Marginal gains

In an environment where everyone performs at a high level, it’s marginal gains that give you the competitive edge.

Bicycles, Olympic gold and marginal gains

My bike is one of the things I’d save in a house fire. You may have noticed that I offer my no-fee Commute Calls in the time blocks when I used to cycle to work.

When I learnt about the marginal gains strategy used by British Cycling to win gold medals at the 2012 Olympics, I was interested to learn how this approach can be applied to the highly competitive environment of The Bar.

Tiny habits and marginal gains

The strategy is simple but one that isn’t easy to implement.  It requires a systematic review of every task in an activity and then working out the incremental improvements that could make the overall result better.

For British cycling this included tasks such as painting white the inside of the container that transported the Olympic bikes to venues. This allows dust to show up easily and cleaned before it impacts the performance of the bike.

This is one of hundreds of incremental improvements made by British Cycling to improve the cyclists’ overall performance on race day.

Learning lessons from other high-pressure sectors

Another resource I recommend on the subject is Matthew Syed’s Black Box Thinking; Marginal Gains and the Secrets of High Performance.

It concerns the systematic measures taken in other high-stress environments – medicine and aviation – to minimise the risk of mistakes by key individuals.

One example from the book concerns the use of checklists to automate routine tasks. The objective of the checklists is to free up thinking time for pilots and surgeons to focus on a difficult procedure at its critical point. Imagine how a couple of checklists might free up thinking time next you stand up in front of a judge.

Applying the theory of marginal gains theory to a barrister’s practice

What is striking about these examples is that winning and getting ahead in highly competitive environments is not necessarily about grand gestures. It’s about looking at what’s working well already and finding incremental ways to further improve them.

Strategies to consider include:

• Shifting the tone of your posts on LinkedIn to show the real person behind your words.
• Creating a habit of always sending a breakdown of tasks with your fee estimate (the equivalent of your checklist) so you get paid for all the work you do on a matter.
• Making exercise non-negotiable so you continue to preserve cognitive function by maintaining your overall physical health.

Measuring up against baseline performance

Change in the legal sector is unlikely to happen as a revolution. Forward-thinking lawyers are constantly on the look out for for ways to make small, but highly targeted interventions in their practice.

In highly competitive environments, such as The Bar, where the baseline level of performance is set so high, a marginal gains strategy could be the one which takes your practice to a new level.

By Heidi Smith
Creator of Jurilogical.com

Want to share this with others? Click a yellow button below.