Finding your edge: Consistency
By Brad Ross
Part 1 – AS 2020 continues to unfold, I have been thinking a lot about ‘Edge’ recently. How are brands and companies performing, who are those that are surviving and who are those that are thriving. There are obviously macro forces at play with some industries getting hit harder by the pandemic, while other industries are benefitting by virtue of their business model and offering. With that disclaimer, I have been wondering more about the role of edge and how this can be applied at an individual basis.
Edge in itself, is a fairly broad concept and can applied to many scenarios. Competitive edge, brand edge, management edge, and even edge computing. Ultimately, when you think about edge, it is something that produces a delta. It helps separate companies, brands or methodologies from the pack. Looking at some of the denominators, edge could be derived through attributes such as uniqueness, quality, relevance, speed, approach, or some permutation of them. When applied at an individual level, what is edge and how do you identify it in people, and more importantly, how do you develop it?
Jack Welch spoke about Edge as “having the courage to make tough “yes or no” decisions. Smart people can assess a situation from every angle–but smart people with edge know when to stop assessing and make a tough call, even without all the information.” (Welch, J. 2005. Winning)
I want to go a bit deeper into the concept of edge and understand what it is, and how you develop it. Over the next few weeks, I will highlight a few ideas related to edge. To begin, I wanted to look at a very foundational notion that often goes overlooked because of its understated conspicuousness – Consistency.
“You should perform your turns in training, the same way you would do them while you are racing”. Sage, somewhat profound advice from one of my swimming coaches many years ago.
In a 7km set, if you are training in a 50-meter pool, you would have the opportunity to do approximately 140 turns. If you were training in a 25-meter pool, that doubles to approximately 280 turns. If you were training once per day, five times a week that would be 700 turns in the 50m pool or 1400 turns in the 25m pool. Let’s assume you train 48 weeks of a year; you would be getting in close to 33000 tuns in the 50m pool or 67000 turns in the 25m pool. Competitive swimmers often train further than 7km’s per set, and more than five times per week, in which case the numbers of turns go up even more.
When split seconds count, you need all the edge you can get in the pool. Treating your turns in practice like you would in a race, is one way to not only improve your technique, but also your muscle memory. You know your stroke count, you figure out the optimal range to glide to the wall, how close you need to be to kick off, and how far your optimal underwater push should be. These are all small things, but they add up and can make all the difference when it comes time to race. In almost all competitive sports, it’s the little things that when added up, make the big difference.
Why then in life, do we so often leave our ‘A’ game for those big moments? A big client pitch, a key meeting, a high visibility project… While we should absolutely bring our ‘A Game’ to these kinds of interactions, perhaps we need to do the same in those moments that we may deem less important. The reality is that these ‘big’ opportunities may be ephemeral, and fleeting.
The day to day interactions with your team, with your colleagues and with your manager are far more regular. The way you show up, day in and day out, often have a longer lasting effect than those few moments that you get to be in the limelight. It’s in these daily interactions where people see your depth, your capability and your authentic self. The way you greet people, the way you interact when things are good and when things are bad.
Brad Ross is a Global Account Executive at Google and an AdAge under 40
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