In Formula 1, few things demonstrate the pursuit of mastery better than a pit stop.
In the early 1980s, McLaren took more than ten seconds to complete one. Today, teams can change four tyres in around two seconds.
There wasn't one breakthrough that created that improvement. Teams studied every element of the process - where people stood, how they moved, the equipment they used and the sequence of actions.
Each change saved a fraction of a second.
Together, those fractions became extraordinary.
I believe businesses can learn something important from this.
We are naturally attracted to dramatic improvement. We look for the new product, acquisition, technology or market that will transform the business.
But some of the most significant improvements I've seen have come from something far less dramatic:
Getting clear about what excellent looks like, and then steadily moving towards it.
I call this the mastery principle.
Mastery is a pursuit, not a destination
Mastery starts with a simple question:
What would excellent look like here?
What would an excellent sales process look like? An exceptional customer experience? A high-performing leadership team?
Once you can define excellence, you have something to work towards.
This also highlights the difference between activity and improvement.
Business owners and their teams are busy. Customers need to be served and problems solved. But if all your effort goes into doing what you already do, working harder may simply help you stay where you are.
Some of today's effort needs to be an investment in making tomorrow's business better.
That is where deliberate practice comes in.
In Compounding Advantage, I write about the difference between repeating something and deliberately practising it with the intention of improving.
Hard work helps you perform. Deliberate practice helps you improve your ability to perform.
Choose what matters most
You can't improve everything at once.
I've seen this principle play out over approximately ten years with one business we worked with. During that time, its value increased around tenfold.
The result looks dramatic.
The process wasn't.
Each year, the leadership team identified a small number of priorities that could make the biggest difference. These were broken into quarterly priorities, with roughly 75%–80% of commitments achieved each quarter.
They didn't improve things randomly. They focused on the opportunities that mattered most, delivered exceptionally well, and used the resulting growth to create the capability to pursue the next opportunity.
One improvement created the platform for the next.
That is compounding advantage in practice.
From doing more to doing better
Entrepreneurs are naturally action oriented. That is often what gets a business started.
But as a business grows, constantly chasing the next opportunity can become a constraint.
The question changes from:
“How much can we do?”
to:
“What are the few things worth doing exceptionally well?”
For a business owner, I would start with one question:
Which area of the business, if significantly improved, would have the greatest impact?
Define what excellent looks like. Identify what needs to change. Assign responsibility. Set a deadline.
And then finish it.
An improvement only creates value once it has been implemented and embedded in the business.
Then ask the question again:
What does excellent look like now?
Because the answer will have changed.
That is the nature of mastery.
The businesses that look dramatically different ten years from now won't necessarily get there through one dramatic decision.
More often, they'll get there the way a ten-second pit stop became a two-second one:
By making small, deliberate improvements — and allowing them to compound.
Want to explore this idea further?
Read more about the principles behind Compounding Advantage, Graham Mitchell's book on building sustainable business growth.
Discover Compounding Advantage: https://www.grow-za.com/compoundingadvantage/
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