Tag: incrementalism

An Ode to Incrementalism

As I made my way through the cavern, I felt something hit my left shoulder.

It was cold, wet, and gray. And it was now sitting on my favorite shirt.

With an exasperated sigh, I moved to rid myself of the moisture. But as I did, my father cautioned me.

Don’t be so quick to wipe it away. That’s history in the making.

Indeed, the cavern we were traversing was formed by actions like this. The slow drip by drip of water eating away at a limestone core — over millions of years.

This all happened out of sight and out of mind. That is, until an intrepid explorer discovered the cavern this process had created.

That nearly finished product was what we were now witnessing. Its promise had lured us off the highway and compelled us to pay an exorbitant entrance fee. Its grandiosity was the selling point.

The methodical path the cavern took to this moment was hardly worth noting.

But perhaps it should have been.

On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs stepped onto the stage at the MacWorld Conference in San Francisco.

The Apple co-founder quickly rattled through some of the company’s greatest innovations – the Macintosh and the iPod. Then, roughly two minutes later, he introduced the iPhone.

Some have called this moment transformative. They’ve framed it as a moment where the world as we knew it ceased, and better future entered the fray. A future driven by a breakthrough piece of technology.

There is some truth undergirding these claims. Smartphones have changed the ways we work, shop, socialize, and interact. And the iPhone will always be considered the original smartphone.

But make no mistake. Its launch was no moonshot. It was a master class in incrementalism.

Long before Jobs took the stage, iPhone components were in our hands. Plenty of people had cell phones. Many had portable music players as well. And Internet on the go wasn’t exactly scarce — assuming you had a laptop computer.

Some devices — like the Palm Pilot and the Blackberry — had already brought a couple of these features together. No one had offered the full enchilada, but the groundwork was certainly there.

The iPhone, then, was a next step in the cycle. A sleek, fancy next step. But a next step, nonetheless.

Jobs’ own presentation made mention of this. He first told the audience that Apple would be unveiling three products – a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, and an Internet browser. Then, he mentioned that those three products would actually be one product.

This is how the iPhone made its debut. As incrementalism defined.

We’ve come a long way since the launch of the iPhone.

Technology has evolved. Apple has grown. Steve Jobs has left us.

And yet, we continue to delude ourselves.

We remain fascinated by the mirage of sudden breakthroughs. And we willfully ignore the incremental work that makes them happen.

The instant gratification, the quick fix, the answered prayer — they’re all big parts our lexicon. The gradual build-up is not.

This baffles me.

It’s no secret that the world around is evolving, just as our bodies and our minds are evolving. Why are we so tempted to hit Pause and Fast Forward on that process? Why can’t we let the process play out as it is?

Are we lazy? Fearful of boredom? Overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all?

I don’t know. But it’s time we say goodbye to this nonsense. It’s time to give incrementalism its due.

On the second day of my professional life, I strutted into the newsroom at a West Texas television station.

Day 1 had been a whirlwind, filled with onboarding and training. But now, it was Go Time.

Hopped up on adrenaline, I was ready to spend hours putting together the 5 PM newscast.

But it was a summer Friday in a small town. Action was light, and the newscast was fully assembled within 40 minutes. There’d be plenty of time to kill before 5 PM rolled around.

My co-workers started talking about their weekend plans. As the new guy in town, I had none. So, I started daydreaming about my future.

I thought about where I’d be in a month and in a year. I imagined that one day between now and then, everything would just click. The hard times would be over, and the fear buried beneath my bravado would evaporate.

It’s been close to 15 years since that moment. And none of what I imagined has come to pass.

I’ve made a ton of progress — both professionally and personally. I’ve established myself in a different career and put myself on a footing to live comfortably. I’ve made new friends, mastered new hobbies, and gained new competencies.

But none of this happened overnight. There was no breakthrough moment when everything just fell into place.

There was just a long, slow march.

Incrementalism has been the drumbeat of my life. And I’m better for it.

For it has allowed me to build, to grow, to iterate. It’s kept my gains from being unsustainable. It’s kept my mistakes from being catastrophic.

Accepting this subtlety has been critical. It’s helped me commit to better without obsessing over the goalposts. It’s allowed me to embrace the journey even more than the destination.

The future is uncertain, and anxiety is inherent in uncertainty. But incrementalism has gotten me here. And I’m confident it will help drive me forward.

Eight years ago this week, I did something bold.

I established the publication now known as Ember Trace. And I published my first article.

This was as close to a breakthrough moment as I’ve had in my life. Ember Trace seemingly appeared on the Internet out of thin air. (In reality, I took some steps behind the scenes to make it happen.)

And that first article — that first time shipping my words to the world — that was indeed a cathartic moment for me.

But every week since then, I’ve made a commitment. A commitment to share fresh words, fresh ideas, and fresh thoughts. Whether my week has been good or bad, slow or busy, I’ve taken the time to add a fresh article — for 418 weeks now.

This exercise in incrementalism has built Ember Trace into a bona fide publication. And it’s built me up as well.

There’s no question that the words shared here are crisper, deeper, and more polished than they were eight years ago. I have grown as a thinker and a writer. You, my dear audience, have grown as readers as well.

What a testament to the power of incrementalism this is. Week by week, we’ve built this structure together. It’s stronger and more profound that it’s ever been. And it only stands to get even stronger over time.

I am grateful for your support, for your time, and for your subtle embrace of the incremental. Let’s see what more we can build together, brick by brick.

Retooling the Engine

I ain’t going back.

It’s a refrain uttered all too often.

We’re trained to keep our eyes forward, to focus solely on progress. Returning is a waste of time and effort.

Time only moves in one direction. And so do we, as we grow and age.

It seems pointless to fight that inertia. It seems futile to head back to a place our momentum is carrying us away from.

Yet, in some cases, it could be exactly what’s needed.

At first, there was despair.

As a deadly virus rampaged across continents and the world shut down, we were filled with dread. We feared the virus and its ghastly effects. But we also seemed leery of the interruptions to life as we knew it.

What was work going to look like without an office to go to? What would school look like without the classrooms? What would social interactions be like when we were reduced to squares on a computer screen?

It was all so abrupt. So new, strange, and unwelcome.

But as we settled into our newly remote world, something strange happened. Many of us started to like it.

Our pause was morphing into a full reset. And now, our predicament had turned on its head.

Instead of yearning for the recently departed past, many of us sought to kill it with fire. Many used the pandemic pause to reinvent themselves and to cast off old patterns.

This manifested itself in all kinds of ways.

People quit their jobs in favor of more flexible roles or entrepreneurship. The hospitality industry reeled as more people enjoyed dinner and a movie within the comfort of their own homes. High fashion found itself supplanted by loungewear. And a surge in online shopping tested the limits of both the supply chain and the monetary system.

These changes have been dizzying. And yet, many of us have been more invigorated than nauseated by them.

For these shifts optimize our lives. They remove the inconvenience and unpleasantness, leaving us with a more satisfying existence.

In short, they represent a pipe dream. But with that smoke comes mirrors.

In those early days of the COVID pandemic, my experience wasn’t all that different from everyone else’s.

Namely, I spent most of my time at home.

I handled tasks for my job from a laptop computer on my dining room table. I prepared meals in my kitchen. I read, wrote, and occasionally watched television.

I only left my home for exercise — as I went for an outdoor run or walk each day. Even then, I kept to myself.

After about a month, I’d gotten used to the remote lifestyle. But as others were leaning into it, I was seeking its expiration date.

You see, by most measures, home confinement had suited me well. I was healthy. I was safe. I was still drawing a paycheck.

But home confinement hadn’t suited me. This was not the way I wanted to live in perpetuity.

I had rather enjoyed much of what I’d given up. I liked socializing with friends. I liked going to sports arenas and movie theaters. I even liked my daily commute to the office.

Plus, I knew there was a cost to my bubbled existence. While I sheltered in safety, others risked their wellbeing to provide me that luxury. Trash collectors, grocery store clerks, and utility technicians kept showing up to work in person to support my stay-at-home tendencies. And many of my favorite hospitality venues were on the brink of collapse, suffocating from a lack of the cash flow customers like me normally provided.

I was worn down by the sacrifices I had made in the name of public health. And I was appalled by the inequities such decisions exacerbated in my own community.

And so, I changed things up.

I decided to return to old patterns but in a new way. I decided to retool the engine.

I returned to working in the office. But I stayed a safe distance away from the few co-workers who joined me there.

I started ordering from restaurants again, making a habit of getting dinner elsewhere on Tuesdays. But I mostly relied on takeout and curbside pickup.

And I began to socialize with friends again. But I was far more intentional about the activities I’d take part in with them.

These might seem like small adaptations. Yet, they made a world of difference for me.

Embracing the familiar lifted a weight off my shoulders. Doing so in a new way reduced the risk that the familiar still posed.

Yes, in the darkness of those days, I seem to have stumbled upon something significant. I’d found a torch to carry forward.

These days, things are quite different.

The virus is still here, but there are tools to fight it. More of the familiar is emerging from the woodwork. And I’m back to gathering in large groups, attending live events, and traveling domestically.

Even so, I continue to retool the engine. I remain vigilant about which group activities or live events I attend. And I’m far more efficient when it comes to traveling.

Yes, I’ve gone through a reset of sorts. But instead of rewriting my story entirely, I’m iterating on the chapters that have already been written. I’m taking the best of my pre-pandemic existence and leaving the rest.

I believe this approach is sustainable, scalable, and resilient. It allows room for growth without incurring undue turbulence. And it doesn’t require us to pick sides.

We live in a polarized society.

The fault lines that divide us are too numerous to count. But many involve the subject of change.

At any inflection point, there are those who lean wholeheartedly into change and those who resist it tooth and nail. The ground between them cracks and splinters. And soon a chasm emerges.

Our pandemic-induced reset follows this pattern. Yes, many reinvented themselves during this time, swearing off old behaviors and activities. But others demanded the unequivocal return of those same behaviors and activities. The chasm between the two groups grew and tension built.

This outcome could have been avoided if we had sought the middle ground.

If more of us had committed to retooling the engine, perhaps the future of work wouldn’t be such a hot-button issue. Perhaps the hospitality industry wouldn’t be hanging by a thread. Perhaps travel would be more convenient.

Our choices, our impulses — they’ve made this mess. But there’s still time to clean things up.

We can still improve the patterns we once espoused — rather than making them as take it or leave it propositions. We can still commit to incremental improvements, instead of just disruptive change.

Such choices might not grab a ton of attention. But they could benefit us all.

Let’s at least take the time to consider them.