I have a secret to tell everyone.

You know which problems are the easiest to fix?

The largest ones.

Let me explain.

I’ve worked at a lot of companies and I tend to pick companies that have the biggest improvements that need to be made. Companies that are way off target. Why? There are HUNDREDS of EASY fixes that take little to no effort to implement. You can start by choosing some of the solutions to the problems that are low-hanging fruit and work your way to more and more complex problems from there. By the time you’re making complex changes, you can be confident you built the groundwork to support those changes.

You know what the hardest things to fix are? Minor problems in near-perfect systems. Every change risks breaking something that’s currently working well, and the margin of improvement is so small, you end up chasing micro-gains.

With big problems, small changes can have huge positive impacts.

Here’s the key: measure the results. If your change results in more good or less bad? Keep it. Then pick a new change to make. Measure again. Keep going and you’ll solve a huge problem.

If my staff came to me and said “yes, we know there’s a huge problem and there are a hundred different things we could do to improve that problem, but we just don’t feel like it”? They wouldn’t have jobs anymore.

Just something to think about.