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Last week’s reflection was about the “leap of faith,” now for the other side of the coin…the “quarterly tweak.”
Relationship-building, strategic planning, giving constructive feedback, physical exercise and meditation (among many other things) are often areas where we set goals with the best intentions. However, many of us fail to make the progress we desire. There are two main reasons for this: 1) we aren’t actually motivated to achieve it or 2) we have “hard-wired” our brain to act in ways that prevent us from achieving it.
More often than not, it’s #2 (the way our brain is hard-wired) that is the issue. So if our brain is what’s jacking us up, what can we do?
Studies at the intersection of neuroscience and psychology suggest that we can actually create new “hard wiring” in our brain. How so? It’s by directing intense, repeated attention to the change we are seeking. The best way to practically direct our attention is to put in place new, simple habits or “small tweaks.”
One cliché from the literature on habits is 1% daily improvement leads to 37x improvement over the course of a year (the power of compounding). And while this math is right, if I am looking for 37x improvement on anything, that feels too daunting and not really like a “small tweak.” (Right now my Lakers need to improve by about 37x and in my opinion that will require a new coach and a couple new players…not exactly a small tweak…hahaha).
I prefer to frame it a bit differently - the “quarterly tweak.” Think about the year as four 13-week periods (4 quarters). Choose a habit for which you want to bring “intense, repeated” focus during the quarter. If you make 10% weekly improvement on that habit and do that every week for 13 weeks, you will improve by more than 3 times.
Moreover, after 13 weeks of consistent, focused effort, you’re more likely to retain that habit and you will have more firmly built the neural pathways that support this habit. Let’s bring that to life with three examples:
CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK:
Habit: Provide constructive feedback to a colleague after 2 meetings per week and increase by 10% per week
Start of quarter: You provide constructive feedback to 2 colleagues in a week
End of quarter: You provide constructive feedback to 6-7 colleagues in a week
CREATIVE FOCUS TIME:
Habit: Dedicate 3 hours per week and increase by 10% per week
Start of quarter: 3 hours of creative focus time per week
End of quarter: 9.5 hours of creative focus time per week
Completing these “quarterly tweaks” requires one of the most scarce tools in your leadership toolkit: your attention. That said, paying attention to this new behavior in a repeated and intense way causes new brain circuitry to be developed and will significantly increase the likelihood that this “quarterly tweak” becomes a permanent habit.
A couple questions I reflected on this week:
As I start to think about my goals for 2022, what is one “quarterly tweak” I commit to making in the first quarter of the year?
What makes this “quarterly tweak” important to me?
What would 10% weekly improvement over the course of the first 13 weeks of the year look like? (remember the power of compounding - 3x+ improvement in thirteen weeks)
How will I “track” my progress?