Leaders are faced with unprecedented demands on time, resources, and energy as more organizations broaden the leadership roles of top-performers and connectors in order to execute today’s business strategy in a fragile economy and build a more sustainable future.

However, building for tomorrow’s future often keeps many leaders and organizations committing significant amounts of time looking for the “blockbuster ideas” when they might silently be waiting on the sidelines.  Organizations can begin reaping larger rewards and experience healthier bottom lines by actually “sweating the small stuff”. Small ideas often have more significant advantages over time than the next big ideas.

“A penny saved is a penny earned” reminds us that saving consistently over time can chart a course toward financial freedom,  Similarly, small ideas and incremental improvements can likewise add up to a healthy rise in people capital, satisfied customers and revenue stream.  They help leaders advance a workplace culture of shared contribution, respect and trust and when these small changes are applied consistently over time, it becomes a competitive edge, a discipline that is hard for the competition to copy.

Create Spark. 21^st Century Leaders who focus on tapping into the power of the company’s people portfolio and learn to cultivate ideas that exist outside of normal brainstorming sessions can spark motivation and improve productivity.  Small ideas often arise in the form of conversation not always behind closed-door meetings. The stronger that trust exists in the relationship and deeper the dialogue, often produces some pure gems.   Therefore, consider the following questions to ignite the team’s thoughts and invite others within the organization for feedback:

If there was “1” thing we could do to:

• drive up profits, what would it be?
• manage customer relationships, how would it look differently than it does now?
• create easy-to-understand reports in real time?
• collectively capture all the small ideas and recognize their contributors, what might that look like?
• share different employee health-care options more clearly, what people & tools might we need to accomplish that?

When 21^st Century Leaders keep asking the right questions, employees will be able to trust that there’s real listening taking place and that their involvement in the company is meaningful. As this practice of “sweating the small stuff” takes hold, it’s only a matter of time that small ideas will eventually spark bigger returns.