The Final 1%

My wife and I recently sold our modest town home in Baltimore. We spent about three weeks preparing for the sale by doing all the things we'd wanted to do while we lived here (i.e., painting, putting carpet in the family room downstairs, etc.) as well as by throwing out and donating a ton of stuff we realized we no longer used or needed. It was impressive to see what a big difference these relatively small steps made in the home's appearance and livability. What's interesting is that the sales price was in the low $300K range and it only cost us about $3K to fix the place up.

Now maybe real estate is totally unique and the lessons learned from this sale can't be extrapolated to other environments. But it certainly should give one pause to think that putting in that last one percent of effort and attention to detail could perhaps make the difference between making the sale or not. Or, like in our case, making the sale in one day for a bit more than list price.

I think I'll take a look at my next project deliverable a bit differently now and go over it carefully one more time before turning it in to see if there's anything I can throw out or get rid of or "paint". Incidentally, I've got to thank a recent 37Signals blog post for pointing me to a recent Semeiotica blog post re: the "smallest effective difference" which addresses the above phenomenon from the perspective of molecular biology and psychology.

Anyway, when we were done with the above improvement my wife and I looked at each other and asked why we hadn't done it months before! I probably also need to take a look at other areas of my life where I might be able to make a very small investment in order to enjoy an improved quality of life.

Are you a Time Teller or a Clock Builder?

I was a boy scout as a kid (and yes I got my Eagle) and loved to camp and learn about outdoor and survival skills. I remember, once, hearing about how some explorers could tell time by looking at the position of the Sun. I used to try doing this while I was out mowing yards (which seemed to be pretty much all the time) and I was always way off.

In the book Built to Last the authors propose that it really would be impressive if someone could look up in the sky to gauge the position of the sun and tell you what time it is. It would be even more impressive if they could do it consistently and with great accuracy. The person may even build a traveling show around it where they perform this feat for audiences all around the globe. But eventually, the "time teller" is going to retire or pass away and the traveling show will take its tent down for the last time and all the support cast will be out of a job.

The authors continue by suggesting an approach with a longer-term view: build a company that builds clocks.

Now, to be fair, I'd hate to see Andrea Bocelli stop all public performances and set up a school for aspiring tenors. This metaphor has some obvious limitations. But it's useful for us to take a look at our own work and honestly see if we're trying to hoard the knowledge, the power, remain the one and only subject matter expert, or if we're sharing, documenting, and collaborating.

The authors point out that the first approach is self-centered while the latter is focused upon the customer/employee/enterprise and their collective well-being.