

The accumulation of victories is best done in a small, short unit of time. The ideal for most staff is a tiny block done a little bit every day. What will I do everyday to meet this challenge?

One-A-Day® Vitamins reminds us with clever labeling that the value in their product is to consume-one-tablet-every-single-day. Taking 7 tablets on Sunday would not be helpful.

A daily habit is formed when the consumer becomes uncomfortable if the vitamin is not taken. Habits are, well, habit-forming.

Big wins are best achieved with a small, daily win. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4b-5

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(Metaxas 2010) p. 363

Management, Bateman Snell 3d edition, page 168.

The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise, Page 27, Arthur C. Brooks