“a small action is worth more than a great intention” (someone)
If I were asked what was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to learn in life, I would answer without hesitation: “Getting my children, ages 4 and 6, ready for school on my own.” Because, unlike my wife, they take everything I say with suspicion, and if the source of universal truth isn’t present—the one they immediately turn to see if their interlocutor is saying something obscurely dangerous or false—well, I have no escape. One ambiguous sentence or the wrong word, and my credibility is like an ice cube served at an aperitif in Dubai. One moment it’s there, the next it’s gone. If we add that the poor unfortunate (that would be me) has an innate ability to get the wrong shirt, sock, underwear, tank top, color, or even just shade and size, well, let’s just say that when my second child gets on the school bus, I feel like Crowe’s “Gladiator” in his iconic poster. From the moment my wife goes to work, I wait for morning like a fisherman waits for a storm on the horizon while helplessly watching the sea swell. With the only difference: the fisherman can outrun the storm. Children aside, if I were asked again “what’s the hardest thing I’ve learned?” I’d answer: improvement. Improving as a person and as a worker—these two areas are already enough to help you improve in practically everything you love to do.
Improving is like a calling that arises silently. Even when stimulated from outside, the desire to improve is very subtle; you feel it, but it doesn’t immediately make itself heard. You can only hear it clearly if you’re willing to listen carefully. Behind such a positive word, there’s effort, perseverance, and a willingness that, if misdirected, risks turning into fruitless toil. Why do I mention effort? Because improving means working on yourself and your habits. Not the good ones, but the hard ones, stuck to the walls of our entrenched routines. It’s precisely those, however, that make us grow. It’s best to start early, perhaps in your twenties. At least for those like me who have, let’s say, a slow metabolism.
At twenty, in addition to having a somewhat sluggish “choice metabolism,” I had a hyperactive idiot living in my head, bouncing from side to side like a bullet fired inside a steel box. As I grew older and confronted the world, I was convinced that the important thing was not to make mistakes. I did everything I could to do the right thing, think the right thing, buy the right thing. I sewed onto myself the image of an infallible strategist, with mirrored sunglasses and the confidence of a Top Gun pilot. At that age, it’s easy to feel invincible, almost divine.
Then came the years of self-employment. There, I made giant strides, dealing with clients, problems, responsibilities, real money, every day. It toughened me. And calmed me down. However, I continued to pursue the “wrong” idea of never “having to” make mistakes. And when you’re an athlete, a jury, and a jury’s oversight committee all at the same time… you never really look for mistakes! The moral justifications I gave myself were worthy of a glutton on a diet faced with the chocolate cake of his dreams. Today, with more self-criticism, and admittedly more honest with myself, and without having abandoned chocolate cakes, I recognize that it’s not that I was making all that many mistakes, it’s just that I wasn’t really challenging myself. Besides having a huge flaw, immense for those who want to make it big in the universe, I was the “I do everything myself because only the things that do myself are good done.” Wasted years. We’ll talk about it again.
My world changed when I met another love. That’s what I call him, but rest assured, there’s no mischief behind the word ” another lover.” The story is that I had a job I loved and that gave me a lot of satisfaction. Then one day I was contacted by a company looking for a local consultant, asking me to do some work in the field of robotics. I didn’t even have time to accept and I was already falling in love with the work I was doing as a consultant. Within a year, I had closed my VAT number as an entrepreneur, which was turning 14, while I was setting out on the path to pursuing that new dream. Another challenge was accepting the position as an employee. Less free and poorer, but happier.
Entering that new environment was like being catapulted into another dimension. The challenges were many, and there’s no need to list them. What matters is what I learned: that skill isn’t about “not making mistakes,” but rather knowing how to identify errors, study them, and avoid repeating them. Sometimes mistakes are so insidious and latent that they’re literally innate, impossible to predict, and there’s only one thing you can do to fix them. But when you work in fast-paced environments, you understand that striving for excellence requires a further step: “forecasting.” Talent, what truly helps, is the ability to analyze risk, anticipate it, eliminate it when possible, and mitigate it when not. Part of the risk lies with the client, in their context, in their environment. Another part is hidden in the nuances of the work, processes, or production cycles, and in the small details that impact the sacred triad: cost, quality, and time.
How to improve a production process
Let’s get to the point: a production process is the moment in which the object of the sales agreement takes shape: someone, or in some cases many, bring together pieces, skills, and tools to generate the value expected by the customer. The possible examples are endless, because every sector has its own way of transforming inputs into results. But to truly explain what it means to improve a production process, it’s worth “giving Caesar what is Caesar’s” and telling the story of someone who, more than anyone else, has been able to demonstrate the power of continuous improvement. It’s the story that masterfully introduces the theory that changed my way of thinking about growth, quality, and performance by improving them. The so-called “1% improvement theory” refers to the idea that small improvements, even minimal ones, when consistently applied, produce significant effects in the medium to long term thanks to their “additionality.” The principle is simple: improving something by 1% doesn’t generate an immediately perceptible change, but over time it leads to exponential growth in performance, skills, and, as a direct consequence, results. Or imagine a production chain where we improve the performance of every person in that chain by just 1% and repeat the action every week.
The Story of Dave Brailsford and the 1% Theory
When it comes to improvement, there’s a story that always deserves to be told, and it’s about the man who revolutionized British cycling: Dave Brailsford. When Brailsford took over Team Sky, the United Kingdom had never won a Tour de France. Not only that, but no one was investing in the team anymore, which was considered beyond repair, a bottomless pit where every resource invested seemed wasted. There was no shortage of athletes, no shortage of bikes, or technicians. Something deeper was missing: the belief in improvement. Brailsford changed everything by bringing a vision as simple as it is radical. He made it clear that every great feat—like competing in a Tour de France—can be broken down into a constellation of micro-actions. A Tour is made up of many races; each race is made up of kilometers; each kilometer of pedal strokes; each pedal stroke of energy, posture, breathing, concentration. If you break it down enough, you reach a level where you can improve every single element, even if it’s just 1%. And if you improve each element by 1%, the sum inevitably becomes a considerable result.
So Brailsford began working on everything: from his riding position to his sleep quality, from the cleanliness of his cushions to his chain lubrication, from his diet to his breathing technique, and even his recovery management. Even the van’s paint was changed to better detect dust on its surfaces and keep the environment as clean as possible. Nothing was too small to improve. When the new, cautiously confident, investors asked him how much it would cost to implement all those micro-improvements, like transporting personalized mattresses and pillows for each rider throughout the Tour, designed to ensure better sleep and therefore more energy during the race, Brailsford responded with a question that became legendary: “And how much will it cost you not to win?” That was the point: each intervention, taken alone, seemed insignificant. But together they built a system that improved constantly, day after day, without miracles, only with method, discipline, and consistency.
The result? Team Sky won the Tour de France. Then they won it again. And then again. That philosophy became a global benchmark for anyone who wanted to build excellence not through flukes, but through a conscious, measurable, and repeatable process.
This story became famous thanks to James Clear, who told it in his book Atomic Habits. I recommend it; the author writes beautifully and navigates with great ease the world of habits that are sometimes thought to be trivial or irrelevant, but which you may actually discover to be overwhelmingly leading in the wrong direction.
And this is where the story intertwines perfectly with the meaning of what I wrote at the beginning. Improving doesn’t mean becoming infallible. It doesn’t mean avoiding mistakes. It means building a system that:
- observes mistakes
- studies them
- anticipates them
- transforms them into learning
- and applies continuous micro-improvements.
and never ever, I add from my personal experience, take anything for granted-
This is exactly what I’ve learned along the way: improving isn’t about avoiding mistakes, but knowing how to grow through them. And growth, the kind that consolidates a solid foundation, doesn’t come in a single leap, but rather through a thousand steps, sometimes tiny and unnerving, but constant and concrete. Constant, disciplined, and methodical improvement of 1% isn’t a goal; it’s a step on the repetitive path to excellence. It’s how you transform a process, a team, or yourself. This is, in fact, one of the lessons I often introduce when explaining the WWP working method I developed to those who intend to pursue improvement in their work or professional field.
Dear reader, as with Brailsford and Team Sky, I hope this reading is the first of many 1% improvements you will gain in your life.
Thanks for your precious time
L.C.
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