Accumulated marginal benefit

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned how making a few simple improvements to your presentation technique could set you a few paces ahead your colleagues. Simply put: combing your hair, using your both your verbal and non-verbal languare in a supportive way, and looking the audience in the eye are all quite small factors on their own.

Nice cues each, but they won’t make or break your pitch or presentation on their own.

However, once you implement them all at once, the combined effect will be considerable. Now, I might be tempted to use some “greater than the sum of its parts” cliche here. But I’m not sure that’s the case – I think the relationship is pretty much linear here.

Accumulated marginal benefit – not really marginal after all

Nevertheless, today I realized this presentation tip was just a single example of a larger philosophy, going by the name of accumulated marginal benefit (and probably many others as well). For brevity’s sake, let’s call it AMB.

The first time I ran across AMB, it had been said by an UK cycling coach. This was after their team had totally dominated the Olympic games. What the coaches had done differently was pay attention to every imaginable small detail, in order to give their athletes every possible edge in the upcoming competition. Numerous small changes were implemented, like doing a small diet adjustment here and there, taking the athletes’ favourite sleeping pillows to the games slightly better sleep, the like.

Obviously, it paid off. Equally obviously, none of the tricks would have done the…trick on their own. The training had to be there, as had of course the innate potential of the athlete.

AMB adds up

Nevertheless, top sports are a matter of percents and milliseconds. And in that world, marginal really counts.

And it can count outside the Big Event as well. AMB may not turn you into an all-around winner, but it can still give you edge you need. Examples are endless.

Need to save money? Switch most of your grocery items to a cheaper brand, and only go shopping on pre-determined days to limit impulse shopping.

Tired despite sleeping an okay number of hours each night? Get a new pillow, go to bed 15 minutes earlier, open your bedroom window for one hour before sleepy-time, and follow a constant pre-bed ritual.

Need to get an article done? Be a bit more strict with your pomodoros, and maybe outline the article in pencil rather than on-screen.

You get the point. Even small things are not worth dismissing, if there are enough of them. Death by a thousand cuts is still death (well that resonated really well with the tone of the post).

The only way – sometimes

And sometimes small things can be the only thing you have left.

Let’s say you are short on money, most of which is going to the mortgage. Going to skip that payment? Hope not. Discount items, your new best friends.

Or maybe your grades could be a bit better, but you are already attending all the lectures and doing your assignments. Maybe it’s time to study 15 minutes more each day, do one extra exercise per week on your toughest courses, and maybe improve your note-taking process in whatever way suits you.

It goes without saying that before any AMB-stuff, the foundation should already be there. Like not blowing half of your income on booze while struggling with the mortgage.

But after that, there are a million ways to do better still.

Now go find some.

-Antti

Accumulated marginal benefit