#davebrailsford

[panicmonk]

Croquis, Bravo Brailsford!🤨 #croquis #teamsky @teamineos Ineos #teamineos #davebrailsford @davebrailsford #panicmonk https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw7RC9tFlbG/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1452k11lo145z

[cyclingreporter]

Why Chris Froome is so good at winning the Tour de France, according to his boss

When Chris Froome won the Tour de France on...

Froomey zoomey.

[jeremywaite]

Success Comes in Small Gains, Not Explosive Successes

Many people in tech are looking for a golden egg. Some kind of silver bullet or revolutionary idea that will change the world and re-invent the game. While we are constantly surprised when something truly remarkable comes along, it doesn't happen very often.

Success for 99% of us, comes through hard work and doing a series of small things very well. Management consultants and sports coaches often call this "marginal gains". It is often this un-glamorous philosophy that is behind a successful enterprise, and not a revolutionary idea. 

"To multiply small successes is precisely to build one treasure after another. In time, one becomes rich without realising how it has come about" - Fredrick the Great (1712)

Michael Johnson, the 200m and 400m Olympic legend trained 10 years just to gain 0.5 seconds. But that huge amount of effort to improve by such a small amount, was the difference between him being a good college athlete and the superstar world record holder that he became. (His book "Slaying the Dragon' is a good read and explains this in a lot of detail).

5 time Olympic rowing champion Steven Redgrave had a gold medal winning career spanning over 20 years. There were a huge amount of advancements in technology, coaching techniques and nutrition during that time. And every time a new method or process for doing something was suggested, he had the same answer...

"Will it make the boat go faster?".

If it didn't they wouldn't do it. But if that new idea made even "a coat of paints worth of difference" time-wise, them they would embrace it 100%. (More is written in this book of the same name).

As a big cycling fan you can see exactly the same approach used by Dave Brailsford, manager of the British Sky cycling team. He used a series of very tiny improvements to win the Tour de France with Brad Wiggins in 2012, and in turn created the most successful teams on the pro-cycling tour. He called his process a series of "incremental returns". Lots of tiny improvements. To the clothing, to the bike, to nutrition, to preparation, to travel planning....

So when you are looking at your own business or idea, remember that even though you would like a game changer, it rarely exists in just one area. Focus on what you are good at.

"Businesses grow and keep a competitive edge because they just get better at what they are already good at".

It's very hard to make one giant leap forward. If that's all you are looking for, remember that there is a chance you will look back in a few years and realise that the accumulation of all those tiny improvements which your competitor made, might now be the reason why you are chasing them.