It's only a little!
The stuck-low balloon soars high
We walked to the nearby annual village fair in India with our 4 years old daughter in a stroller. We bought her a yellow gas balloon and tied the string to the stroller. She enjoyed playing with it. After entering the house she didn't care for it.
When I released the balloon inside the house, it promptly floated up to the ceiling. The tail end of the string was a few feet above the floor. While looking at the yellow balloon with the white string hanging down, a train of thoughts ran though my mind.
Why did the balloon go up instead of falling down like all the other things? Because the weight of the air displaced by the inflated balloon was more than the combined weight of the balloon, gas and string. The weight of helium is 14% of air for equal volume.
If I attach a longer and thicker string, the balloon will come down. Then I can trim the the string. The balloon will inch up every time I trim.
I can repeat this process. At some point, the upward force would match the downward force. When that happens, the balloon will neither go up or down. I can keep the 'magic' balloon at any height! I never saw a gas balloon mid air without being tied down. I was hooked on this fancy idea.
I began the experiment. I attached a heavier string to the balloon. It descended a few feet. A few inches of the string was lying flat on the floor. I cut a little of the string. The balloon went up a little. After a few cuts, less than an inch of the string was touching the floor. A few more tiny cuts - only the tip of the string was touching the floor. I was excited at the prospect of seeing the balloon and string suspended mid air. Then, I cut just a bit of the string. Guess what happened?
The balloon soared up in a wink and stuck to the ceiling. What a disappointment!
It was as if the balloon broke the spell keeping it low.
My dream didn't come true.
I repeated the experiment. I added more string, brought it down and cut the tiniest bits of string towards the end. I couldn't keep the balloon and string suspended mid air even after multiple careful trials. Either the balloon touched the ceiling or the string touched the floor.
Had I done the experiment in open air, the balloon would have gone sky-high!
I accepted the reality that I couldn't match the upward and downward forces precisely. The unexpected failure of my dream set me thinking. Does this have a message for life? I think so. What is it?
Under-performance in real life
We may worry about our own or someone's performance stuck low. We may think that it requires major efforts to boost it up. But as the balloon experiment showed, it is possible that small deficiencies of one or more ingredients of success may be holding it down. Who knows?
When we identify and correct such deficiencies, the performance may soar high in a short time without major efforts or investments.
We need to work on two fronts to boost the performance and keep it at a high level.
Guess the most likely causes for low performance based on past experience. Then, take corrective actions to boost the performance. This is a trial and error process. It will be most productive when done with the team.
To sustain the superior performance, we need to practice continuous improvement as a way of life. This was developed in Japan under the name 'Kaizen'.
I had many professional successes in putting an end to multiple recurring and major problems. The trick was finding the 'little' root causes by reliable observations, fearlessly questioning the popular assumptions and team involvement from the operator/technician level to the head of the department with no regard to position.
The dusty mirror
Imagine a beautiful mirror covered with a thin layer of dust. You go to see your face but can't see it. You will feel frustrated and walk away. What has made the mirror useless?
The culprit is a thin layer of dust particles. You can bring all the offending particles together and hold them between your thumb and index finger.
The weight of the dust particles is nothing compared with the weight of the mirror. But those particles made the majestic mirror useless!
Do we need to buy a new mirror? No. Do we need to do a lot of work to restore the mirror to its glory? No.
We simply need to spray a little water on the mirror and wipe with a cleaning cloth. How long will this take? A couple of minutes.
Let us apply this analogy to people - own selves and others. Persistent negative thoughts, words and actions may be damaging our performance and image. We might have got used to them.
If we put in a little effort into removing those tiny negative 'particles', our performance may shine!
It is only a tiny drop
Imagine a dinner plate placed before you. It is filled with your favorite foods. You can't wait to eat.
Then someone told you that a drop of invisible poison fell on it. You are now afraid to even touch the food. Your appetite is gone.
The weight of the drop of poison is insignificant compared with that of the food. But it destroys the value of the food.
Let us bring this idea to real life.
An inappropriate word, a disrespectful gesture or insensitive response may poison the precious value of a person or an organization.
In the course of our work, we notice insignificant lapses or errors all the time. They may be like drops of poison. We can ignore them and incur damages in course of time. Or we can treat them as warning bells, make a note and remove them systematically.
We can make this preventive practice a part of daily life. This way, we can protect the value of the individual, the family and the organization.
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