It’s easy to forget that big things start small. They have to start with the idea, and then stack on stack on stack until the momentum builds and you can look back and see that you have indeed made something big. In our business we focus on making small improvements. We went through our menu in the early days one by one and asked our team, “How can we make it better?” For some things it meant adding something, for some, taking it away. The conversation and the language and the mindset expanded, and we started seeing opportunities to make it better in more than just the food. We saw that our guests often needed extra napkins, so we stopped buying the cheap dispensers that popped out only one tissue thin sheet at a time and made available stacks of dinner napkins for them. We saw that our guests loved our chips, so we made them self serve instead of hoarding them behind the counter. We saw that our guests, like us, needed to drink more water, so we infused and fancied up the water, upgrading our cups to make it more appealing to consume. Over and over again we look for new ways to make the experience better for our guests and our team. The changes are always small, and always about adding more value.
This is the kind of incremental thinking that leads to the big changes. If you have ever tried to create a big change overnight, you know that it is incredibly difficult. Resistance rears it’s powerful head, along with uncertainty and fear. It’s great to think big, and it has it’s place in your growth as you dream and set your vision and goals…the secret is to start small. Small is easy, small doesn’t trigger procrastination, small is less threatening. If you made it a focus to be 5% better today, or 5% more loving, or patient, or generous, what would you be able to do?