Small Things Make All The Difference

Emily Dickinson said you can gain more control over your life by paying closer attention to the little things. Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval wrote a great book that speaks to that. It is entitled The Power of Small. Here is one of the great stories from their book. It seems that a major restaurant chain - a client of the ladies - was losing a lot of money because crystal was breaking much too frequently. It reached the point that regional and district managers met at one of the company's restaurants to search for solutions. They discussed new training programs and replacing the crystal with a different brand of glassware. A busboy overheard the executives conversation and pulled one of them aside. They walked to the kitchen, which is where the problem was. He showed them how the commercial dishwasher vibrated. Repeated vibration might have ultimately led to the breakage, he thought. He was right. It was just a little thing but switching the dishwashers saved the company millions of dollars. I don't know if the busboy received a promotion, but the story in The Power of Small indicated that the restaurant company gave the busboy a large tip - a $150,000 tip. Today's Winning Thought: Pay attention to the little things. You never know which one might be a big thing.